# K1 Marine Chronometer > Larcum Kendall - 1766-1769 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/larcum-kendall/larcum-kendall-k1-chronometer/ > Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-21 ## Tombstone - **Artist:** Larcum Kendall - **Date:** 1766-1769 - **Medium:** Brass fusee movement with verge escapement and diamond pallets, in a silver pair case, with a white enamel dial - **Dimensions:** 165 x 124 x 28 mm overall (case); 102 mm dial diameter; weight approximately 1.45 kg - **Object type:** Clocks and instruments - **Period:** English, eighteenth century - **Current location:** National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (Royal Museums Greenwich) - **Attribution:** accepted ## Summary K1 is not Harrison's watch. It is Larcum Kendall's exact paid copy of it, commissioned in 1766 by the Board of Longitude to settle a question the Board itself had raised: could anyone but Harrison build a timekeeper this accurate. Kendall's answer went to sea with Captain Cook on two Pacific voyages, sailed with the First Fleet to found the British colony at Sydney Cove, survived the wreck of its own ship on a reef at Norfolk Island, crossed the Pacific and the Atlantic to get home, then went back to sea for four more years of war service that ended at the Battle of Cape St Vincent.K1 is routinely confused with two other objects: Harrison's own H4, which it copies and resembles by design, and Kendall's own second chronometer K2, which is the Kendall watch actually carried aboard HMS Bounty and taken to Pitcairn Island after the 1789 mutiny. This record covers K1 alone, and states plainly, at the point where the confusion usually happens, which object did which thing.All three Kendall chronometers, and Harrison's H1 to H4, are held today by the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. None has ever been sold; K1 was Crown and state property from the day it was handed to the Board of Longitude in January 1770, and it still is. ## Provenance Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it. - **1765-1766** The Board of Longitude `[documented]` (selection and commission) Kendall was one of six experts selected by the Board of Longitude in 1765 to examine and witness the operation of John Harrison's H4. He was subsequently commissioned to build a duplicate of it, so that the Board could establish whether H4's performance depended on Harrison alone or could be repeated by another maker. - **1766-1770-01-13** The Board of Longitude `[documented]` (manufacture and delivery) Kendall built K1 as an exact reproduction of H4 over roughly three years, engraving it 'Larcum Kendall LONDON 1769'. It was presented to the Board of Longitude on 13 January 1770. He was paid 450 pounds for the copy plus a further 50 pounds for fine adjustment and for servicing Harrison's original H4 at the same time. K1 was state property from this point on; it has never been privately owned or sold. - **1772-1775** Board of Longitude, in the custody of Captain James Cook `[documented]` (sea trial) Issued to Cook for his second voyage of discovery aboard HMS Resolution. Astronomer William Wales used it operationally to fix longitude. Three chronometers by John Arnold carried on the same voyage all failed; K1 did not, and Cook's published praise for it settled the Navy's view of Kendall's copy. - **1776-1780** Board of Longitude, in the custody of Captain James Cook `[documented]` (sea trial) Issued again to Cook for his third voyage aboard HMS Resolution. In June 1779, off Kamchatka, its balance spring broke and the watch stopped; it was later returned to Kendall for repair. Cook was killed at Kealakekua Bay in February 1779, during this same voyage, before the repair. - **1787-05-1788-01-18** Board of Longitude, in the custody of the First Fleet `[documented]` (voyage of colonisation) Embarked on HMS Sirius, flagship of the First Fleet under Captain John Hunter, which sailed from Portsmouth on 13 May 1787 under the overall command of Governor Arthur Phillip to found a British penal colony in New South Wales. The fleet took possession of the land at Sydney Cove on 26 January 1788, on country belonging to the Gadigal clan of the Eora nation, beginning a colonisation that brought violent conflict and, within fifteen months, a smallpox epidemic that killed an estimated 50 to 90 percent of the local Aboriginal population. - **1788** William Dawes, on land at Sydney Cove `[documented]` (astronomical use) Used for some months on land by Lieutenant William Dawes, who built an observatory on the western point of Sydney Cove, subsequently known as Dawes Point and originally named Point Maskelyne after the Astronomer Royal, who had supplied Dawes with instruments and instructions. The observatory's stated purpose was to help fix the colony's longitude. - **1788-1790-03-19** Board of Longitude, in the custody of HMS Sirius `[documented]` (resupply voyage and shipwreck) Rejoined HMS Sirius for a resupply voyage to Cape Town. On 19 March 1790 the ship was wrecked on a reef while landing stores at Norfolk Island. All crew reached shore safely and most of the stores, including K1, were salvaged from the wreck. - **1790-03-1792-04** Board of Longitude, in transit `[documented]` (return to England) Transferred to the armed tender HMS Supply, which carried it to Batavia and then home around Cape Horn, reaching Plymouth in April 1792, more than two years after the Sirius wreck. - **1793-1797-02-14** Board of Longitude, in the custody of Admiral Sir John Jervis `[documented]` (naval war service) Went back to sea with Admiral Sir John Jervis, serving in the West Indies and then the Mediterranean. Aboard HMS Victory at the Battle of Cape St Vincent, 14 February 1797. - **1797-1802** Board of Longitude, in naval service `[unknown]` (gap) The interval between the Battle of Cape St Vincent and K1's retirement from sea service in 1802 is not detailed in the sources consulted; a continuous naval posting is implied but not itemised. - **1802-1937** Board of Longitude, then the Royal Observatory, Greenwich `[documented]` (retirement from sea service) Retired from active service and returned to Greenwich in 1802. It remained state property in the custody first of the Board of Longitude, which was abolished in 1828, and subsequently of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. The precise date on which it entered what is now the National Maritime Museum's own collection, as distinct from the Observatory's, is not established in the sources consulted. - **1937-present** National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (Royal Museums Greenwich) `[documented]` (current holding) Held in the Timekeeping collection, inventory ZAA0038, credited to the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Not currently on display. Its silver case was rhodium plated during a conservation intervention in the 1940s; the museum records the movement as in fine, original, working condition. ## Open questions - What did the Board of Longitude's 1766 instructions to Kendall actually specify about how closely he had to reproduce H4, as against being free to modify it? The outcome, a very close copy, is documented; the contractual wording is not, in the sources consulted. - When and by what administrative process did K1 pass from Royal Observatory custody into the National Maritime Museum's own collection after the museum opened in 1937? The 1802 retirement to Greenwich is documented; the transfer into the modern museum's holdings is not dated in the sources consulted. - Who carried out the 1940s rhodium plating of K1's silver case, and does a conservation record survive beyond the museum's brief summary? - What happened to K1 between the Battle of Cape St Vincent in February 1797 and its retirement from sea service in 1802? No detailed service record for these five years was found. - Which specific readings taken by William Dawes at his Sydney Cove observatory in 1788 used K1, as distinct from Dawes's other instruments? He had several; the sources consulted describe K1's presence but not which observations are attributable to it specifically. - Is there a surviving log or repair record from Kendall's own 1780 repair of the balance spring that broke off Kamchatka in June 1779, and does it establish whether any original 1769 parts were replaced at that time? ## Sources - [1] Royal Museums Greenwich, collections object record, 'K1'. - [2] Royal Museums Greenwich, collections object record, 'K2'. - [3] Royal Museums Greenwich, collections object record, 'K3'. - [4] Wikipedia, 'K1 chronometer'. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with the Board of Longitude archive (Cambridge Digital Library, RGO14) and Jonathan Betts's published catalogue of the Greenwich chronometer collection. - [5] Wikipedia, 'Larcum Kendall'. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with Jonathan Betts's entry on Kendall in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. - [6] Quill & Pad, 'Larcum Kendall And K1: The Greatest Watchmaker And Watch You Have (Probably) Never Heard Of'. Trade horological press, flagged for replacement with a peer-reviewed source for the Cook quotations and the Gilbert quotation. - [7] Gnomon Chronicles, 'K1: My Time at Sea'. Tertiary compiled timeline, flagged for replacement with primary Board of Longitude and Admiralty records. - [8] National Museum of Australia, 'The First Fleet arrives at Sydney Cove', Australia's Defining Moments Digital Classroom. - [9] Aboriginal Heritage Office, 'A Brief Aboriginal History'. - [10] NSW Migration Heritage Centre, '1790 HMS Sirius Anchor and Cannon', Australia's Migration History Timeline. - [11] Wikipedia, 'HMS Sirius (1786)'. Tertiary source, flagged for replacement with a naval history of the First Fleet. - [12] eoas.info (Encyclopedia of Australian Science), 'William Dawes' Observatory, Sydney Cove (1788 - c. 1791)'. - [13] Wikimedia Commons, file description page, 'File:Larcum Kendall chronometer K1.jpg'. - [14] Wikimedia Commons, file description page, 'File:Kendall Chronometer K1 1769.jpg'. - [15] Wikimedia Commons, file description page, 'File:K1 Chronometer at the Greenwich Observatory.jpg'. - [16] Wikimedia Commons, file description page, 'File:LarcumKendallPlaque.jpg'. - [17] Wikimedia Commons, file description page, 'File:H4 timekeeper.jpg'. - [18] Wikimedia Commons, file description page, 'File:Anchor of HMS Sirius.jpg'. --- Images on this record are public domain or CC0 and are hosted by us. No image on this site is generated or simulated. If you quote this record, quote the provenance grades with it.