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,
Friendship (1784 ship) Friendship (1784 ship) Friendship was a merchant brig built in Scarborough, England, and launched in 1784. She is most notable for her transport of convicts as part of the Australian First Fleet. Due to problems manning her, her crew scuttled her in 1788. The first mention of "Friendship" in "Lloyd's Register", in 1784, gave her master's name as Fowler and her trade as St Petersburg to Lieth. She then disappeared from "Lloyd's Register" before reappearing in the 1787 volume. "Friendship" left Portsmouth on 13 May 1787; she was among the smallest of the transports. Her master was Francis Walton and