Joseph Harris (British astronomer)
Encyclopedia
Joseph Harris was a British
blacksmith
, astronomer
, navigator
, economist
, natural philosopher
, government adviser and King's Assay Master
at the Royal Mint
.
"Of Joseph Harris, the eldest, who married one of the daughters, and heiress, of Thomas Jones, of Tredustan, little has been recorded beyond the information derived from his monument in the church. His talents were highly respectable, and in deed pre-eminent. But though he wrote several astronomical treatises, which are highly thought of, and was esteemed by the learned and great of his day, no biographer has written his life: no anecdotes of him have been preserved; nor have his virtues or talents been recorded farther than as they appear in his works, which in general are anonymous. Indeed, that modesty, which is so amiable in him, seems to have descended to his posterity where he was born, for after all the enquiries I have made with respect of him, instead of learning any other particulars of his life, I have received only general encomiums and empty praise. I am much hurt that this self-taught philosopher, who was an honour to this county of Brecon, should pass almost unnoticed. The blame lies not with me, for it seems to have been destined, that his record should be only in heaven." Theophilus Jones A History of the County of Brecknock (1805)
eldest son of this extraordinary family. He was baptized on 16th February 1704 in the ancient church of Saint Gwendolen, Talgarth
, on the slopes of the Black Mountains
in the then Welsh county of Brecknockshire
(now subsumed into the county of Powys
), though his memorial plaque in the same church suggests that he was born up to two years earlier. He was the firstborn of Howell Howell, a joiner
who arrived in about 1700 from Llangadog
, Carmarthenshire
, and Susanna Powell, a local woman with relatives in the village, and they lived in a small cluster of houses called Trefeca, (but then written Trevecka which sounds the same) about a mile south of Talgarth in the valley of the Breconshire River Llynfi
, a tributary of the River Wye
. The spirit of the age was to anglicise, especially in this area close to the border with England, and some time before the birth of Joseph the family name changed to Harris; nonetheless, all family members were bilingual in Welsh and English. Four more children were born in the next few years, of whom Thomas (baptized June 1707) and Howell (baptized February 1714) survived beyond infancy to old age.
For Joseph's life in Talgarth before he moved to London the authority is the occasionally unreliable work of Theophilus Jones's History, which found little to say, as the quotation above shows. But we do know that he had been apprenticed to his mother’s brother as a blacksmith
, and that he met and fell in love with Anne Jones, from an eminent local family, whom he courted for at least 12 years and then married soon after he was appointed to the Royal Mint
in 1736. From the fact that, despite the differences in their social position, Anne’s father, Thomas Jones II, High Sheriff of Brecknock, recommended that she treat Joseph’s attentions with respect, we may guess that his brilliance was well-known locally
In the last weeks of 1724 Joseph moved to London with introductions from Brecknock MP Roger Jones
. Within a few days of Joseph's arrival in London he met the Governor of New England
at Roger Jones's home, and Edmond Halley
was showing him 'a quadrant
worth at least £300', so it may not be far from the truth to guess that the introductions included one to the then Astronomer Royal
. This letter is the first in a collection of more than 3300 documents made by Joseph's youngest brother, Howell, now available in digest form in Boyd Stanley Schlenther and Eryn Mant White's Calendar of the Trevecka Letters (2003). The manuscripts themselves now lie in the Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru/National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.
. The South Sea Company traded there in slaves and goods under the Asiento agreement; the trade agreement allowed the Company to send one ship of a limited size each year to sell goods in the fairs of Vera Cruz and Portobello
, but the Company was stretching the agreement to send TWO ships, both loaded to the gunwhales with goods. One ship would remain offshore while the other would sell its own cargo at the Fair, return to sea to be restocked by the first and again return to land to sell that second cargo. In 1725 the two ships were the Prince Frederick, under Captain Williams, and the Spotswood, under Captain Bradly; Joseph writes of going aboard a ship with £300,000 of goods and 250 men, but it isn’t yet clear which of the two ships he was in. The South Sea Company had no difficulty in selling its goods, which were much in demand for their quality; but the Spanish government, faced with policing vast territories with inadequate forces, was not so keen and, in protest, seized the Prince Frederick , detaining her in the Gulf for several years while a complex international dispute played out. During his time in Vera Cruz Joseph observed and described a partial eclipse of the sun and was unable, because of overcast skies, to observe a predicted eclipse of the moon. He established the latitude of Vera Cruz as 19º 12'N and its longitude as 97º 30'W to within 1º of its actual position (but the site of Vera Cruz has been changed more than once in its existence because of disease generated by surrounding swamps and forest); this was done decades before the development of Harrison's chronometer which facilitated the establishment of longitude by providing accurate timekeeping. These observations, sponsored by Halley, are recorded as “Astronomical Observation Made at Vera Cruz” in the Transactions of the Royal Society, but the astronomical dates in the Transaction need to be corrected for the calendar shift in September 1752. By our calendar now the eclipse of the Sun viewed in Vera Cruz occurred on 22nd March 1727.
Just after the publication of the Treatise of Navigation another work appeared over Joseph's name: Description and Use of the Globes and the Orrery
. An instruction manual, it proved very popular and ran into many editions over the rest of the century. Oddly though, it is never mentioned by Joseph or his family in their correspondence, all references to 'my book' being apparently to the Treatise; and in the eighth edition in 1757 the name of Joseph Harris appears over a description of him as 'Teacher of the Mathematics' despite his having by this time been King's Assay Master for eight years and in the Royal Mint for twenty-one. Sadly for Joseph's fame, the book was in the Bibliotheca Britannica wrongly ascribed to an earlier writer, John Harris F.R.S., a mistake which is only now being corrected.
Late in 1730 he sailed westward again, this time to Jamaica
. He went as an employee of Colin Campbell, to carry out an experiment devised by George Graham and to supervise a cargo of astronomical instruments destined to establish an observatory there. The instruments were eventually bequeathed to Glasgow University by the later purchaser, Alexander Macfarlane, and returned to Scotland between 1757 and 1760, where they formed the basis of the University's Macfarlane Observatory. Colin Campbell wrote that Joseph Harris was taken ill in Jamaica and returned home early as a result; but although Joseph suffered an initial bout of what he (and later in another context Mungo Park
) called 'sever seasoning' (perhaps malaria), and said was unavoidable for all newcomers, he afterwards wrote an extensive letter home describing the island and claiming full health; indeed he stayed until April 1732, longer than he had anticipated before he left London. On his way home during the summer of 1732 he made two observations which were subsequently published in the Transactions of the Royal Society, this time sponsored by George Graham: "An Account of Some Mathematical Observations Made in the Months of May, June and July 1732; as also the Description of a Water-Spout".
Back in London in early July he looked again for work. At the beginning of September 1732 Joseph travelled to Cranbury in Hampshire
to stay for a month at the home of John Conduitt MP. Conduitt had succeeded Sir Isaac Newton as Master of the Royal Mint and was married to Newton's half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt; Newton lived there for his last years until his death in 1727. Joseph's eventual appointment in January 1736 to a junior position at the Royal Mint may well have owed something to this visit.
In 1733 Joseph hoped to get an appointment to a Portsmouth mathematical school, but commented sadly that other candidates were 'backed by great interests'; so in August of the same year he started to work at Gossfield Hall, Essex, for the family of Ann Knight, née Craggs, and John Knight MP; he was almost certainly tutoring James Newsome, her son by an earlier marriage, perhaps in navigation for a career in the Navy. There he certainly came to know well Walter Harte, and a year or so later was thanked by him, for help with what Harte called his 'Pamphlet', by date likely to have been Harte's Essay on Reason. The Essay was written after the sudden and unexpected death of John Knight in October 1733 and contained an elegy to him. Ann Knight subsequently appointed Walter Harte Rector of Gossfield's St. Catherine's church. Shortly after this, Joseph used his friendship with Walter Harte in an apparently unsuccessful attempt to get his youngest brother Howell into Saint Mary Hall, Oxford, now part of Oriel College
. In the event the only record of Howell's presence at Saint Mary Hall is the single day of his matriculation, 25th November 1735, and there is no sign that he ever slept or ate there, although his registration fees continued to be paid until 1738.
, had been living together, but now wrote that Joseph was to move into the Mint on Lady Day (March 25th).
Joseph occupied a house at the Royal Mint in the Tower of London
until his death in 1764, though he did have a second home in the country in the Grove Street area of Hackney
. Howell mentions it in diary entries from June 1746 to September 1749, and there are Poor Rate levies on Joseph there to 1752. From early 1760 he spent a lot of time at a country house he rented in Lewisham, called Place House.
Despite his position at the Mint, Joseph retained his interest in navigation, and in the Transactions of the Royal Society 1739-41 41 an article by him was published, entitled "An Account of an Improvement on the Terrestrial Globe". As an indication, perhaps, of the increasing respect the oyal Society] accorded him, he was entitled 'Gentleman' and needed no intermediary.
In 1745 two English privateer
s captured two of three French ships returning from the Gulf of Mexico
with treasure from Lima
. The haul, valued by some as £800,000 (approximately £120,000,000 nowadays), was taken to the Mint to be melted down and the coins stamped with the word LIMA. In Joseph's letters home at this time he talks of working under enormous pressure all hours around the clock.
In 1749 Joseph was promoted to the senior position of the King's Assay Master, with a specific requirement that he set up a training structure to ensure an orderly succession for the future. Such structure as there was involved two parallel hierarchies: the senior branch was the King's Assayers, and the junior branch the Master's Assayers, each originally keeping an eye, one assumes, on the work of the other. Joseph arranged that, starting at the lowest position in the ranks of the Master's assayers, the next promotion would be to the same position in the King's assayers, then back to the Master's assayers until eventual arrival at the top as the King's Assay Master. This orderly system laid a stable foundation for decades to come for the increasing influence and importance of the Mint.
On 2nd April 1757 Joseph wrote, after a period of serious illness, to his brother that 'His Majesty hath been graciously pleased to grant me for life an additional allowance of £300 a year and I am to have a deputy to assist me in the office. I expect my Patent next week.'
's The Wealth of Nations.
Increasingly seen as a safe pair of hands, in 1758 he produced a Report of the Parliament
ary Committee appointed to enquire into the original Standards of Weights and Measures. This remained a pre-occupation for the rest of his life, and on April 6th 1763, Jérôme Lalande
(then Professor of Astronomy at the Collège Royale and eventually director of the Paris Observatory
), on a journey round London and the home counties and having persuaded friends to arrange a meeting with Joseph at the Tower of London, wrote that "he promised me a standard weight as soon as there was one from the workbench".
across the Sun, and to make them from the village of his birth, Trefeca, where his brother Howell was building up a 'Teulu' or 'Family', a religious workers' commune. Sending down equipment ahead of his own arrival, Joseph used his telescope first to create a meridian line in the 'Teulu' building (now the Methodist Coleg Trefeca). This denoted the exact time of midday there (an adjunct of longitude), and became for a while the arbiter of time for the area as neighbours dropped in to set their watches at midday. Having created the meridian line, he observed the departure of Venus across the sun's edge (Venus being already part of the way across the face of the sun at sunrise at Trefeca). This work was written up and towards the end of November 1761 he arranged to send the account to Lord Macclesfield, then President of the Royal Society. It maybe wasn't sent to, or was mislaid by, Lord Macclesfield, and the first publication of Joseph's "Account of the Transit of Venus over the Sun 6th June 1761" was in January 2010, when a transcript of it and other contemporary letters and diary entries appeared in the journal Brycheiniog . Coleg Trefeca still displays a Newtonian telescope which Joseph is said to have made himself, and to have used for the observations. The meridian line was never of interest to Howell, (who characterised Joseph's learning as merely 'head knowledge') and, forgotten, it was later destroyed in new building works.
His surviving daughter Anna Maria remained in the Tower of London house for some time after his death, and was probably responsible for arranging the sale of her father's library on 11th February 1765. It was either she or her uncle, Thomas Harris (disapproving father-in-law of actress and writer Mary Robinson) who placed the elegant memorial plaque to Joseph in Saint Gwendolen's church, Talgarth.
Eventually she moved back to Brecon and, with the money from her parents and a large, unexpected inheritance from her uncle Thomas, Joseph's younger brother, started a wealthy and respected line of descendants in Brecknockshire.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
blacksmith
Blacksmith
A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...
, astronomer
Astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...
, navigator
Navigator
A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation. The navigator's primary responsibility is to be aware of ship or aircraft position at all times. Responsibilities include planning the journey, advising the Captain or aircraft Commander of estimated timing to...
, economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
, natural philosopher
Natural philosophy
Natural philosophy or the philosophy of nature , is a term applied to the study of nature and the physical universe that was dominant before the development of modern science...
, government adviser and King's Assay Master
Assayer
An assayer is a person who tests ores and minerals and analyzes them to determine their composition and value. They may use spectrographic analysis, chemical solutions, and chemical or laboratory equipment, such as furnaces, beakers, graduates, pipettes, and crucibles.An assayer separates metals...
at the Royal Mint
Royal Mint
The Royal Mint is the body permitted to manufacture, or mint, coins in the United Kingdom. The Mint originated over 1,100 years ago, but since 2009 it operates as Royal Mint Ltd, a company which has an exclusive contract with HM Treasury to supply all coinage for the UK...
.
"Of Joseph Harris, the eldest, who married one of the daughters, and heiress, of Thomas Jones, of Tredustan, little has been recorded beyond the information derived from his monument in the church. His talents were highly respectable, and in deed pre-eminent. But though he wrote several astronomical treatises, which are highly thought of, and was esteemed by the learned and great of his day, no biographer has written his life: no anecdotes of him have been preserved; nor have his virtues or talents been recorded farther than as they appear in his works, which in general are anonymous. Indeed, that modesty, which is so amiable in him, seems to have descended to his posterity where he was born, for after all the enquiries I have made with respect of him, instead of learning any other particulars of his life, I have received only general encomiums and empty praise. I am much hurt that this self-taught philosopher, who was an honour to this county of Brecon, should pass almost unnoticed. The blame lies not with me, for it seems to have been destined, that his record should be only in heaven." Theophilus Jones A History of the County of Brecknock (1805)
Early life
As far as biographies of Joseph Harris are concerned, things remained much the same now as they had been in 1805. The Harris family history of three brothers, all highly successful in entirely unrelated avocations, has until now concentrated on the youngest of the three, Howell Harris, known as the Apostle of Wales. But now, three hundred years after his birth, attention may be paid to Joseph, the polymathPolymath
A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. In less formal terms, a polymath may simply be someone who is very knowledgeable...
eldest son of this extraordinary family. He was baptized on 16th February 1704 in the ancient church of Saint Gwendolen, Talgarth
Talgarth
Talgarth is a small market town and community in southern Powys , Mid Wales, with a population of 1,645. Notable buildings in the town include its 14th-century parish church and 13th century Pele Tower, located in the town centre, now home to the Tourist Information and Resource Centre...
, on the slopes of the Black Mountains
Black Mountains, Wales
The Black Mountains are a group of hills spread across parts of Powys and Monmouthshire in southeast Wales, and extending across the national border into Herefordshire, England. They are the easternmost of the four ranges of hills that comprise the Brecon Beacons National Park, and are frequently...
in the then Welsh county of Brecknockshire
Brecknockshire
Brecknockshire , also known as the County of Brecknock, Breconshire, or the County of Brecon is one of thirteen historic counties of Wales, and a former administrative county.-Geography:...
(now subsumed into the county of Powys
Powys
Powys is a local-government county and preserved county in Wales.-Geography:Powys covers the historic counties of Montgomeryshire and Radnorshire, most of Brecknockshire , and a small part of Denbighshire — an area of 5,179 km², making it the largest county in Wales by land area.It is...
), though his memorial plaque in the same church suggests that he was born up to two years earlier. He was the firstborn of Howell Howell, a joiner
Joiner
A joiner differs from a carpenter in that joiners cut and fit joints in wood that do not use nails. Joiners usually work in a workshop since the formation of various joints generally requires non-portable machinery. A carpenter normally works on site...
who arrived in about 1700 from Llangadog
Llangadog
Llangadog is a community located in Carmarthenshire, Wales, which includes the villages of Llangadog, Bethlehem and Capel Gwynfe. A notable local landscape feature is Y Garn Goch with two Iron Age hill forts....
, Carmarthenshire
Carmarthenshire
Carmarthenshire is a unitary authority in the south west of Wales and one of thirteen historic counties. It is the 3rd largest in Wales. Its three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford...
, and Susanna Powell, a local woman with relatives in the village, and they lived in a small cluster of houses called Trefeca, (but then written Trevecka which sounds the same) about a mile south of Talgarth in the valley of the Breconshire River Llynfi
Afon Llynfi (Wye)
The Afon Llynfi is a short river in the county of Powys, south Wales. A tributary of the River Wye, it runs approximately south to north just to the west of the Black Mountains and partly within the Brecon Beacons National Park. The river rises as a small stream to the west of the village of Bwlch...
, a tributary of the River Wye
River Wye
The River Wye is the fifth-longest river in the UK and for parts of its length forms part of the border between England and Wales. It is important for nature conservation and recreation.-Description:...
. The spirit of the age was to anglicise, especially in this area close to the border with England, and some time before the birth of Joseph the family name changed to Harris; nonetheless, all family members were bilingual in Welsh and English. Four more children were born in the next few years, of whom Thomas (baptized June 1707) and Howell (baptized February 1714) survived beyond infancy to old age.
For Joseph's life in Talgarth before he moved to London the authority is the occasionally unreliable work of Theophilus Jones's History, which found little to say, as the quotation above shows. But we do know that he had been apprenticed to his mother’s brother as a blacksmith
Blacksmith
A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...
, and that he met and fell in love with Anne Jones, from an eminent local family, whom he courted for at least 12 years and then married soon after he was appointed to the Royal Mint
Royal Mint
The Royal Mint is the body permitted to manufacture, or mint, coins in the United Kingdom. The Mint originated over 1,100 years ago, but since 2009 it operates as Royal Mint Ltd, a company which has an exclusive contract with HM Treasury to supply all coinage for the UK...
in 1736. From the fact that, despite the differences in their social position, Anne’s father, Thomas Jones II, High Sheriff of Brecknock, recommended that she treat Joseph’s attentions with respect, we may guess that his brilliance was well-known locally
In the last weeks of 1724 Joseph moved to London with introductions from Brecknock MP Roger Jones
Roger Jones, British MP
Roger Jones was the member of parliament for the Welsh borough of Brecon between 1713 and 1722....
. Within a few days of Joseph's arrival in London he met the Governor of New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
at Roger Jones's home, and Edmond Halley
Edmond Halley
Edmond Halley FRS was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist who is best known for computing the orbit of the eponymous Halley's Comet. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, following in the footsteps of John Flamsteed.-Biography and career:Halley...
was showing him 'a quadrant
Quadrant (astronomy)
Quadrant is a rectangular divisions on the celestial sphere that is used for finding constellations. The celestial sphere is divided into northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere with each hemisphere divided into four six-hour arcs. It is symbolized by using the capital letter N or S, followed...
worth at least £300', so it may not be far from the truth to guess that the introductions included one to the then Astronomer Royal
Astronomer Royal
Astronomer Royal is a senior post in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. There are two officers, the senior being the Astronomer Royal dating from 22 June 1675; the second is the Astronomer Royal for Scotland dating from 1834....
. This letter is the first in a collection of more than 3300 documents made by Joseph's youngest brother, Howell, now available in digest form in Boyd Stanley Schlenther and Eryn Mant White's Calendar of the Trevecka Letters (2003). The manuscripts themselves now lie in the Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru/National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth.
South Sea Company Expedition
Six months after his arrival in London, in late summer 1725, Joseph boarded a ship for the Gulf of MexicoGulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
. The South Sea Company traded there in slaves and goods under the Asiento agreement; the trade agreement allowed the Company to send one ship of a limited size each year to sell goods in the fairs of Vera Cruz and Portobello
Portobello
-Places:England* Portobello, West Midlands* Portobello Road, London* Portobellow, an estate in Wakefield, West YorkshireIreland* Portobello, Dublin, IrelandNew Zealand* Portobello, New ZealandPanama* Portobelo, PanamaScotland* Portobello, Edinburgh...
, but the Company was stretching the agreement to send TWO ships, both loaded to the gunwhales with goods. One ship would remain offshore while the other would sell its own cargo at the Fair, return to sea to be restocked by the first and again return to land to sell that second cargo. In 1725 the two ships were the Prince Frederick, under Captain Williams, and the Spotswood, under Captain Bradly; Joseph writes of going aboard a ship with £300,000 of goods and 250 men, but it isn’t yet clear which of the two ships he was in. The South Sea Company had no difficulty in selling its goods, which were much in demand for their quality; but the Spanish government, faced with policing vast territories with inadequate forces, was not so keen and, in protest, seized the Prince Frederick , detaining her in the Gulf for several years while a complex international dispute played out. During his time in Vera Cruz Joseph observed and described a partial eclipse of the sun and was unable, because of overcast skies, to observe a predicted eclipse of the moon. He established the latitude of Vera Cruz as 19º 12'N and its longitude as 97º 30'W to within 1º of its actual position (but the site of Vera Cruz has been changed more than once in its existence because of disease generated by surrounding swamps and forest); this was done decades before the development of Harrison's chronometer which facilitated the establishment of longitude by providing accurate timekeeping. These observations, sponsored by Halley, are recorded as “Astronomical Observation Made at Vera Cruz” in the Transactions of the Royal Society, but the astronomical dates in the Transaction need to be corrected for the calendar shift in September 1752. By our calendar now the eclipse of the Sun viewed in Vera Cruz occurred on 22nd March 1727.
Treatise of Navigation
By April 11th 1728 Joseph had returned to London, some years ahead of the Prince Frederick, and several of his subsequent letters speak of its continued detention, the death of Captain Williams in Vera Cruz and the political events around the negotiations. Joseph's months at sea (three in each direction for Vera Cruz) had not been wasted and early in 1730 he published at his own expense a Treatise of Navigation, full of advice to improve techniques of seamanship and offering two new models of nautical instrument; he deposited for copyright several copies of the treatise at the Stationers' Hall in the middle of February 1730. The price was 12 shillings (60p.), and its subscribers are many, varied and of much interest still; they include five Fellows of the Royal Society (Halley among them), the Earl of Godolphin, Alexander Pope, Ann Knight (daughter of James Craggs, Postmaster General in the Government, who in March 1721 had taken a lethal overdose of laudanum the night before he was due to be questioned by a Parliamentary Inquiry into the South Sea Bubble) as well as many other Brecknock and London luminaries.Just after the publication of the Treatise of Navigation another work appeared over Joseph's name: Description and Use of the Globes and the Orrery
Orrery
An orrery is a mechanical device that illustrates the relative positions and motions of the planets and moons in the Solar System in a heliocentric model. Though the Greeks had working planetaria, the first orrery that was a planetarium of the modern era was produced in 1704, and one was presented...
. An instruction manual, it proved very popular and ran into many editions over the rest of the century. Oddly though, it is never mentioned by Joseph or his family in their correspondence, all references to 'my book' being apparently to the Treatise; and in the eighth edition in 1757 the name of Joseph Harris appears over a description of him as 'Teacher of the Mathematics' despite his having by this time been King's Assay Master for eight years and in the Royal Mint for twenty-one. Sadly for Joseph's fame, the book was in the Bibliotheca Britannica wrongly ascribed to an earlier writer, John Harris F.R.S., a mistake which is only now being corrected.
Late in 1730 he sailed westward again, this time to Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
. He went as an employee of Colin Campbell, to carry out an experiment devised by George Graham and to supervise a cargo of astronomical instruments destined to establish an observatory there. The instruments were eventually bequeathed to Glasgow University by the later purchaser, Alexander Macfarlane, and returned to Scotland between 1757 and 1760, where they formed the basis of the University's Macfarlane Observatory. Colin Campbell wrote that Joseph Harris was taken ill in Jamaica and returned home early as a result; but although Joseph suffered an initial bout of what he (and later in another context Mungo Park
Mungo Park
Mungo Park may refer to:* Mungo Park * Mungo Park * Mungo Park * Mungo Park Medal, an award* John Mungo Park, WW2 fighter pilot* Mungo National Park...
) called 'sever seasoning' (perhaps malaria), and said was unavoidable for all newcomers, he afterwards wrote an extensive letter home describing the island and claiming full health; indeed he stayed until April 1732, longer than he had anticipated before he left London. On his way home during the summer of 1732 he made two observations which were subsequently published in the Transactions of the Royal Society, this time sponsored by George Graham: "An Account of Some Mathematical Observations Made in the Months of May, June and July 1732; as also the Description of a Water-Spout".
Back in London in early July he looked again for work. At the beginning of September 1732 Joseph travelled to Cranbury in Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
to stay for a month at the home of John Conduitt MP. Conduitt had succeeded Sir Isaac Newton as Master of the Royal Mint and was married to Newton's half-niece, Catherine Barton Conduitt; Newton lived there for his last years until his death in 1727. Joseph's eventual appointment in January 1736 to a junior position at the Royal Mint may well have owed something to this visit.
In 1733 Joseph hoped to get an appointment to a Portsmouth mathematical school, but commented sadly that other candidates were 'backed by great interests'; so in August of the same year he started to work at Gossfield Hall, Essex, for the family of Ann Knight, née Craggs, and John Knight MP; he was almost certainly tutoring James Newsome, her son by an earlier marriage, perhaps in navigation for a career in the Navy. There he certainly came to know well Walter Harte, and a year or so later was thanked by him, for help with what Harte called his 'Pamphlet', by date likely to have been Harte's Essay on Reason. The Essay was written after the sudden and unexpected death of John Knight in October 1733 and contained an elegy to him. Ann Knight subsequently appointed Walter Harte Rector of Gossfield's St. Catherine's church. Shortly after this, Joseph used his friendship with Walter Harte in an apparently unsuccessful attempt to get his youngest brother Howell into Saint Mary Hall, Oxford, now part of Oriel College
Oriel College
Oriel College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford...
. In the event the only record of Howell's presence at Saint Mary Hall is the single day of his matriculation, 25th November 1735, and there is no sign that he ever slept or ate there, although his registration fees continued to be paid until 1738.
Marriage
Throughout his years in London, Joseph loved Anne Jones (who moved with her family from Trefeca to nearby Tredustan just across the Llynfi river), but he doubted that it was reciprocated. But about 1730, just before he left for Jamaica, he began to suspect, perhaps from his mother Susanna, that maybe all was not lost, and early in 1733 wrote a passionate letter to Howell about how his despairing love for her had made it impossible for him to settle down. A correspondence started, and when Joseph wasn't in Wales, Howell was the intermediary; we know from Joseph's letters that he enclosed missives and books for her in his letters home, but we don't know how often she replied. Howell kept almost every piece of paper that came to the Trefeca house, but no comparable collection by Joseph of letters he received has come down to us. At that time a woman's reputation had to be protected at all costs as her future marriageability depended on it; Joseph was aware of this and secured Anne from gossip. He wanted to marry her, but knew that he could not until he was financially secure; shortly after Joseph took up his appointment at the Mint, Anne Jones and he were married on 31st October 1736 at Saint Benet's Church, Paul's Wharf near Saint Paul's Cathedral. There is no mention of the ceremony in any correspondence! They had no fewer than five children, of whom only one, Anna Maria, survived.Appointment to the Royal Mint
By early 1736 Joseph knew that he had been appointed to the Royal Mint, as assistant to Hopton Haynes, Master's Assay Master. He and his younger brother Thomas, a tailorTailor
A tailor is a person who makes, repairs, or alters clothing professionally, especially suits and men's clothing.Although the term dates to the thirteenth century, tailor took on its modern sense in the late eighteenth century, and now refers to makers of men's and women's suits, coats, trousers,...
, had been living together, but now wrote that Joseph was to move into the Mint on Lady Day (March 25th).
Joseph occupied a house at the Royal Mint in the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
until his death in 1764, though he did have a second home in the country in the Grove Street area of Hackney
Hackney
-Places:* London Borough of Hackney, formed in 1965** Metropolitan Borough of Hackney, formed in 1900 and abolished in 1965** Hackney Central** Hackney Central , a political division of the Council** Hackney Central railway station** Hackney College...
. Howell mentions it in diary entries from June 1746 to September 1749, and there are Poor Rate levies on Joseph there to 1752. From early 1760 he spent a lot of time at a country house he rented in Lewisham, called Place House.
Despite his position at the Mint, Joseph retained his interest in navigation, and in the Transactions of the Royal Society 1739-41 41 an article by him was published, entitled "An Account of an Improvement on the Terrestrial Globe". As an indication, perhaps, of the increasing respect the oyal Society] accorded him, he was entitled 'Gentleman' and needed no intermediary.
In 1745 two English privateer
Privateer
A privateer is a private person or ship authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers...
s captured two of three French ships returning from the Gulf of Mexico
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico is a partially landlocked ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent and the island of Cuba. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. In...
with treasure from Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
. The haul, valued by some as £800,000 (approximately £120,000,000 nowadays), was taken to the Mint to be melted down and the coins stamped with the word LIMA. In Joseph's letters home at this time he talks of working under enormous pressure all hours around the clock.
In 1749 Joseph was promoted to the senior position of the King's Assay Master, with a specific requirement that he set up a training structure to ensure an orderly succession for the future. Such structure as there was involved two parallel hierarchies: the senior branch was the King's Assayers, and the junior branch the Master's Assayers, each originally keeping an eye, one assumes, on the work of the other. Joseph arranged that, starting at the lowest position in the ranks of the Master's assayers, the next promotion would be to the same position in the King's assayers, then back to the Master's assayers until eventual arrival at the top as the King's Assay Master. This orderly system laid a stable foundation for decades to come for the increasing influence and importance of the Mint.
Founding of Brecknockshire Agricultural Society
“At a Ploughing Match near Trevecka in 1754, Howell Harris and some other people from the locality discussed the formation of a Brecknockshire Agricultural Society. There was at that time a County Club for Gentlemen in existence at Brecon and in March 1755 this became the Brecknockshire Agricultural Society. Howell Harris was not one of the original members of the Society. Howell and his brother Joseph Harris, were made Honorary Members in 1756 'in recognition of the offer of soldiers and contribution to their funds'” John Davies “Howell Harris and the Trevecka Settlement'.. It is likely that a January 1756 'Report of the Agricultural Society to prepare a scheme to develop a market in the county for woollen yarns' was written for them by Joseph. This agricultural society was the second established in the country .On 2nd April 1757 Joseph wrote, after a period of serious illness, to his brother that 'His Majesty hath been graciously pleased to grant me for life an additional allowance of £300 a year and I am to have a deputy to assist me in the office. I expect my Patent next week.'
Concern with weights and measures
It may be that Joseph's thoughts about the metal content of coin were tempered by the experience of the large influxes of precious metal in 1745, the increasing evidence of the destruction of the Spanish economy by the addition of large quantities of gold from the New World, the destruction of the French economy by Scotsman John Law and, again in Britain, the increasing use of copper in small value coins and trade tokens, but in 1757 and 1758 he published a two part Essay Upon Money and Coins, in which he emphasized the importance of using only precious metals, and anticipated in some measure Adam SmithAdam Smith
Adam Smith was a Scottish social philosopher and a pioneer of political economy. One of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, Smith is the author of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...
's The Wealth of Nations.
Increasingly seen as a safe pair of hands, in 1758 he produced a Report of the Parliament
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
ary Committee appointed to enquire into the original Standards of Weights and Measures. This remained a pre-occupation for the rest of his life, and on April 6th 1763, Jérôme Lalande
Jérôme Lalande
Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande was a French astronomer and writer.-Biography:Lalande was born at Bourg-en-Bresse...
(then Professor of Astronomy at the Collège Royale and eventually director of the Paris Observatory
Paris Observatory
The Paris Observatory is the foremost astronomical observatory of France, and one of the largest astronomical centres in the world...
), on a journey round London and the home counties and having persuaded friends to arrange a meeting with Joseph at the Tower of London, wrote that "he promised me a standard weight as soon as there was one from the workbench".
Observation of Transit of Venus
In 1760, after yet another long bout of ill health, he decided to make his own observations of the 6th June 1761 Transit of VenusTransit of Venus
A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and Earth, becoming visible against the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a small black disk moving across the face of the Sun...
across the Sun, and to make them from the village of his birth, Trefeca, where his brother Howell was building up a 'Teulu' or 'Family', a religious workers' commune. Sending down equipment ahead of his own arrival, Joseph used his telescope first to create a meridian line in the 'Teulu' building (now the Methodist Coleg Trefeca). This denoted the exact time of midday there (an adjunct of longitude), and became for a while the arbiter of time for the area as neighbours dropped in to set their watches at midday. Having created the meridian line, he observed the departure of Venus across the sun's edge (Venus being already part of the way across the face of the sun at sunrise at Trefeca). This work was written up and towards the end of November 1761 he arranged to send the account to Lord Macclesfield, then President of the Royal Society. It maybe wasn't sent to, or was mislaid by, Lord Macclesfield, and the first publication of Joseph's "Account of the Transit of Venus over the Sun 6th June 1761" was in January 2010, when a transcript of it and other contemporary letters and diary entries appeared in the journal Brycheiniog . Coleg Trefeca still displays a Newtonian telescope which Joseph is said to have made himself, and to have used for the observations. The meridian line was never of interest to Howell, (who characterised Joseph's learning as merely 'head knowledge') and, forgotten, it was later destroyed in new building works.
Death
In Spring 1763 (the exact date is not yet known) Joseph's wife Anne died unexpectedly. Joseph was bereft but, as always, patiently resigned to what he saw as God's will; just over a year later, on September 26th 1764, he too died unexpectedly after a short illness. In his Tower of London home he left behind a number of experiments set up to establish the nature of light and of optics. Eleven years later friends published a volume based on as many of the experiments as they could. The volume, published over his name in 1775, was A Treatise of Optics, but unfortunately the compilers declared themselves to have been unable to reconstruct more than a small proportion of them.His surviving daughter Anna Maria remained in the Tower of London house for some time after his death, and was probably responsible for arranging the sale of her father's library on 11th February 1765. It was either she or her uncle, Thomas Harris (disapproving father-in-law of actress and writer Mary Robinson) who placed the elegant memorial plaque to Joseph in Saint Gwendolen's church, Talgarth.
Eventually she moved back to Brecon and, with the money from her parents and a large, unexpected inheritance from her uncle Thomas, Joseph's younger brother, started a wealthy and respected line of descendants in Brecknockshire.