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 Tremendous (1784) HMS Tremendous (1784) HMS "Tremendous" was a 74-gun third rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 30 October 1784 at Deptford. Throughout May 1794 "Tremendous", whilst under the command of Captain James Pigott, participated in the campaign which culminated in the Battle of the Glorious First of June. Pigott had kept his ship too far to windward of the enemy to make best use of his guns in the battle; "Tremendous"s captain was one of several denied medals afterwards. While operating in the Indian Ocean, on 25 April 1799 "Tremendous", , and recaptured as she lay