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 Director (1784) the Battle of Camperdown, where she captured the Dutch commander, Vice-Admiral Jan de Winter, and his flagship, "Vrijheid". "Director" was decommissioned in July 1800 and broken up at Chatham in January 1801. HMS Director (1784) HMS "Director" was a 64-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 9 March 1784 at Gravesend. She was laid down speculatively in November 1779, and ordered by the Navy the following year. In 1797 "Director" was under the command of Captain William Bligh. In early 1797 he surveyed the Humber, preparing a map of the stretch from Spurn to