Jonathan Betts

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Jonathan Betts (born 29 January 1955) is the senior specialist in horology at the Royal Observatory (National Maritime Museum), Greenwich, a horological scholar and author, and an expert on the first marine chronometer created by John Harrison in the middle of the 18th century.

He took the British Horological Institute finals in technical horology in 1975 and was awarded the Tremayne National Prize for Practical Watchmaking. For the following five years, he practised as a self-employed horology conservator. In 1980 he was appointed senior horology conservation officer at the National Maritime Museum and in 1989 was presented the museum's Callender Award for his contribution to horological conservation. He was appointed curator of horology in 1990 and became senior curator in 2004.

He is the biographer of Rupert Gould, the restorer of the Harrison sea clocks. The biography was published in 2006 by Oxford University Press under the title Time Restored: The Harrison Timekeepers and RT Gould, the Man Who Knew (Almost) Everything.

In 2002 he won the Clockmakers' Company's Harrison Gold Medal.

In his own time, he has also been a horological adviser to the National Trust of Great Britain and is currently also adviser to the Harris (Belmont) Charity and to Clockmakers' Museum.

He lives in Greenwich.