ABSTRACT
Nevil Maskelyne was appointed fifth Astronomer Royal in 1765 and lived and worked at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich for almost 46 years until his death in January 1811. While Maskelyne was involved in many mathematical and scientific projects through the Royal Society, he is best known for the creation of the annually published Nautical Almanac, a publication which provided a cheap and accessible method of finding longitude at sea, thereby improving the safety of navigation. Maskelyne was instrumental in the controversies surrounding the solution to the Longitude Problem and in making the solution accessible to all seamen. He laid the foundations for Greenwich being designated as the internationally recognised Prime Meridian in 1884 and the baseline for the world’s timekeeping system.
