Jonathan Betts

Jonathan Betts MBE is Curator Emeritus at the Royal Observatory (National Maritime Museum), Greenwich, a horological scholar and author, and an expert on the first marine timekeepers created by John Harrison in the middle of the 18th century. He was formerly Senior Specialist in horology at Greenwich.

From a family of retail watchmakers and jewellers, he took the British Horological Institute finals in technical horology. In 1975 he was awarded the Tremayne National Prize for Practical Watchmaking. For the following five years, he practised as a self-employed horology conservator. In 1980 he was appointed Senior Horology Conservator at the National Maritime Museum, and in 1989 was presented the museum's Callender Award for his contribution to horological conservation. He was appointed Curator of Horology in 1990 and became Senior Specialist in 2001.

He is the biographer of Rupert Gould, the restorer of the Harrison timekeepers. The biography was published in 2006 by Oxford University Press under the title Time Restored: The Harrison Timekeepers and RT Gould, the Man Who Knew (Almost) Everything.

In 2002 he was awarded the Clockmakers' Company's Harrison Gold Medal and the British Horological Institute's Barrett Medal in 2008, and is a Huntington Fellow at the Mariners' Museum, Newport News, Virginia. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, of the British Horological Institute, and of the International Institute of Conservation. He is Vice-Chairman of the Antiquarian Horological Society, and serves as Horological Adviser to the National Trust. He is Curatorial Adviser to the Harris (Belmont) Charity, the Clockmakers' Company and the Wallace Collection. In 2013 he was awarded the Plowden Medal by the Royal Warrant Holder’s Association for his contribution to Horology Conservation.^[1] In 2014 he served as Master of the Clockmakers Company.

Awards

• Betts was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for services to horology.^[2]
• He receives the Prix Gaïa on September 17th, 2015 for his achievements in historical research.^[3]

Footnotes

References

• Betts (2006): "Time Restored", Oxford University Press, Authors Preface.
• Jonathan Betts. National Maritime Museum.