International Meridian Conference, 1884 - Indefatigable Sandford Fleming

Halifax, 1949

With the help of his CPR employee pass, LC Gagnon was travelling over the Canadian Pacific system - beginning in Montreal, through Maine and New Brunswick, and by CPR ferry to Nova Scotia ... with  additional travel on the CNR line along Nova Scotia's south shore (as seen elsewhere on this blog).

At the Halifax Citadel, he has composed a photo showing two time appliances. 

The noon gun will provide an audible signal for citizens within earshot. The time ball is more interesting. 

I believe LC Gagnon photographed two time balls in Halifax during this trip. Overlooking the harbour with a good line of sight, the ball pictured seems to be an official device. There was another time ball farther down the hill as well. Watchmakers often prided themselves as being masters of time and they maintained their own standard clocks ... and time balls in some cases. Exact time was provided as part of their professional mission. Before 'Standard Time', US railroads would sometimes designate a particular local watchmaker's time for official use.

Generally, the time balls descended slowly for a minute or less as the hour approached, with the end of the descent marking noon (or perhaps 13hr - after daily noon re-verification). Time balls were essential to shipping. Their signal was not subject to delay - compared to the non-instantaneous speed of the gun's sound. Using a telescope, a distant ship could check its chronometer with precision by watching a time ball.

... I believe the Admiralty maintained a series of time balls along the British coast to support civilian and Royal Navy ships. 

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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.

After the Washington International Meridian Conference of 1884 was over, Fleming put together a 110-page compendium of all of his time ideas, the responses to them, and their refinement ... for posterity. It is linked below if you want to see what he wanted us to remember about his persistent efforts. (It is the source of these 5 excerpts.)

archive.org link:

Universal or cosmic time: by Sandford Fleming, 

together with other papers, communications and reports

In the late 1870s ... Fleming 'worked through channels' in Canada, employing the Governor General (Queen Victoria's son-in-law) to help get the world thinking about time reckoning ... i.e. 'standard time and time zones'. 

As we've seen, experts like the UK Astronomer Royal - George Biddell Airy (at Greenwich) - were sometimes brusque when returning requested feedback. When appropriate, Fleming would modify his ideas. He'd continue to be patient and persistent in promoting them. 

Supportive colleagues like American meteorologist Cleveland Abbe, who was necessarily interested in the science of measuring (Metrology), were natural allies of Fleming. As he built his network, Fleming presented his papers in the US and in Europe.

 

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.

October 1884, the International Meridian Conference

The Americans take the bull by the horns ...

The first order of business was to elect a Chairman of the Conference ...

The delegates elected the chairman of the delegation of the United States of America, Admiral C. R. P. Rodgers. Almost all of his first brief address is reproduced here, taken from the Project Gutenberg document, linked above. It was concise and to the point.

'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. 

The key holdouts in accepting the Greenwich Meridian - the French delegation - would abstain from voting in the end. Two people attended for France ... the world's leading spectroscopist ...  i.e. someone who breaks down the spectrum of a star's light to determine the elements of its composition ... and the French Ambassador to the United States. Astronomers are generally not called upon to fight in debates involving international diplomacy. 

Below is Sandford Fleming's concise report of what exactly was achieved at the International Meridian Conference at Washington DC in October 1884.

Any Canadian delegate, in the international sphere, would be regarded as coming from the British Empire at this point in history. In spite of all of his spadework to make a world time reckoning system reality, Fleming was forced to tag along with Britain. However, he was neither a military person, nor an academic, nor the member of a government, nor a diplomat. The British delegates tolerated his presence as kind of an oddity. There was no doubt that they would be campaigning to ensure the Greenwich Meridian was used.

The well-prepared naval astronomers generally had instructions from their governments to ensure the Greenwich Meridian was chosen as the Prime Meridian with the civil day beginning at midnight at that location. 

In the United States, William Frederick Allen (1846-1915), a civil engineer by training and the secretary of the General Time Convention of the American Railroad Association is generally cited as the inventor of standard time and [American] time zones. He had presented his system on 8 April 1883 at the ARA semi-annual meeting in St Louis. (As we've discussed, Fleming was pushing his papers back in the 1870s.)

Here is WF Allen on the cover of the December 1887 edition of the Official Guide. This old, brittle document prefers to be photographed. 

Allen attended the Washington Conference and the main thrust of his presentation was to affirm that the US railroad system was based on the Greenwich Meridian. The railroads had adopted his time zones in 1883. (Canadian railways had adopted the continental railroad standard at exactly the same time as the US railroads.) The railway time zones were optimized for railway operations. 

... If international time zones - separated by exactly 15 degrees - were overlaid on the railroad time zones, there was great potential for confusion. Official 'local time' should not be different from 'railroad time'.

If you haven't seen the ARA's original railroad time zone scheme, it is in a previous post, linked below.

Time Zones for Railways in North America

In the end, the international time zone system was implemented loosely, with local patterns of human activity considered. Over time, Allen's system was modified to better meet the needs of citizens. Everybody survived the experience.

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What did Fleming get?

Fleming's Utopian 'lettered hour of the day' 24-hour-circle watch scheme fell by the wayside early in his work on this project. 

Today, UTC does provide a form of his Cosmopolitan or Cosmic Time for scientific, military, and general international use. 

However, if you turn on your TV or computer, you'll notice that much of humankind never did get around to learning how to tell the time using a 24-hour clock ... and no longer using AM or PM. This was seemingly the original frustrating issue which got Fleming thinking about time in the first place!

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Where they 'make'  the Greenwich Meridian ...

Here is the specific wording from Resolution 2 of the International Meridian Conference, 1884.

" the meridian passing through the centre of the transit instrument at the Observatory of Greenwich "

Here are two images which enable you to see this exact location, back around the time of Sandford Fleming and the Washington Conference.

from: Greenwich Observatory (article); 1872; Popular Science Review. archive.org

The image above shows and describes part of the process used around the time that Fleming began his work with standard time.

*  *  *

After Sandford Fleming was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1897, here is the building housing the transit.

The camera is sitting right on the Prime Meridian. 

The Royal Observatory Greenwich; E Walter Maunder; 1900; Religious Tract Society. archive.org

*  *  *

The system is available for use ...

The series of time zones, with Greenwich as the Prime Meridian, is presented in this British atlas from 1904. 

from: Handy Reference Atlas of the World; JG Bartholomew; 1904; John Walker & Co.

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Time Zones for Railways in North America

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, generating electricity, pumping a city's water, 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 'Canadian Heritage' 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 Bundoran, Ireland waiting for a train to Londonderry after a visit to a friend in Sligo. It was necessary for him to coordinate several modes of transport for his trip and he had arrived at Bundoran 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 papers for a world-wide system of 24 time zones into the scientific community of 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' at points around the world. 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 by sea. 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 this era 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. Meanwhile, the ship's crew used a chronometer and optical instruments to plot their slow progress on the ocean - using the published charts and tables from Greenwich.

However, the land-based 'wired' 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.

*  *  *

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.

*  *  *

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.

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 after the October 1883 convention. 

Notice the naming of Intercolonial Time. Being named after a particular railway, we can infer that our friend had some influence over these developments. (In 1862, before he was formally involved in the project ... Fleming had written a 60-page paper and submitted it to the 'Government of Canada': Suggestions on the Inter-Colonial Railway and the construction of a highway and telegraph line between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans within British Territory.)

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. 

(If you intend to read the long account, farther below, note that on the chart below, Washington DC Standard Time is 8 minutes faster than solar time. Hint: Page 516)

from: Divisions of Standard Time; George F Cram; 1889; from Newberry Library. archive org 

Allen wanted to solve the American railroads' problems, but he had 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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