By 1714 the inability to measure longitude accurately at sea had led to the tragic loss of hundreds of trading ships, and thousands of lives. Pressure from merchants and seamen finally drove the government to form the Board of Longitude, and a prize of 20,000 was offered for a successful solution. Although scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton knew that a clock would solve the problem of identifying longitude, it was generally considered impossible to build one that would withstand the motion of a ship or the extremes of temperature in foreign climes. Only Harrison, an uneducated carpenter from Lincolnshire, dared to pit his genius against the establishment belief that the answer lay in the stars, pursuing the realisation of his invention against years of scepticism."