‘Greenwich Observatory Time for the public benefit’: standard time and Victorian networks of regulation

Abstract

The widespread adoption of standard time in Britain took more than fifty years and simple public access to a representation of it took longer still. Whilst the railways and telegraph networks were crucial in the development of standardized time and time-distribution networks, very different contexts existed, from the Victorian period onwards, where time was significant in both its definition and its distribution. The moral drive to regulate and standardize aspects of daily life, from factory work to the sale of liquor, led to time being used as a tool for control. Yet, as a tool, it was problematic, both in its own regulation and in the regulation of its distribution. Companies such as the Standard Time Company, in creating businesses out of time distribution, found themselves at the heart of discussions of time and standards, acting, as they did, as a nexus between the nation's master timekeeper, the Royal Observatory, and London public houses, Lancashire cotton mills and myriad small businesses. We can see this network both literally, in electric wires, clocks, batteries and relays, and metaphorically, transmitting Victorian moral concerns of 'power ' and 'intelligence ' between imperial state and individual. Naturally enough, the network itself was as contested as the message it transmitted.

Review of periodical literature published in 2009

“…There was a wealth of articles considering technology, information, networks, and the state: Silberstein‐Loeb examines the development of the market for news in Britain after the nationalization of the telegraph, while Rooney and Nye explore how companies such as the Standard Time Company, established in 1876, made businesses out of time distribution via the telegraph network. Dobraszczyk argues for the importance of forms in the development of the information state, presenting a case study of the design of census schedules and their reception by the public in the nineteenth century.…”

At the ends of the line: How the Airy Transit Circle was gradually overshadowed by the Greenwich Prime Meridian

“…Such measurements give the position (or coordinates) of a celestial body, which help in locating and identifying them. The measurements made with the Airy Transit Circle were used for several other purposes too: as the basis for astronomical tables (such as the annually published Greenwich Observations) that recorded data about the motions of celestial bodies, as data for the Nautical Almanac to aid in the navigation of ships, as establishing geographical reference points for cartographers, and as the basis for the time signal distributed at local, national and global levels (Morus 2000;Rooney & Nye 2009;Ishibashi 2020). The Airy Transit Circle thus served as the starting point for producing time and space for the British Empire.…”