Nevil Maskelyne, the Nautical Almanac, and G.M.T

Early in 1967, a few months before the restored Meridian Building of the Old Royal Observatory was opened to the public by Sir Richard Woolley, the Astronomer Royal, I received a visitor in my office then in the Meridian Building — later, I was to move to the west summer house of Flamsteed House. My visitor was Colonel Humphrey Quill, Royal Marines, Master of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers that same year and author of the hookJohn Harrison, the Man who Found Longitude, which has become a standard work. He brought with him some manuscripts written by the subject of this lecture — Nevil Maskelyne, fifth Astronomer Royal, who lived in Flamsteed House for 46 years from 1765, making most of his important astronomical observations in the very building in which Col. Quill and I were sitting.