R.T. Gould

Rupert Thomas Gould (1890-1948) was an English naval officer who worked for the Royal Hydrographer's Office after having been invalided out of WWI service. He wrote several books about real-life mysteries and unexplained occurrences, including "Oddities" (1928), "Enigmas" (1929), "The Case for the Sea Serpent" (1930), and "The Loch Ness Monster and Others" (1934) (the seminal work that inspired countless other books about Nessie). Gould's books are unencumbered by discussions of paranormal phenomena, extraterrestrial visitors, crop circles, and other highly improbable or altogether discredited "happenings." Some of the unexplained events he discusses are obscure and were not well known even in his day, but many people feel that this makes them more--rather than less--interesting, and all of them are matters of historical record. Gould also wrote "The Marine Chronometer," the definitive book about John Harrison, the man who developed the first practical clocks used for finding longitude at sea. While working at the Hydrographer's Office, Gould found Harrison's timekeepers and spent the next several years restoring them. Harrison and Gould were the subjects of the A&E film Longitude (2000), which was based on the book of the same name by Dava Sobel. Other works by Gould include "Captain Cook" and "The Stargazer Talks" (a collection of fascinating talks on various subjects that Gould gave on BBC Radio in the 1930s and 1940s on the "Children's Hour" program). He also appeared on the BBC radio program "Brains Trust" in the 1940s. Lt.-Commander Gould was a polymath who had a real knack for writing, and his works are every bit as fascinating today as when they were written. An excellent biography of Gould is "Time Restored: The Harrison Timekeepers and R.T. Gould, the Man Who Knew (Almost) Everything" by Jonathan Betts.