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,
Henry Goodricke (1741–1784) Henry Goodricke (1741–1784) Henry Goodricke (6 April 1741 – 9 July 1784) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1778 to 1780. Goodricke was the only son of Sir John Goodricke, 5th Baronet and his wife Mary Benson, illegitimate daughter of Robert Benson, 1st Baron Bingley. His father was a diplomat and he was born at Boulogne on 6 April 1741. He married Levina Benjamina Sessler, daughter of Peter Sessler of Namur on 31 January 1761. Goodricke was elected unopposed as Member of Parliament (MP) for Lymington on the Burrard interest at a by-election on