One of a group of six chronometers by Dent procured in 1846 by the Government, foregoing the usual Annual Greenwich Trials [Ref: correspondence Astronomer Royal Airy Captain (later Admiral Sir Francis) Beaufort, RN, RGO 6/576]. These circumstances were probably not repeated until the exigencies of World War I, demonstrating the high regard in which the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty held Dent's chronometers.

Dent 1916 was subsequently used in the 1874 Transit of Vienna Observations at Kerguelen, South Indian Ocean