A lecture on how railways standardised the clock

Argument, tone and inference

1. b) How a shared national time replaced local timeShe explains how standard time came about, partly because of railways.
2. c) Journeys were so slow that small differences were not noticedA coach took days, so a few minutes of disagreement was lost along the way.
3. b) It showed both times truthfully but confused everyoneIt displayed both local and London time honestly, which made reading it difficult; the remark is ironic.
4. c) A timetable requires everyone to share one clockA promise made in minutes only works if everyone counts minutes by the same clock.
5. b) No law required them to change, and some were proud or suspiciousThe arrangement had no legal force, so towns were free to refuse, some out of pride or stubbornness.
6. c) It could send the exact time to every station at onceShe says a signal along the wires could carry the exact time from an observatory to all stations.
7. b) A shared experience tied to a place and a skyShe says local noon was a shared experience tied to place and sky.
8. c) It becomes so familiar that it seems always to have existedPeople soon said the clock had always been like that, so the invention was no longer seen as new.

Key details

1. ten / 10She says Bristol ran roughly ten minutes behind.
2. fourteen / 14She says Exeter ran about fourteen minutes behind.
3. 1840 / eighteen fortyThe company adopted London time in eighteen forty.
4. 1880 / eighteen eightyShe says it was in eighteen eighty.
5. sunTowns set their clocks by the sun.
6. minuteIt was fitted with two minute hands.

Doctor Marsh: Today I want to talk about something so ordinary that we have stopped noticing it: the fact that, in this country, a clock in the north and a clock in the south agree. This was not always so, and the story of how it came about is, I think, a small masterpiece of unintended consequences.

Doctor Marsh: Until the middle of the nineteenth century, every town set its clocks by the sun. Noon was whenever the sun stood highest overhead, and since the sun reaches that point later as one travels west, Bristol ran roughly ten minutes behind London, and Exeter about fourteen. Nobody found this alarming. A coach took days to complete a journey, and a few minutes of disagreement between two distant towns was simply lost on the road.

Doctor Marsh: The railways changed that, not because anybody wished to reform timekeeping, but because a timetable is a promise made in minutes. A train that left London at nine could hardly arrive at a western station by a clock that insisted it was ten past. Passengers missed trains they had reached early. Station staff kept two sets of times. At least one famous clock in the west of England was fitted with two minute hands, one for local time and one for London time, which must have made it the most honest and least useful instrument in the county.

Doctor Marsh: Consider the practical difficulty. A traveller arriving from a town further east would find that the station clock disagreed with the church clock, which in turn disagreed with the jeweller's window, and each of these authorities had its defenders. Shopkeepers, in particular, were reluctant to alter hours that their customers had always understood.

Doctor Marsh: One company adopted London time along its whole line in eighteen forty, and others followed over the next few years. Yet the arrangement had no legal force. For decades a town could set its own time and be perfectly entitled to do so, and some did, out of pride, or stubbornness, or a suspicion that the capital was getting above itself. It was only in eighteen eighty that a law made one standard time official throughout the country. The telegraph helped enormously, since a signal sent along the wires could carry the exact time from an observatory to every station at once.

Doctor Marsh: It would be tempting to call this progress and leave it there. But notice what was surrendered. Local noon had been a shared experience, tied to a place and a sky. Standard time replaced it with an agreement, and agreements are only as strong as the habits that sustain them. Within a generation, people were saying that the clock had always been like that, which is exactly how an invention succeeds: by being forgotten as one.

Doctor Marsh: So the next time you glance at your watch, spare a thought for the passengers who missed trains they had reached early. They paid, in a very literal way, for a convenience you take entirely for granted.