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Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea Medal: Greenwich Meridian Established
Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea Medal: Greenwich Meridian Established
Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea Medal: Greenwich Meridian Established
Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea Medal: Greenwich Meridian Established

Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea Medal: Greenwich Meridian Established

Associated (Frogmore House, Windsor, England, 1900 - 1979)
Medallist
DateMay 2004
Object NameMedal
MediumSterling Silver
ClassificationsMedals
LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub
Object numberABDMS072500.69
About MeThe year 1884 marked the adoption at an international conference in Washington of the 'meridian passing through the transit instrument of the Observatory of Greenwich as the initial meridian of longitude.' The idea of a standard time system is a very modern one, made possible in practice only by the development of electronic communications systems.

As late as the 1830s Great Britain herself, for instance, did not have a uniform system of time keeping. Each area had its own local time roughly based on the solar time at the nearest large town. This did not matter much when the fastest communication was by horse, or coastal sailing ship; but the development of the railway system in the mid-19th century brought the problem of time to the fore.

The railways were unsuccessful in persuading the Government to adopt a standard time for the whole country, so they operated on the time at Greenwich and many stations had two clocks, one showing local time and the other Greenwich time. Not until 1880 did Greenwich time become the official time of Great Britain, and even then numerous different standard times continued to exist in different countries, a situation which was very inconvenient in the era of the electric telegraph, the international railway system and the steamship.

This inconvenience led to a move for an internationally accepted time and longitude system. At the Washington Conference of 1884 it was agreed to establish the world's standard time system on Greenwich time and adopt the Greenwich Observatory meridian as the prime meridian of the world. The Old Royal Observatory buildings are now part of the National Maritime Museum; and the transit instrument, still the basis of the world's time system, is seen by over a million visitors from all world each year.

The Mountbatten Medallic History of Great Britain and the Sea, John Pinches Medallists Ltd.

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