This beautiful clock, believe it or not, was made by the speaker at our Better Barrow talk last week. Andrew King is the world authority on John and James Harrison, the clock-making brothers who came from Barrow-upon-Humber. Not only that, he is a clock-maker himself and this is just one of the replica timepieces he has constructed. Andrew also turned out to know more about our village than a lot of us who have lived here for a long time! The Village Hall was packed for a talk both erudite and entertaining. John Harrison, of course, is the man who found a solution to the problem of ascertaining longitude when at sea, made famous beyond Barrow and maritime enthusiasts by Dava Sobel’s book and the Michael Gambon / Jeremy Irons film, both called ‘Longitude’. You may not know that John Harrison is also the inventor of the bimetallic strip, a clever little device that is crucial to any number of household and industrial items, including your toaster and electric kettle!
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