What English King helped settle a dispute about how to determine one's position at sea?

serpa

Latitude was pretty easy to figure so I'll go with the problem of longitude and King George III as the answer. "John Harrison was the man who solved the problem of measuring longitude. While most efforts had focused on a precise catalogue of stars, to be used together with the moon's position to determine longitude, Harrison attempted to build a precision clock which kept the time of the home port. This, together with determination of the local time using the height of the sun, would allow mariners to calculate longitude. With support from the Board of Longitude set up to administer the prize, he started in 1730 to build several spring-driven clocks, finally succeeding in 1761 with a determination of better than half a degree. However, the board refused to believe that longitude could be determined without astronomical measures, first awarding only half the prize and then dragging the process out with more demands for evidence and several copies of the clocks. Finally in 1773, King George III persuaded Parliament to award the prize to Harrison, bypassing the board." http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Longitude-prize Aug 21 09, 2:44 PM