Dunhill Longitude Collection

Why is Longitude important?

If the world revolves once every 24 hours, and there are 360 degrees to each rotation, then the world turns one degree of longitude every four minutes. If you know your longitude, you know your position in the world.

Longitude from Alfred Dunhill is a broad collection of products celebrating Alfred Dunhill's commanding position in the world of watches, jewellery and accessories.

Designed for the Millennium, every limited edition piece in the Longitude collection embodies the Alfred Dunhill philosophy – being innovative, contemporary and of the very highest quality.

The edition of 1300 pieces, which includes a watch, a fountain pen, a table lighter with clock and globe cufflinks, will ensure that each item will become a valuable collector's treasure.

0° Longitude

Time globally is measured against that at 0° of Longitude – the line of the Greenwich Royal Observatory. Built in 1675 on the orders of Charles II by Christopher Wren (designer of St Paul's Cathedral in London), Greenwich was used to compile quite literally astronomical amounts of data about the movement of the heavens. In fact, the head of the Royal Observatory, John Flamsteed, spent 15 years from 1689 to 1704 compiling tables of the moon for the lunar distance method of finding the longitude.

The Longitude Collection

Once John Harrison had conquered the problem of telling time accurately at sea, ships at anchor in Greenwich used a very special means of setting their marine chronometers. On top of the Royal Observatory, a mast was built on which was placed a moveable red ball – the time ball. Each day, at 12:55, the time ball rose half way up its mast. At 12:58 it rose all the way to the top. At 13:00 exactly, the ball fell, and so provided a signal to those on the river, and those on land. This red ball continues to rise and fall to this very day.

This red ball is the signature that appears on every piece within the Longitude collection. A reminder of the ball that falls each day at 13:00, and a reminder that one is the owner of an edition limited to just 1300 pieces.

Longitude Millennium Watch

This beautifully crafted example of contemporary timekeeping has been created to keep time with an accuracy which even John Harrison would have admired. The automatic Swiss movement can clearly be seen through the sapphire crystal glass front and rear of this exquisite timepiece. Requiring only the gentle roll of a schooner to keep it wound, the hour is marked by the passage of the red time ball across the hours of the face.

Roman numerals and moving red ball to indicate hour (hands indicate minutes and seconds)

Contemporary brushed steel case with polished steel bezel

Limited edition of 1300 pieces

Sapphire crystal glass and sapphire crystal back enabling movement to be seen

Brushed steel bracelet with deployant buckle

Ruby cabochon on crown to reflect the red ball theme

Silver dial with Roman numerals

Date function

Swiss quartz movement

Engraved with Alfred Dunhill Millennium on rotor, limited edition number on back

Water-resistant to 5 ATM

Longitude AD2000 Fountain Pen

Longitude is all about time. Measured in seconds, in minutes and in hours by the Longitude watch, the Longitude AD2000 fountain pen allows you to measure it in days and weeks.

At the waist of this superb pen is a beautifully functional perpetual calendar – inspired by a similar pen from the Alfred Dunhill archive – which acts as a perpetual reminder of the day and date. Just as the cabochon ruby on the pen clip brings to mind the limited number of 1300 people who will ever hold this very special pen.

Perpetual calendar inspired by similar design of pen from the Alfred Dunhill archives, c1930

Red ball represented by cabochon ruby on retractable pen clip, marking the date

Palladium nickel plating on top of brass base body

Brushed steel finish (as in top and clip of Alfred Dunhill AD2000 pen)

18ct gold rhodium plated nib

Retractable clip

The calendar functions via a rotating ring, which has numerical days engraved and can be moved into the seven required positions

Days of the week represented by S,M,T,W,T,F,S (English only)

Limited edition number engraved on reverse of cap

Longitude Club Table Lighter with Clock

The Club Table Lighter, featuring the classic Alfred Dunhill bridge, incorporates a beautiful timepiece whose hands and face were inspired by marine navigational instruments.

The red ball featured on the hour hand tells you that this is yet another signature piece from the most desirable collection of the millennium.

Unique Club Table Lighter with clock

Limited edition of 1300 pieces

Rhodium plated

Body has a brushed, lined finish

Base, clock bezel and lighter mechanism have a polished finish

Petrol table lighter

Clock is removable

Swiss Quartz movement

Red ball on the hour hand

Roman numeral at 13:00 in red

Longitude Cufflinks

The stylish cufflinks are as appropriate to the end of a cuff as they are to a ‘fin de siècle’. Each cufflink consists of two rhodium globes linked by a chain. The larger globe has a brushed finish with a rotating centre whilst the other, smaller globe has a polished surface and a fixed centre.

The branded ring around the rotating globe is adorned with a cabochon ruby 'red ball'. The smaller globe is engraved with its limited edition number, these being the first limited edition cufflinks created by Alfred Dunhill.

Brushed steel finish

Limited edition of 1300 pieces

Red ball represented by ruby cabochon

Chain finding on cufflinks

Rotating centre globe

Alfred Dunhill branding

Ideal gift and 'boy's toy'

Engraved limited edition number

Longitude – a measure of the value of time

"I think I may make bold to say, that there is no other mechanical or mathematical thing in the World that is more beautiful or curious in texture than this my watch or time-keeper for the Longitude" John Harrison on H4, 1757

On October 22nd, 1707, four homebound British warships ran aground on the Scilly Isles near the south-western tip of England, and nearly 2,000 men lost their lives. This disaster spurred the British Parliament to pass the Longitude Act of 1714 :

"... for providing a public reward for such person or persons as shall discover the longitude... to a sum of ten thousand pounds, if it determines the said longitude to one degree of a great circle, or sixty geographical miles, to fifteen thousand pounds, if it determines the same to two thirds of the distance, and to twenty thousand pounds, if it determines the same to one half of the same distance..."

This prize of £20,000 ( worth around £8,000,000 in today's currency) spurred some of the brightest minds in eighteenth century Europe to try and solve the Longitude Problem. Finding latitude was relatively easy with some basic instruments, but that just told you how far north or south you were on the planet without any data on your east-west location. For countries dependent on sea power, being able to calculate your longitude on the globe would enable you to draw accurate maps, set shipping timetables or help ships that were lost during a storm recover their position. These were the kinds of things that could build maritime empires or give ships with such a device an incredible commercial edge.

Wrongitude

Many people tried to win the prize. Some had good ideas. Some didn't. One unusual proposal, based on the correct understanding that a knowledge of universal time would allow the longitude to be calculated, is described:-

"[The proposal] involved the use of ... the 'powder of sympathy'. The powder of sympathy was applied not to the wound but to the weapon that inflicted it. Before sailing every ship should be furnished with a wounded dog. A reliable observer on shore, equipped with a standard clock and a bandage from the dog's wound would ... every hour, on the dot, immerse the bandage in a solution of the powder of sympathy which would communicate itself to the dog on shipboard and result in it yelping the hour."

A more serious proposal came from William Whiston and Humphrey Ditton in 1714. They proposed:

"... a number of lightships be anchored in the principal shipping lanes at regular intervals. The lightships would fire at regular intervals a star shell timed to explode at 6440 feet. Sea captains could easily calculate their distance from the nearest lightship merely by timing the interval between the flash and the report."

The Harrison Solution

Men such as Edmund Halley (of Halley's Comet fame), Sir Isaac Newton (the main architect of Classical Mechanics and a co-discoverer of Calculus) and even Galileo had attempted and failed to come up with a solution. It took a clockmaker with tenacity and genius to follow what most considered an absurd line of research to solve this great problem.

Born in 1693, John Harrison taught himself the skills of clock making. His approach to win the Longitude Prize was to construct a very precise clock which was stable against the movements on sea and changing temperatures. If such a chronometer was set to the local time at the zero meridian, it could be taken to the open sea and, by comparing the local time on board to the standard time of the clock, the geographical longitude could be immediately calculated from the time difference.

In 1735, after six years of work, Harrison presented his first sea-going clock to the Royal Society in London. This clock is known today as H1. By 1763, three even more refined chronometers were fabricated by John Harrison (H2-H4). H4 was truly a masterpiece. Not only did it far exceed the exactness required by the Board of Longitude, it was much smaller in size than H1, H2 and H3, just a little larger than a pocket watch.

John Harrison finally claimed half of the prize in 1773, after 40 years of designing, building, and refining a series of sea clocks. His fourth sea clock (named H-4) earned him the prize. It made its sea trial in late 1761 on an Atlantic crossing. During its 81 days at sea, it lost just 5 seconds.

Marine Chronometers – the sea route to the future

Captain John Cook used Harrison's watches to create the first European charts of the South Sea Islands. Cook had one of Harrison's watches on board the H.M.S. Resolution when the Captain was murdered in Hawaii in 1779. Allegedly, Harrison's watch stopped that same day.

It was left to Harrison's younger colleagues to design chronometers cheap enough to be within reach of ordinary navigators. The British East India Company was early in insisting that all their ships carry chronometers. The Royal Navy was somewhat slower in following suit: it was 1840 or later before ships carried chronometers in home waters. Annual chronometer trials took place at Greenwich from 1821, with prizes for the best chronometers submitted.

With the availability of sea clocks in the 1800s, a sailor needed only two instruments to determine his location: a sea clock and a sextant (as well as the tables of different 'heavenly' events, such as sunrises, sunsets, and the highest point of the sun for the different latitudes). This method of determining location carried the world into the twentieth century.