Editing Longitude rewards (section)

==Notable recipients==
The Longitude Act offered a very large incentive for solutions to the longitude problem. Some later recipients of rewards, such as Euler and Mayer, made clear publicly that the money was not the incentive, but instead the important improvements to navigation and cartography. Other recipients, such as Kendall and Harrison had to appeal to the Board of Longitude and other governmental officials for adequate compensation for their work. Still others submitted radical and impractical theories, some of which can be seen in a collection at Harvard’s [[Houghton Library]].<ref name=Gingerich>{{cite journal|last1=Gingerich|first1=Owen|title=Cranks and opportunists: "Nutty" solutions to the longitude problem|journal=The Quest for Longitude: The Proceedings of the Longitude Symposium|date=1996|pages=134–148|bibcode=1996long.symp..134G }}</ref> Schemes and ideas for improvements to instruments and astronomy, both practical and impractical, can be seen among the digitised archives of the Board of Longitude.<ref name="Papers of the Board of Longitude">{{cite web|title=Papers of the Board of Longitude|url=http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/rgo14|website=Cambridge Digital Library|access-date=30 April 2015}}</ref>

Though the Board of Longitude did not award £20,000 at one time, they did offer sums to various individuals in recognition of their work for improvements in instrumentation or in published atlases and star charts.

===List of awardees by amount===
* [[John Harrison]] &ndash; £23,065 awarded overall after [[#John_Harrison's_contested_reward|many years of contention with the Board]] ending in 1773.
* [[Thomas Mudge (horologist)|Thomas Mudge]] &ndash; £500 advance in 1777 for developing his [[marine chronometer|marine timekeeper]] and a £3,000 award approved by a special committee in 1793 in recognition for his accomplishments.<ref name=Betts>{{cite journal|last1=Betts|first1=Jonathan|title=Arnold and Earnshaw: The Practicable Solution|journal=The Quest for Longitude: The Proceedings of the Longitude Symposium|date=1996|pages=311–330}}</ref>
* [[Tobias Mayer]] &ndash; £3,000 awarded to his widow for [[Lunar distance (navigation)|lunar distance tables]], which were published in The National Almanac in 1766 and used by [[James Cook]] in his voyages.<ref name=Bruyns>{{cite journal|last1=Bruyns|first1=W.F.J. Morzer|title=Navigation|journal=The Quest for Longitude: The Proceedings of the Longitudinal Symposium|date=1996}}</ref>
* [[Thomas Earnshaw]] &ndash; £3,000 awarded for years of design and improvements made to chronometers.<ref name=Sobel_2>{{cite book|last1=Sobel|first1=Dava|title=Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time|date=1995|publisher=Walker and Company|location=New York}}</ref>
* [[Charles Mason]] &ndash; £1,317 awarded for various contributions and improvements on Mayer’s lunar tables.<ref name=Sobel_2/>
* [[Larcum Kendall]] &ndash; £800 total for his copy of and improvements and simplifications of Harrison’s [[marine chronometers|sea watch]] (£500 for K1 – Kendall’s copy of Harrison’s H4, £200 for modified K2, and £100 for last modification model K3).<ref name=Betts/>
* [[Jesse Ramsden]] &ndash; £615 awarded for his engine-divided [[sextant]] with the requirement that he share his methods and the design with other instrument makers.<ref name=Stimson/>
* [[John Arnold (watchmaker)|John Arnold]] &ndash; £300 awarded in increments to improve his timekeeping design and experiments, though the accuracy required for the prize was never met.<ref name=Betts/>
* [[Leonhard Euler]] &ndash; £300 awarded for contributions to the lunar distance method in aid of Mayer.
* Nathaniel Davies &ndash; £300 awarded for the design of a lunar telescope for Mayer.<ref name=Sobel_2/>

A full list of prizes made by the Commissioners and Board of Longitude was drawn up by Derek Howse, in an Appendix to his article on the finances of the Board of Longitude.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Howse|first1=Derek|title=Britain's Board of Longitude: The Finances, 1714–1828|url=http://blogs.rmg.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2013/03/howse.pdf|publisher=Mariner's Mirror (1998)|access-date=30 April 2015}}</ref>

====Other submissions====
Only two women are known to have submitted proposals to the Longitude Commissioners, [[Elizabeth Johnson (pamphleteer)|Elizabeth Johnson]] and [[Jane Squire]]. Incoming submissions can be found among the correspondence of the digitised papers of the Board of Longitude.<ref name="Papers of the Board of Longitude"/>