Optician more important and dignified. Far-sighted or aging colonial Americans imported spectacles from Europe. Spectacles were primarily for the affluent and literate colonists, who required a valuable and precious appliance. Benjamin Franklin in the 1780s developed the bifocal. Bifocal lenses advanced little in the first half of the 19th century. The terms bifocal and trifocal were introduced in London by John Isaac Hawkins, whose trifocals were patented in 1827. In 1884 B. M. Hanna was granted patents on two forms of bifocals which become commercially standardized as the "cemented" and "perfection" bifocals. Both had the serious faults of ugly appearance, fragility,
HMS Venerable (1784) stores, guns, etc. from the wreck of "Venerable". HMS Venerable (1784) HMS "Venerable" was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 19 April 1784 at Blackwall Yard. In 1795 the ship is known to have been under the command of Cpt. James Bissett. In 1797, "Venerable" served as Admiral Duncan's flagship at the Battle of Camperdown. She was wrecked on 24 November 1804, off Roundham Head near Torbay. Three of her crew were lost. Two days later, on 26 November, the hired armed ship sailed from Plymouth to Torbay with , six gun-vessels