1881 - Sandford Fleming Rides in a Gondola

According to Pierre Berton, Sandford Fleming was accompanied by his daughter on his 1881 trip to Venice and they were riding gondolas along the Venetian canals. Although no photos exist of those events, please accept this facsimile from the same period in history. 

from: Gondola Days; F Hopkinson Smith; 1902; Charles Scribners & Sons. archive.org

As this post deals mainly with the paper Fleming presented in Venice, 

here are a couple of Fleming artifacts to help us imagine what he was like.

from: Sandford Fleming, Empire Builder; Lawrence J Burpee; 1915; Oxford.  archive.org

Fleming at age 18.

*  *  *

Men of Canada or Success by Example; William Cochrane; 1895; Bradley, Garretson & Co. archive.org

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1881 - International Geographical Conference, Venice

With Fleming now paid-off from his Canadian Pacific work ... he devoted more time to his effective networking and strengths of persuasion ... in the furtherance of his mission to gain support for a worldwide system of time reckoning. As you'll see, he worked with diverse professions whose work would be made more effective with the implementation of time zones. 

Metrology is the science of measurement ... as opposed to meteorology. Both disciplines will appear together below. Having said that, Cleveland Abbe was a meteorologist working in the US who provided valuable advice and support for Fleming's efforts in Washington. 

As you can imagine, when Abbe was receiving weather observations from scattered centres across the US by telegraph, he needed some standard of time to accurately draw maps of isotherms and isobars. 

Imagine the current conditions back then: Some weather reporting stations used local solar time, some used the exact time used by the railroads. But ... US railroad time was often keyed to the particular railroad's distant 'head office' city's time. Many cities had central railway stations displaying standard clocks from these converging railways - each showing a different time. 

Without a common standard for local time at these distant telegraph reporting stations, (or even knowing which 'time' that day's observer had on their personal pocket watch) it was impossible to create accurate forecasts.

Fleming starts off by explaining how the various prime meridians (then in use) were significant to the national users when they were first established.

Greenwich was used the most because global navigation charts produced by Britain were used by the majority of world shipping (72% by tonnage). 

*  *  *

He mentions the instant worldwide communication brought about by the cable-linked global telegraph system. And he points out that every minute around the globe, there's a new meridian created where the sun stands directly overhead. 

Again, most 'westernized' cities were using their local solar noon for time reckoning.

In Fleming's world, there were also different civilizations which had their own timekeeping traditions.

In other writings, he gave examples of societies which start their 'days' at different times of the day. 

He explains that our 'civil day' spans 12 hours on each side of noon.

... However, some societies started their day at sunrise. China divided the day into 2-hour divisions. Japan divided the day into noon, sunset, midnight, sunrise. 

Western astronomers of that era would have preferred a 24-hour day beginning at noon - so a single session of overnight observations would not bear two dates -  one date before midnight and another date after midnight. (My spouse advises me this standard is still in place for her observation-reporting of variable stars - the reporting date for any part of the night is that of the previous noon.) 

Seafaring navigators also had this preference - to simplify their nightly comparisons of the night sky with their navigation tables which predicted where celestial bodies would be seen in 'local time' as they sailed the featureless oceans. 

Fortunately for a worldwide system, whatever their society's particular method for identifying 'the day', all societies share the 24 hour period of the earth's rotation. 

*  *  *

Fleming: 

Again, it's the new railway and telegraph systems which force us to confront these new effects!

... By the way ... did I ever tell you about the time I was once stuck overnight at Bundoran?

If you read my previous post about the adoption of US/Canada time zones for railroads in 1883 ... this paper, presented at Venice in 1881, was published two full years before that standardization was adopted and implemented. No doubt, Fleming's papers and networking influenced the general trend toward creating that continental system as well. 

... However, Fleming is usually not mentioned as 'an influencer' of standard time in American-based accounts of US railroad standard time zones. For example, the previously posted book account, or the 100th anniversary article of railway standard time in Trains.

*  *  *

Fleming:

By the way: I hate AM and PM ... you know ... from Bundoran.

The railways and the public deserve a better system!

*  *  *

Fleming presented a 20-point proposition in his Venice paper, listing practical characteristics of a time reckoning system which could be implemented in North America. It has the essential elements of the system of 24 time zones we are familiar with today. His original term for UTC or GMT or Zulu time was 'Cosmopolitan Time', later 'Cosmic Time' but the principle was the same. 

Fleming preferred letters, rather than names (eg. 'Eastern' time zone) to identify his time zones. To the yet-unchosen prime meridian, he assigned Z for zero, longitude, and 'Zulu time' (using the format 00:01 Z) is probably an enduring artifact of his thought on this matter.

... Fleming was well aware that there were other prime meridians drawn through nationally-significant points. He expected that strongly promoting Greenwich (as a citizen of the British Empire) for the 'world prime meridian' might provoke a reactive international rejection of everything he was working so hard to achieve.

Of course, he was a secret supporter of Greenwich. 

At that time, these were the observatories/locations where national or imperial time was set. 

• Royal Observatory Greenwich, London (UK)
• Paris Observatory (France) 
• Old Naval Observatory, Washington DC (USA) 
• Pulkova, Saint Petersburg (Russia) 
• San Fernando, Madrid (Spain) 
• Lisbon Observatory (Portugal) 
• Stockholm Observatory (Sweden), 
• Oslo Observatory, Christiana (Norway), 
• Monte Mario, Rome (Italy), 
• Imperial Observatory, Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). 

As mentioned previously, a Prime Meridian is needed as 'Longitude Zero At Noon' so the sun's movement around the earth is deemed to start at some definite point each day.

*  *  *

If you need to save your brain ... skip this section ... 

However, Fleming's 9th point (of the 20 in his original 1881 paper for Venice) presents a brain-twister for us today. He proposed that Cosmopolitan Time (the planet's time, the standard to be used by worldwide telegraphy, astronomy, navigation, science ... and today, the military) would be the time between two passages of the sun over the prime meridian. 

So, taking our familiar example of today's Greenwich or UTC time or 'military time', 'the day' would start at 1200hr Z and end at 1200hr Z. 

The solution was obvious, Fleming's 9th point ... Fleming's 'anti-prime meridian' could be used! In the middle of the Pacific Ocean - on the opposite side of the earth from Greenwich - would be where the prime meridian would be located and the Zulu day would be calculated from 12hr to 12hr in the middle of the ocean. This would solve anticipated irreconcilable international resistance to using Greenwich, and a proper set of time zones could be set up. 

This would require an observatory somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, which would still be on some country's territory. But the new miracle of instantaneous telegraphy could supply the time signal to the whole globe when the sun was overhead in the Pacific Ocean. It would ensure that navigation charts could still be drawn up based on the Greenwich meridian, but it was 'impartial' because it would not give London the honour of hosting the Prime Meridian.  

* 

Today, of course, the prime meridian of UTC (with the sun theoretically overhead at 1200hr Z) defines when the date changes at night at the zigzag International Date Line in the Pacific Ocean - generally located at about 180 degrees. You know ... where the first fireworks are set off as New Year's Day advances around the globe.

... And when the sun stands over the International Dateline, London and Europe are changing the date at around midnight (0001 hr Z). 

... It has taken me a couple of weeks, on and off, to make sense of this proposal in the historical and political context of Fleming's period in history.

* end of brain twisting * 

*  *  *

Getting back to Fleming's 1881 paper for Venice. The version from which I have pulled key sections ... microfilmed by the Canadian government and preserved at archive.org ... is the paper which includes the modifications by the practical, supportive and non-political people and science professionals who attended that conference. This is what they ended up with ...

 Notice here that many of these signatories are practical and influential people 

from within the US government bureaucracy. 

The American navy had a significant interest in establishing a worldwide system to facilitate the operations of their fleet. 

Apparently, military civil engineers were quite focused and to the point in this and subsequent deliberations. Greenwich? Fine, let's make it work ... (Whereas, when France was later a voting member of the Washington conference in 1884, they abstained as the Paris Meridian could not die by their hand. National pride would not permit it.)

US President Chester Arthur was essential in inviting the delegates of the 'civilized nations' to the conclusive Washington deliberations on global time zones in October 1884 at the International Meridian Conference.

As you'll see, when some political delegates from Europe stalled and tried to indicate that they were not empowered to decide on a Prime Meridian, someone at the meeting pointed out that the President's letter specifically indicated that delegates 'would decide'. 

A link to the whole paper read in Venice in 1881 at archive.org

The Adoption of a Prime Meridian to Be Common to All Nations, 1881

To foreshadow the subsequent developments ... after the Venice conference, the next International Geographical Congress would be in Rome in 1883, with the ultimate decision being made for the westernized nations at the Washington DC, International Meridian Conference in 1884.

As I said, Cleveland Abbe, the meteorologist, was a great supporter of Fleming and his work ... After the Venice Congress was over, Fleming continued to work at this project. 

"Fleming, following Abbe's advice, immediately set to work with personal memos and speeches to American chambers of commerce, railroad conventions, and shipping and insurance companies, as well as with more formal approaches through the governor-general and the British Colonial Office."

passage from: Time Lord; Clark Blaise; 2000; Random House.

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Sandford Fleming & Time Zones - Stuck Overnight at Bundoran in 1876!

Spot the points of ignorance displayed by a brilliant mathematician and astronomer. 

This comment was returned by Sir George Biddell Airy, Astronomer Royal (he held this office: 1835-1881), Greenwich, 18 June 1879 ... regarding one of Fleming's papers from 1878-79 which had been forwarded via the Governor General (Marquis of Lorne) to the British government for distribution and comment. 

In particular, look at his suggestion regarding schedules and timekeeping for transcontinental trains in the United States.

A train leaves New York using local solar time. 

Another train leaves San Francisco using local solar time. 

A dispatcher writes a meet order. 

Where will the two trains collide?

This was not Airy's only railway-related error!

Astronomer Royal Airy was consulted by the North British Railway to calculate the wind pressures to be expected on the Tay Bridge. He calculated a maximum wind pressure of 10 pounds per square foot which was much lower than that produced during severe storms. 

In fact, 56 pounds per square foot later became the assumed maximum pressure ... before that value was multiplied by 4 to provide a design margin of safety. 

Myriad miscalculations and errors by many contributors led to the Tay Bridge Disaster on 28 December 1879. It occurred six months after Airy's comments on Fleming's paper (above) .

In spite of this kind of negative feedback, Fleming persisted in his efforts. 

*  *  *

There are a number of postcards on the internet showing an early version of the small Bundoran, Ireland station. It was probably in that building where Sandford Fleming resolved (overnight) to do something about the way time was being reckoned. Everywhere.

Fleming's biographies from 1915 and 2000 both spell the town 'Bandoran' but I've found no evidence anywhere that it was ever spelled that way. Perhaps Fleming misspelled it in his notebook at the time. 

So let's look at a map to better understand the incident which contributed to Fleming's devotion to networking and campaigning ... to establish in the imperial and western world ... a new system of time zones.

This post looks at the details of Fleming's trip, and also excerpts from his first paper on the subject.

from: Sandford Fleming, Empire Builder; Lawrence J Burpee; 1915; Oxford.  archive.org

An image of Fleming (1827-1915) 16 years before his determination to change time.

The author of his (2000) biography stated that Fleming essentially dictated his 1915 biography to the writer.

*  *  *

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

If you find Londonderry at the top of the map, Enniskillen and Bundoran Jct are to its south. If you head for the west coast, you'll find Bundoran. These were the geographical limits of his trip in the story below.

*  *  *

From his 1915 biography, here is the story of his overnight stranding in a small country station.

from: Sandford Fleming, Empire Builder; Lawrence J Burpee; 1915; Oxford.  archive.org

Below is a Bianconi car, also known as a public car. 

from: Charles Bianconi, a biography; 1786-1875; Mrs Morgan O'Connell (his daughter); Chapman & Hall. archive.org

For a former surveyor, and someone who had just travelled 'Ocean to Ocean' in 1872, travelling by public car would not have been a great hardship.

from: Citizen's Atlas of the World; John Bartholomew; 1924; Geographical Institute, Edinburgh.

On the (1924) map above ...

• Londonderry is in the top right corner. 
• Enniskillen (60 miles by rail) is near the centre, bottom. 
• Manor Hamilton (30 miles by public car) is at the bottom, near the west coast and Sligo. 
• Killennumery (8 miles by private carriage) exists only as a cemetery today and is not shown on the map above. It was southeast of Manor Hamilton. 

Almost 50 years later (the publishing date of map above) there was no direct railway connection along the route that Fleming took northbound, Killennumery to Bundoran. 

Bundoran is at the first bit of pink on the west coast. With the low mountains, at least his late-afternoon horse-drawn trip would have been scenic. In some ways it reminds me of the hill topography around Lake Superior.

*  *  *

If Fleming had travelled 18 years later, he would have found a luxury railway hotel at Bundoran in which to ruminate - instead of a small stone station building.

from: Picturesque Donegal; 1908; Great Northern Railway (Ireland).

Opened in 1894, the hotel was designed by the railway company's architect Thomas Drew, and constructed entirely of concrete - instead of wood - to better survive the humid climate. Bundoran was styled as the 'The Brighton of Ireland'. 

The hotel still exists today - nicely-restored and maintained. See: The Great Northern Hotel.

The railway line was originally built as the Enniskillen and Bundoran in 1866. The Great Northern Railway (Ireland) took over and began operating the line in 1876. 

Perhaps the change of management/new listing led to some problem with the printing of the departure times - the corporate takeover happening the same year in which Fleming travelled.

As the bare minimum, in 1876 Fleming had hoped that humans could develop the capacity to use a 24-hour clock rather than the AM/PM 12 hour clock ...

*  *  *

July 1922: Almost nothing has changed! 

from: Bradshaw's Railway Guide; July 1922; Henry Blacklock & Co (reprint)

Above are the mainline trains. 'Weekdays' during this era were Monday-Saturday.

AM and PM are marked as mrn or aft, respectively. In one case I noticed on another page - where an entire schedule was completed during the 'noon hour' - the abbreviation non is used.

The particular listing which Fleming would have used: Bundoran has trains departing for Londonderry (left half of the sheet, read down) 630 mrn, 1125 mrn, and 530 aft. (Generally, trains were 'Up' toward a major city or capital ... or 'Down' from a major city or capital. I assume that Dublin was the important city in this case.)

... We can imagine that Fleming would be quite discouraged, after his 1876 experience, to see that the world still had not learned to write/read his train times as 0630, 1125 and 1730 to avoid confusion and errors. 

*  *  *

Below For the sake of local history, here are the 'all stops locals' between Bundoran Junction and Bundoran with abridged timetables showing only main cities. 

from: Bradshaw's Railway Guide; July 1922; Henry Blacklock & Co (reprint)

screencap from: The Great Northern Railway (Ireland); Edward Patterson; 1962, 2003; Oakwood Press. archive.org

Above: The improved Bundoran station offered a trainshed to protect the affluent Great Northern passengers drawn to the resort. There is a 'Station Road' in Bundoran today but no trace of the railway line or its buildings that I could find.

The station building was located where the library and local council offices now stand. The government of Northern Ireland cut off the sections of railway which crossed the border on 1 October 1957. The station was demolished after this change.

*  *  *

The Railways Lead the Way

As would happen in North America, the railway system of Britain began using standard time ...

Most British railways had adopted Greenwich Mean Time as their standard by 1848. 

As a result, the general public began to follow this standard. 

The Royal Observatory began broadcasting time signals by telegraph in 1852. 

GMT was legally recognized as the standard time for Britain in 1880.

*  *  *

Was Fleming Driven Mad at Bundoran?

Looking at short excerpts from Fleming's first paper on time ...

1876: His first paper is produced and circulated privately among selected colleagues 

... to avoid any in-public pranging of his novel system.

Here is some interesting Canadian history ...

(It's always been about 'you', Toronto!)

To people accustomed to a 'GMT' standard, or UTC, or 'military time' or Zulu time, the model is not hard to imagine. Fleming tries to avoid the appearance of favouritism by not anchoring his prime meridian to Britain at Greenwich. There were 11 or so other prime meridians used by other countries at the time and he was aware that too much nationalism would defeat the whole effort to develop a worldwide standard. 

Fleming's hour hand provides travellers, etc, with a graphic representation of the sun's apparent motion around the earth. So people constantly moving or thinking about different time zones could purchase a 24-hour chronometer which would key to the appropriate time zone. 

Although ... someone would have to engineer that new 24-hour timepiece.

On a few occasions, I attempted to fully understand the table above. There are perhaps some local idiosyncrasies of their historical local British time at the top of the chart? You get the general idea, at least.

Fleming is kind of struggling with a way to graphically portray the concept he is thinking of. As you'll see, his subsequent papers are less concerned about over-engineered physical technology. 

Instead, his ideas find support from other diverse professions which are also experiencing difficulties created by fast, modern worldwide telegraphic and railroad connectedness. 

In contrast, the reckoning of time had never slipped into its sandals and walked away from the high noon shadow on a sundial.

A link to the whole paper at archive.org

Terrestrial Time - A Memoir

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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