Clockmaker John Harrison vindicated 250 years after ‘absurd’ claims

The pendulum clock of Longitude hero John Harrison is tested and declared a masterpiece

One of Guinness World Records' more unusual awards was presented at the National Maritime Museum yesterday. After a 100-day trial, the timepiece known as Clock B - which had been sealed in a clear plastic box to prevent tampering - was officially declared, by Guinness, to be the world's "most accurate mechanical clock with a pendulum swinging in free air".

It was an intriguing enough award. But what is really astonishing is that the clock was designed more than 250 years ago by a man who was derided at the time for "an incoherence and absurdity that was little short of the symptoms of insanity", and whose plans for the clock lay ignored for two centuries.

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