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,
John Hanbury (1744–1784) and urbanisation of the eastern valley through which runs the Afon Llwyd (in English "grey river") in Monmouthshire around Pontypool. Hanbury was MP for Monmouthshire from 1765 until 1785, before a writ was issued for a by-election. Hanbury lived in the manor-house of Hoarstone in Pontypool Park which now houses St. Alban's R.C. High School and Pontypool Museum. He also built the Shell Grotto, Pontypool and Folly Tower above Pontypool Park. With his wife, he had issue: Hanbury died in 1784. John Hanbury (1744–1784) John Hanbury (6 August 1744 – 6 April 1784) was a British heir and politician who