03 Dec 2010
Topically, Simon highlights the important issue of government funding for science: "Essentially the Board represents the germs of our national science policy. The materials and correspondence it left behind is a window on to the cosmologyof an entire class of people, and also on to the beginnings of Government-sponsored science in Britain". The project should both help us recover detailed information about the lives of the many different kinds of people who came in contact with the Board - from Admirals, to astronomers, to artisans - and lead us to discuss very relevant issues of how the state and the scientific community interact.
In the video Richard talks about the most iconic Longitude-related items in the NMM's collection, John Harrison's sea clocks, but makes it clear that we have much more to say - and much more yet to find out - about the Board. Let's remember that Dava Sobel'sbestselling Longitude is a (partial) account of a very small part of the whole story. The NMM, which includes the Royal Observatory, Greenwich (itself founded to solve the Longitude problem), has many other objects in its collection and aspects to its history which relate to that broader story. We have yet to do these full justice.
In the video, Richard and Simon also explain why it made perfect sense for the NMM and Cambridge to come together on this project. We (at the NMM) have the object collections and an intrinsic interest in the navigational story, they (at Cambridge) hold the archives of the Board and of the Observatory. Also, we like to think, the collaboration has brought together a great group of individuals, who you can read more about on the Project Team tab.