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Constructing the ‘automatic’ Greenwich time system: George Biddell Airy and the telegraphic distribution of time, c.1852–1880

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2019

YUTO ISHIBASHI
YUTO ISHIBASHI*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Letters, Chuo University, Japan. Email: [email protected].
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Abstract

In the context of the telegraphic distribution of Greenwich time, while the early experiments, the roles of successive Astronomers Royal in its expansion, and its impacts on the standardization of time in Victorian Britain have all been evaluated, the attempts of George Biddell Airy and his collaborators in constructing the Royal Observatory's time signals as the authoritative source of standard time have been underexplored within the existing historical literature. This paper focuses on the wide-ranging activities of Airy, his assistant astronomers, telegraph engineers, clockmakers and others, which served to increase the reliability of the Royal Observatory's time service between the 1850s and 1870s. Airy and his collaborators aimed to mechanize and automate their telegraphic time distribution system in order to improve its accuracy and reliability. The accomplishment of such technological innovations was disseminated via public lectures, journal articles and correspondence with experts, secondary distributors of standard time and the general public. These communications were used to build public trust in the Greenwich time service. However, the unexplored archival material used in the present paper provides fresh insight into the unstable nature of the Greenwich time system, including its clear limits in terms of its scale of automation and degree of accuracy.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , March 2020 , pp. 25 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 2019

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Charlotte Sleigh, Amanda Rees and the two anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions and assistance in improving this paper. An earlier version of the paper was presented at the British Society for the History of Science annual conference at the University of St Andrews. The author is grateful to the members of the audience for their constructive comments. This work is supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research).

References

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59 Letter, George Airy to B.B. Stoney, 1 November 1866, RGO 6/616/29.

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61 Letter, George Airy to Edwin Clark, 17 June 1853, RGO 6/611/219–220. For the measurement of time the maker might bring a chronometer to the Strand.

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63 George Airy, ‘Notice to chronometer maker and to the public’, 20 August 1853, RGO 6/611/263.

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