Beyond the free advertising and any conscience-nudging they accomplished, there was probably a reason why small town churches had bells.
Because church services had a schedule, like any other professional workplace, it was important that people arrive on time to make the most efficient use of the professional resources being offered.
After farmers and townspeople had basic literacy, a number of them probably did not have the money to purchase personal timepieces. In many cases, daily activities were scheduled around the available light provided by the sun, and a watchful eye was kept on its position on the busiest of days. Artificial light was another expensive luxury which people might choose to use sparingly.
Today, we are accustomed to having the exact time always on display at the corner of our computer screens or available on our smartphones. We are never without cheap, plentiful artificial light.
Unlike most of our Canadian ancestors 200 years ago, today, we all routinely travel farther than walking distance from our homes. Whether it was powering factories or providing transportation, steam power made remarkable changes in how Canadians lived.
While steam power solved problems, it created new ones. Many Canadians vaguely know the CanadaFacts idea that Sandford Fleming (later knighted in 1897 by Queen Victoria) 'invented time zones'.
Fleming's Project and Its Inspiration
One of the three founders of the Canadian Institute in 1849 was Sandford Fleming (1827-1915). The Institute began as an organization for surveyors, civil engineers and architects working in the Toronto area. Today it is known as the Royal Canadian Institute for Science.
Among his many other projects and interests, Fleming worked on what would eventually become UTC - Coordinated Universal Time. He designed a system of 24 time zones.
In 1874, the 49-year-old Fleming was stuck overnight at Bandoran, Ireland (Bundoran on GoogleMaps) waiting for a train to Londonderry to visit a friend. It was necessary for him to coordinate several modes of transport for his trip and he had arrived at Bandoran for a 5:35 PM train - which, due to a printer's error - did not actually depart until 05:35 AM. He could not understand why people still used a 12-hour clock and AM and PM ... the reason for his 12 hours of railway station purgatory. He set out to devise a better system which included the hope that people could master a 24 hour clock.
Fleming's Method - A World View
Patiently, through the Canadian Institute, and through the Governor General Lord Lorne (Queen Victoria's son-in-law), Fleming advanced his ideas for a world-wide system of 24 time zones into the British Empire, and also toward sympathetic scientists and thinkers in continental Europe. I think the first paper I found of his at archive.org on this topic was from 1876.
He was not the first person to come up with the 24 time zone concept. It would take the help of many people to modify, promote and implement a workable system of world time zones, and to overcome the petty political objections of some of the world powers. I think Fleming was successful because of the cooperative and patient approach he took.
A Prime Meridian is generally assigned Zero Degrees of Longitude. An observatory at one point on the prime meridian serves as the basis for published tables, which predict where certain stars will be seen in the sky, at exact moments in 'local time'. The ability to navigate east and west with precision on the featureless oceans was made possible by the development of the concept of 'longitude'.Latitude was easier to master earlier in history because the sun's shortest shadow occurs at noon, and the sun's angle above the horizon changes as we travel north or south.
An advantage Fleming had in advancing his idea was the fact that his empire already had an internationally successful system for worldwide navigation. Much of the world used British navigation charts, which were keyed to the British Prime Meridian at the Royal Observatory Greenwich (near London). The observatory was originally commissioned by King Charles II in 1675.
Having a Good Time on Their Own
Many nations had their own 'prime meridian' observatories, where their respective official times were derived and communicated to support their national activities or empire-wide seafaring operations. The easiest example for us to imagine was the French observatory in Paris. A proud Frenchman of the time would never use British time!
In the Fleming biography Time Lord (Clark Blaise; 2000; Random House), Blaise writes that there were about ten prime meridians used by different countries in the late 1800s.
But Not for Long
The sedate world of wind and sail had been compatible with travellers living life timed by the sun while at sea ... and changing personal timepieces to local time upon reaching port. Ship's Bells were probably the main time-keeping method for normal travellers until fast steamships were developed. The ship's crew used a chronometer and optical instruments to plot their slow progress on the ocean.
However, the land-based telegraph and its undersea cables now communicated between the continents at the speed of light ...
And some railway systems covered thousands of miles. Fast trains could travel a long distance during the course of a day ...
Train passengers and the big American railroads were the first groups to be negatively affected by all of this new high-speed travel, as you'll see below.
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This compilation was published in 1953 and I purchased it second hand at some point in history. It was in mint condition when I first read it a couple of months ago. To some extent, as you'd expect, it has a '1950s Cowboys and Indians' popular approach to railroad history, but there are some really good historical pieces as well.
The excellent account of all the problems of the American railroads and travellers before standard time ... follows on that same yellowed paper farther below.
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First, here is a contemporary article (October 1883) which quotes the chief proponent of a US railroad time zone system. William Frederick Allen (1846-1915) was a civil engineer by training and the secretary of the General Time Convention of the American Railroad Association. He had presented his system on 8 April 1883 at their semi-annual meeting in St Louis.
St Louis was served by many railroads and recognized six official times.
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| from: American Railroad Journal; George F Swain; Oct 1883; Phenix Publishing, New York. archive.org |
Below, is probably a faithful 1889 representation of Allen's system from 1883, as it was approved and implemented by the railroads in the US and in Canada at the October 1883 convention.
Notice the post-meeting development of Intercolonial Time. Who might have suggested that?
Allen gathered concentrations of railroad activity together to make a zone - to make scheduling and timekeeping easier for operations. The railroad system was not designed to meet the needs of the general population, it was designed to help resolve the timekeeping and scheduling chaos on the railroads.
I have a more recent version of this large atlas with a typically very fragile spine. The original posted image below is actually a photo of the opened atlas with someone holding it in the best position for a photograph. I haven't seen any other images which show what the original Allen system was actually like. This is a great artifact to which to have access! As a bonus, you can see the chart of all of the solar deviations within the new standard time zones - for those who might want to convert back to local natural time from railroad time.
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| from: Divisions of Standard Time; George F Cram; 1889; from Newberry Library. archive org |
Allen wanted to solve the railroads' problems, but he made one significant change to what might have been expected. The Naval Observatory in Washington DC was established in 1842. Like other existing or aspiring great powers there was a Washington Prime Meridian - independent from Britain's.
Allen chose to use the Greenwich Prime Meridian as the basis for his system. As the result of this choice, our always present, but as yet unmentioned friend, Sandford Fleming, was able to integrate Allen's system into his design for a worldwide system of time zones - also based on Greenwich.
Here is the interesting account of the conditions which existed before railroad standard time.
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