Now and again at this time of year I plan a day out in London. There are many places in London I have intended to visit but for whatever reason have only ticked them off slowly!
Today I have been to Greenwich to visit the National National Maritime Museum and the adjacent Royal Observatory. Both are located in/around the beautiful Greenwich Park. Today the park looks much different to the last time I was here - to accompany my son James to the start of his London Marathon. On that Sunday morning there were thousands in the park - on this day just a few - it is cold and frosty.
The National Maritime Museum is free entry - but it is best to book a ticket online. The museum is in an impressive building. What was I expecting - lots of significant boats! Basically I was wrong - I hadn't used much common sense or done much prior research. I wasn't visiting the National Boat Museum - but the Maritime museum. The National Maritime Museum basically tells our story - our history - our relationship with the seas - with the great oceans of the world. There are some boats of course but mainly the many displays/installations are made up of artefacts, written accounts, models, paintings and photographs - as I say not what I was expecting but I was not left disappointed. The Museum sets out to show the epic stories of exploration and endeavour that have shaped the world today. The museum is set out in rooms - The Atlantic Room - The Pacific Room - The Trade Routes room - the polar room - Nelson's room etc
My plan was to spend about 3 hours in the museum but to be honest you could easily spend that time just in one room. You can get audio commentaries but there is a huge amount to read if you are inclined. Each artefact in itself has a a story to tell so to gloss over them in double quick time is not really appropriate - although that is what I ended up doing.
One thing I did do was a "treasures" guided tour with an audio commentary. I enjoyed it very much.
I am sat here now thinking what I might refer to? Here are 2 or 3 things that registered and made me smile - and for a short time at least prompted me to think it would be interesting to know more about that - ha!
- From the Trading room. A really good account of the history of the East India Company and when Britain ran half the world ! Our merchants wanted to trade with China - particularly for tea - which was highly prized and very profitable. But the Chinese authorities only wanted to be paid in silver as they were not impressed with the goods we could offer. They had lots of rules too. The British solution - take opium grown in India and sell it to the Chinese people at vast profits enabling them to pay for the tea. Of course the Chinese authorities hated opium because of the destructive affect it had on Chinese people. I had heard of the Opium Wars before but to be honest didn't really know who was fighting who. Yes it was the Chinese trying to stop the British opium trading. Incredibly (in today's terms) the British won both wars.
- One from the Elizabethan Room. When Elizabeth Ist came to the throne Britain was near bankrupt. She was quick to understand there was money to be made "trading" with the world - something the Spanish and Portuguese were already doing very successfully. She commissioned Francis Drake to carry out an expedition. (He was the first man to circumnavigate the globe in one voyage.) Drake was accused by the Spanish of being a pirate. He came back with his ship laden to the extent he rewarded the Queen with plunder valued at £300K - enough for her to pay off the national debt. Drake was knighted - became a hero and of course he defeated the Spanish Armada. Spain called Drake a pirate and of course it is true he robbed their galleons. But where did the Spanish get their loot. They were robbing and plundering South America. The Spanish wiped out the Incas. The Incas had no horses or guns - were no match for the invaders and of course the European diseases they brought with them. I have spent some time in South America. It is amazing the impact the Spanish and Portuguese have had. Most of the South American countries are now Catholic - and their first language is either Spanish or Portuguese.
- There are exhibits relating to Scott's attempt to beat Amundsen to be the first man to the South Pole. It is a well known story. (I am smiling now thinking about our house names at our junior school. Scott, Hillary, Fuchs and Shackleton. Brilliant inter house competitions on sports days.). One thing that caught my eye - Scott's overshoe on his ill fated Antarctic expedition. No Gortex for them. Incredible resilience.
- The grand finale on the "treasures" tour - the jacket Nelson was wearing when he was killed. Two bits of trivia. Nelson lost his arm in a battle off Tenerife. He came home to heal but was desperate to get back to sea. The wound would not heal. After months a piece of cloth (bandage) emerged from the wound and his arm healed. He returned to sea to win the Battle of the Nile and then Trafalgar of course where he was shot and killed. (a Musket shot through a lung and damaged his spine.) Nelson was married but his uniform with the bullet hole was left to his lover Lady Hamilton. Apparently she was a big spender and sold Nelson's uniform on. Eventually it was bought by Prince Albert for £150 and he donated it to the nation!
The Longitude Act 1714 was an Act of Parliament of Great Britain passed in July 1714 at the end of the reign of Queen Anne. It established the Board of Longitude and offered monetary rewards (Longitude rewards) for anyone who could find a simple and practical method for the precise determination of a ship's longitude. The Act of 1714 was followed by a series of other Longitude Acts that revised or replaced the original.
As transoceanic travel grew in significance, so did the importance of accurate and reliable navigation at sea. Scientists and navigators had been working on the problem of measuring longitude for a long time. While determining latitude was relatively easy, early ocean navigators had to rely on dead reckoning to find longitude. This was particularly inaccurate on long voyages without sight of land and could sometimes lead to tragedy, as during the Scilly naval disaster of 1707 which claimed the lives of nearly 2,000 sailors. This brought the problem of measuring longitude at sea into sharp focus once more. Following the Merchants and Seamen Petition, which called for finding an adequate solution and was presented to Westminster Palace in May 1714, the Longitude Act was passed in July 1714.
I commend a very good read called The True Story Of Longitude written by Dava Sobel. Back to the exhibition. The problem of actually determining your longitude while on a moving boat at sea attracted two possible approaches/solutions. One was by calculating using the sun and the stars - what was to become astral navigation. The other required accurate measurement of time - very challenging on a boat moving around so much and in varying temperatures (which caused expansion and contraction of metal) leading to wild inaccuracy in timepieces.
The man that made most progress towards a practical solution was the incredible John Harrison (a carpenter by trade). He spent a lifetime responding to the challenge of the Longitude Act and built 4 incredible clocks in pursuit of the prize.
The RO have his 4 clocks on display H1 H2 and H3 and H4 his watch that solved the problem. As an aside do your remember the final episode of Only Fools and Horses - Del and Rodney become multi millionaires. They had an old watch left in the lock up for years - eventually identified as the lost Harrison watch - sold for £6.2m!
and while I am here a truly great bit of television - tears in the eyes - such a great choice of music - and the wonderful Michael!
(8) Best of Only Fools and Horses-The Trotters Become Millionaires - YouTube
A fun note to end on - a memorable day at Greenwich. xxxx
A few mob photos :
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| Over the Greenwich Meridian - left foot east right foot west. |
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| The Royal Maritime Museum |
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| Turner's Battle of Trafalgar |
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| Miss Britain 111 - the first British boat to do 100mph and on The Solent. |
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| a royal barge used when the Thames was teeming with boats because there was only one bridge. |
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| Scott's over shoes - not much to walk to the South Pole in. |
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| Sir Francis Drake |
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| Nelson's uniform with the musket hole in the left shoulder. He was not a big man. |
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| Greenwich Park from RO - Queen's House, NMM - the Millennium Dome to the East and Canary Wharf over the Thames. |
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| The Royal Observatory and the famous ball that drops at 1PM each day |
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| Some very clever people have spent time in the Octagonal Room |
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| Harrison's H1 |
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| The watch that cracked it H4 |
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| The Cutty Sark - the famous tea clipper. Cutting edge in its time. |
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