The collection offer new insights into the 'unofficial' views and deliberations held by Board of Longitude members, and reveal, for example, that the Board was considering disbanding in the mid 1760s. They include personal notes made by Barrington at Board meetings, and a rare unbound pamphlet, 'A Narrative of the Proceedings­' (1765), which makes Harrison's case for the Longitude reward, following the trials of his fourth timekeeper, H4. A selection of the documents is on display at the Royal Observatory, alongside the four famous timepieces made by John Harrison between 1730 and 1759. Further information about Harrison and his timekeepers can be found on the National Maritime Museum's website, and digitised copies of items within the collection are available in the <a href="http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-BGN-00000/1">Board of Longitude Digital Archive</a>.

Administrative / biographical background
William Wildman Barrington-Shute, the 2nd Viscount Barrington of Ardglass, was an MP for Berwick (1740-1754) and Plymouth (1754-1778), and sat in the House of Lords from 8 October 1745. He was a Lord of the Admiralty from 1746-1754, and twice served as Secretary of War, firstly from 1755 to 1761 and then from July 1765 to December 1778. From March 1761 to June 1762, he acted as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was Treasurer to the Navy from 1762 to 1765. He finally retired from public life in 1782. Barrington was also a member of the Board of Longitude, established by Queen Anne in 1714 by Act of Parliament, which sat in judgement on the work of John Harrison, and others claiming to have found methods for accurately determining longitude at sea.