Principal Investigator
Simon Schaffer (University of Cambridge)
Co-Investigators
Richard Dunn (National Maritime Museum)
As Curator of the History of Navigation at the National Maritime Museum, this project falls squarely within my research interests… Read full outline
Rebekah Higgitt (National Maritime Museum)
One strand of my current research relates to the history of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, an institution which, like the Board of Longitude, was established in order to help find a solution to the problem of finding longitude at sea… Read full outline
Postdoctoral Researchers
Alexi Baker (University of Cambridge)
I am planning to research the earlier history of the ‘Board of Longitude’ and its interactions with the public… Read full outline
Nicky Reeves (University of Cambridge)
I will be investigating the Board’s role between the late 1760s and its dissolution in 1828… Read full outline
Doctoral Students
Katy Barrett (University of Cambridge)
Project: What was the problem with longitude? Science, Satire and Society in Augustan England
Longitude was not just a scientific problem, it was a visual, social and intellectual one… Read full outline
Eoin Phillips (University of Cambridge)
Project: The Politics of Precision: Artisans, the State and the State’s Artisans
My research interests largely lie around the structure and activities of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century artisans and their relationship with the development and integration of a ‘packet’ of new navigational instruments and techniques…. Read full outline
Sophie Waring (University of Cambridge)
Project: Thomas Young, Secretary of the Board of Longitude: British Science and the State in Regency England
The project will attempt to provide a focused expansion of already existing work on the first half of the nineteenth century concerned with science in culture and the metropolis by looking to the papers of the Board of Longitude and the work and correspondence of Thomas Young…. Read full outline
Project Advisory Board
- Jim Bennett (Museum for History of Science, Oxford)
- Jonathan Betts (National Maritime Museum)
- Richard Drayton (King’s College, London)
- John Gascoigne (University of New South Wales)
- John McAleer (National Maritime Museum)
- Anita McConnell (University of Cambridge)
- David Miller (University of New South Wales)
- Alison Morrison-Low (National Museum of Scotland)
- Nigel Rigby (National Maritime Museum)
- Nicholas Rodger (All Souls College, Oxford)
- Martina Schiavon (University of Nancy)
- Larry Stewart (University of Saskatchewan)