An Eighteenth Century Voyage

Extract

A recently discovered ‘Navigational Notebook’ contains an interesting account of day-to-day navigation during the early part of the eighteenth century. The document was brought to light by Mr. J. R. Timms, a student at the School of Navigation of Southampton University, whose father discovered it in a bank at Ventnor, Isle of Wight, its depositor long deceased and no longer known or traceable. The date of the manuscript is uncertain but references to John Robertson's Elements of Navigation and Archibald Patoun's Epitome seem to place it after 1730. However the account of actual navigation is given in the journal of a voyage, in 1704, from the Lizard to Madeira, which is reproduced in the Notebook. It seems likely that the author, John Wilson, eventually came ashore as an instructor in navigation (and probably mathematics) and copied out the journal from one of his earlier voyages for the benefit of his pupils. Whether this is a later work by the John Wilson referred to in E. G. R. Taylor's The Mathematical Practitioners of Tudor and Stuart England is not clear.