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,
Hector (1784 ship) Hector (1784 ship) Hector was a Dutch 44-gun frigate launched in 1784 that the British captured in 1799. They fitted her out and transferred her to the Transport Board in 1800 under the name "Pandour". She then transported troops to and from Egypt. The Royal Navy commissioned her in 1803 as HMS "Pandour"; she then sailed to the Leeward Islands, where she participated in the capture of Surinam. The Navy converted her to a floating battery in 1804, and transferred her to Customs as a store hulk in 1805. She was sold in 1814. The British captured "Hector", and a