During, and at the conclusion of, the decisive International Meridian Conference at Washington DC in 1884, Sandford Fleming's biographers of 1915 and 2000 do not think he was properly recognized for his work to promote and support the adoption of a new system of time reckoning for the world.
Lawrence Burpee (Sandford Fleming, Empire Builder; 1915; Oxford Press archive.org) ended his Standard Time Movement chapter with the words of the Astronomer Royal of Russia, M Otto Struve:
'It is through Mr Fleming's indefatigable personal labours and writings that influential individuals and Scientific Societies and Institutes in America and Europe have been won over to the cause.'
Looking over all of the microfilmed documents of Sandford Fleming preserved by the Canadian government (available at archive.org), I discovered that the official account of the Washington Conference is missing - although the official account translated into French is available.
... Fleming's biographer of 2000 states that the US State Department was unable to find a French translator in Washington DC to satisfy the request of the delegation from France - it was Fleming who did.
Fortunately, Project Gutenberg has preserved and uploaded the official record in English and you can read the whole thing at this link:
International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884.
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A recap of Fleming's evolution of thought ...
If you've been following this series, you'll recall that Fleming was miffed because he was stuck at Bundoran, Ireland overnight because of a timetable misprint. His 5PM train was actually scheduled for 5AM the next morning.
In addition to advocating the use of a 24-hour clock, his first approach to the larger issue of world time reckoning was Utopian. He wanted to convert the 'hour numbers' (i.e. 1 to 12) on a clock to letters. This idea would require the engineering of a new clock device which took 24 hours for its hour hand to complete its trip around the watch face. The 24-hour cycle matched that of the earth. Essentially, the new timepiece was a schematic representation of world time zones, designated by their own letters.
Below, the whole world is shown at 'A' o'clock because the sun is over the 'A time zone' in eastern Russia. For those Russians, 'A hour' is always noon. For those in the N time zone in western Africa 'A' o'clock is always midnight.
This seems odd, because we know how all this turned out ... but consider the global circumstances in the mid-1800s ...
... At that stage of history, a few smaller countries used nation-wide standard times because of railway or military imperatives.
For example, in the UK, the railways all agreed to use Greenwich time - from the Royal Observatory - as the basis for all their schedules. After this change, people with the money to travel by rail set their watches to 'railway time'. The rest of society - if they had the money to buy their own personal watches or clocks - gradually followed suit.
... However, most places in the world using clocks set them by the sun at noon. There were no time zones - just local 'natural' time.
The advent of the world-wide telegraph system (before the invention of wireless) enabled information and time signals to be sent anywhere at the speed of light.
Having a universal standard time system and clearly-defined time zones would enable meteorologists like Cleveland Abbe to know exactly when a tornado had struck a particular settlement. Appropriate records could be made and warnings could be sent out by telegraph to other places which might soon be affected.
'Gentlemen: I beg you to receive my thanks for the high honor you have conferred upon me in calling me, as the chairman of the delegation from the United States, to preside at this Congress. To it have come from widely-separated portions of the globe, delegates renowned in diplomacy and science, seeking to create a new accord among the nations by agreeing upon a meridian proper to be employed as a common zero of longitude and standard of time reckoning throughout the world. Happy shall we be, if, throwing aside national preferences and inclinations, we seek only the common good of mankind, and gain for science and for commerce a prime meridian acceptable to all countries, and secured with the least possible inconvenience.'Having this object at heart, the Government of the United States has invited all nations with which it has diplomatic relations to send delegates to a Congress to assemble at Washington to-day, to discuss the question I have indicated. The invitation has been graciously received, and we are here this morning to enter upon the agreeable duty assigned to us by our respective governments.'Broad as is the area of the United States, covering a hundred degrees of longitude, extending from 66° 52' west from Greenwich to 166° 13' at our extreme limit in Alaska, not including the Aleutian Islands; traversed, as it is, by railway and telegraph lines, and dotted with observatories; long as is its sea coast, of more than twelve thousand miles; vast as must be its foreign and domestic commerce, its delegation to this Congress has no desire to urge that a prime meridian shall be found within its confines.'In my own profession, that of a seaman, the embarrassment arising from the many prime meridians now in use is very conspicuous, and in the valuable interchange of longitudes by passing ships at sea, often difficult and hurried, sometimes only possible by figures written on a black-board, much confusion arises, and at times grave danger. In the use of charts, too, this trouble is also annoying, and to us who live upon the sea a common prime meridian will be a great advantage.'
As you'll see on Fleming's summary of the Conference, below, the delegations took over a month to conduct their 8 sitting days. There were breaks to allow for questions to be discussed with delegates' home governments and for data to be gathered and prepared for presentation.
One key consideration was the use of the Greenwich Observatory/Meridian as longitude 'zero' and time 'zero' for the civil day of the world. As mentioned, Greenwich charts were widely used. Other nations had similar observatories providing the basis for their own charts. To choose Greenwich meant that these other observatories would not retain their national importance and tradition.
As a secret supporter of the Greenwich Meridian, Fleming wanted to avoid provoking other nations' anger by implying that their meridians were inferior in some way. To avoid this, right from the beginning of his work, he suggested his Proposed Common Prime Meridian in the middle of the Pacific Ocean ... as seen in the world diagram at the top of this post.
At one point when the French delegates felt the relevance of the Paris Meridian was being lost, a vote was called on Fleming's anti-Prime Meridian and it was soundly defeated. So much for trying to be considerate ...
However, Fleming made the presentation below to show that the Greenwich Meridian did have the greatest use - as measured by tonnage and the absolute number of ships using the Greenwich charts.
... Nonetheless, he points out, below, that his 'anti-Greenwich' meridian would avoid choosing the meridian of any particular nation. This is because the telegraph wires can provide the instantaneous propagation of an official time signal (from any observatory location to be chosen) to the entire world.
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| from: Greenwich Observatory (article); 1872; Popular Science Review. archive.org |
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| The Royal Observatory Greenwich; E Walter Maunder; 1900; Religious Tract Society. archive.org |
The series of time zones, with Greenwich as the Prime Meridian, is presented in this British atlas from 1904.
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| from: Handy Reference Atlas of the World; JG Bartholomew; 1904; John Walker & Co. |
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