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THE GREENWICH MEAN TIME CLOCK
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THE GREENWICH MEAN TIME CLOCK.
Greenwich Mean Time was established when, the first Royal Observatory was commissioned by King Charles II, in Greenwich Park, southeast London in 1675 for that purpose. Built by Christopher Wren, King Charles appointed John Flamsteed to be the first Astronomer Royal.
The observatory, is located on top of a hill in the park, giving fantastic views of Greenwich Naval College (now part of the University of Greenwich)which occupies the site of Greenwich Palace.
GMT,(sometimes referred to as Greenwich Meridian Time) is the time standard against which all the other world time zones are referenced.
With the discovery of the "New World" in the fifteenth century and the need for accurate time keeping. The use of accurate time was of paramount importance to the navy, in order to aid navigation and to accurately determine the position of ships.
Although mariners had been able to determine their latitude, by measuring the sun's angle at noon. In order to determine their longitude, they needed a standard of time that would work on board a ship. Observing celestial motions,was not possible at sea,due to the ship's own motion. However, knowing Greenwich Mean Time, at the ship's local noon time, would then allow the navigator to use the time difference between the ship's position and the Greenwich Meridian, to calculate the ship's longitude.
John Harrison a Yorkshire carpenter, initially solved the problem between 1735 and 1761, with a time piece which could be used at sea. The chronometer had been invented.
The US Naval Observatory was set up in 1830, to co-operate with the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, in order to develope accurate timekeeping in the US navy.
Until the early nineteenth century, there had just been a local time system, whereby the major towns and cities had their own localised time, calibrated to local noon time.
With the invention and establishment of the railways in Britain, in the early nineteenth century, came the neccessity of a national time system.The world's first Time Zone was brought into being by British Railways on 11th December 1847, when they standardised the country's time system,by switching from local mean time to Greenwich Mean Time(GMT).
By the year 1855, most of Britain's public clocks had been synchronised using Greenwich Mean Time.
Greenwich, was conventionally considered to have longitude zero degrees and was internationally adopted at the International Meridian Conference, held in Washington, in October 1884 to determine the Prime Meridian of the world.
The Following Resolutions were Adopted by the Conference:
1) A single Prime Meridian for all nations.2) Adopted the meridian passing through the centre of the transit instrument at the Greenwich Observatory as the Prime Meridian for longitude.3)Longitude to be counted in two directions. East longitude being plus,west longitude minus.4) Adopted a universal day,for all purposes where it was to be found convenient.5) This universal day was to be a mean solar day; beginning for all the world at midnight at the Prime Meridian. Coinciding with the beginning of the civil day and date at that meridian, counted from zero up to twenty four hours.6) As soon as may be practicable, the astronomical and nautical days, should be arranged everywhere to begin at midnight.( During the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Britain had already moved the beginning of the nautical day from noon, twelve hours before midnight, to midnight)The astronomical day was moved from noon, twelve hours after midnight, to midnight on 1st January 1925 by the International Astronomical Union.
We advise as always, to please check opening times and what's on by visiting the National Maritime Museum website prior to planning your visit.
