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 Stately (1784) HMS Stately (1784) HMS "Stately" was a 64-gun third-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 27 December 1784 at Northam. Sir Richard King took command of "Stately" at Portsmouth on 24 July 1793, which was reported in "The Times" newspaper. In 1798 "Stately" was at the Cape of Good Hope where she was the venue for the court-martial of Mr. Reid, second mate of the East Indiaman . While they were both on shore, Reid had struck Captain Richard Colnett, captain of "King George" The court-martial sentenced Reid to two years in the Marshalsea prison. Because