John Harrison

We know little about John Harrison's life, but we do know that despite a a lack of formal education, he learned to read, and he read everything he could. He was born March 24th, 1693, the oldest of five children. He learned crafts from his father and continued to read all he could. In particular, he studied a textbook on mechanics over and over again. He built his first pendulum clock before he was twenty and that without a job as a watchmaker's apprentice. In fact, no known clockmaker lived anywhere near his town of north Lincolnshire at the time. Harrison married in 1718 and had a son, Jon, the next summer, but Elizabeth and John died within a few years. Harrison's second wife, Elizabeth and he were married in 1726 and were married fifty years. They had two children, a son named William and a daughter Elizabeth. We know...