One of the greatest hazards for mariners of past centuries was getting lost at sea. One of the principal reasons for this was the difficulty of finding longitude at sea. Discovering a practical method of determining longitude at sea took several centuries. Governments, scientists, astronomers, cartographers, and others threw themselves at the problem.
The governments of seafaring nations like Britain and France offered generous prizes to encourage research and proposals to solve the puzzle. The British Government's Longitude Act 1714 (photograph, Cambridge University Library ) offered rewards of up to £20,000. The Act also established the Board of Longitude. The board encouraged individuals to submit proposals and devices that would solve or contribute to solving the problem and rewarded those who made successful submissions.
Over three hundred years later, the papers of the Board of Longitude are accessible through Cambridge University's Digital Archive. The vast collection includes, among other things, proposals, board minutes, assessments, and correspondence. The contribution of people with an Irish connection to creativity and innovation in this context and the value of the archive to Irish researchers, remains to be fully determined. A cursory review reveals several Irish submissions and suggests the papers are worthy of consideration from an Irish perspective. The cases of Francis Stanford of Castlebar and James Hughes of Clara, County Offaly, are but two examples.
In May 1813, Francis Stanford announced that he was preparing a memorandum relative to the discovery of longitude for presentation to the Board of Longitude. Stanford, an 80-year-old Franciscan friar, was originally from Ballinastanford near Claremorris. Newspapers reported that from research and investigations Stanford made while he was a professor of philosophy at the University of Prague, and the 'great geographical, astronomical and mathematical knowledge' he had acquired during his long and arduous studies in the quest for the longitude, he was now able to reveal his great discovery.
In a letter dated 18 May 1813, Stanford informed the board that, after a lengthy investigation and with the help of God, he had discovered longitude. He proceeded to set out his theory in some detail. He concluded that he was 'morally sure and certain that this is the longitude which has baffled and failed the learned world to find out since the beginning of time – but now happily and luckily discovered.' Stanford reminded the board that all the 'kings of Europe offered or promised a reward of thousands of pounds to the discoverer.' Stanford sought compensation as the 'real discoverer of longitude' and instructed the board to 'remit it to me at Castlebar, in the County of Mayo, Ireland'.
Stanford was not the only person in Ireland in correspondence with the board. In a letter dated 27 May 1813, James Hughes asked the Admiralty Office why he had not received any response from the board following his submission of a chart of longitude. He expressed concern that he had read an advertisement in the newspapers that Stanford had discovered the 'real longitude' and had received a certificate to that effect. He hoped that details of his submission were not divulged to 'the monk'. Stanford was also not the first from the west of Ireland to engage with the board. Three decades earlier, John Hamilton of Headford, County Galway, offered up his plans for finding longitude in two letters – 1783 and 1785.
Establishing whether Stanford made any meaningful contribution to the longitude debate remains to be determined. Perhaps there is a clue in the fact that his letter is filed in a volume titled: 'Correspondence regarding impracticable schemes for establishing longitude, 1782-1827'.
Extraordinarily little is known about the life of Francis Stanford. He may have retired to Castlebar after a lengthy career in Prague. Notwithstanding the relaxation of the penal laws, as the nineteenth century unfolded, many in Mayo continued to be excluded from education and meaningful endeavour. Against this background and an absence of any factual evidence that those who enforced the penal laws in Mayo made any contribution to creative thinking, it is interesting to find a bright spark burning somewhere in a town that had experienced the worst Empire had to offer just over a decade earlier.
