0:00:04 > 0:00:07This is Perranporth, north Cornwall, where the local time,
0:00:07 > 0:00:10according to this sundial, is 9am.
0:00:17 > 0:00:19But my watch, set to
0:00:19 > 0:00:22Greenwich Mean Time, says it's 21 minutes later.
0:00:22 > 0:00:23So, which one's right?
0:00:27 > 0:00:28The answer is both of them.
0:00:28 > 0:00:32Until, that is, the Victorians came along and did this.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39Railways changed everything.
0:00:39 > 0:00:40The way we worked, the way we
0:00:40 > 0:00:43played, and even the way we told the time.
0:00:47 > 0:00:51Before trains, our country was made up of different local time zones,
0:00:51 > 0:00:53not ideal for running a national network.
0:00:56 > 0:00:59The rail companies wanted Britain to step to a new beat,
0:00:59 > 0:01:02creating a precise world of timetables and schedules,
0:01:02 > 0:01:04but this would be no easy ride.
0:01:04 > 0:01:08Not everyone was so keen to keep time with the new age of steam.
0:01:27 > 0:01:31Stations are remarkable places, bristling with energy,
0:01:31 > 0:01:34everybody going somewhere, all in a hurry.
0:01:37 > 0:01:41At the heart of things here at Paddington Station is this,
0:01:41 > 0:01:45the clock - essential not just for passengers rushing to catch trains,
0:01:45 > 0:01:47but for the whole railway network.
0:01:47 > 0:01:50Without accurate timekeeping, railways just don't work.
0:01:52 > 0:01:57And so it was for the Victorians, who built most of our railways.
0:01:57 > 0:01:59Before they could get our trains to run on time,
0:01:59 > 0:02:01they had to master time itself.
0:02:03 > 0:02:05At the start of the 19th century,
0:02:05 > 0:02:07the time in your town would vary
0:02:07 > 0:02:10compared with the time in the next town.
0:02:10 > 0:02:12You'd be woken by the sun, essentially.
0:02:12 > 0:02:16There was no real problem with that, because travelling was slow.
0:02:16 > 0:02:20There was no such thing as fast telecommunications,
0:02:20 > 0:02:23so you'd keep your time in your town and that was fine.
0:02:24 > 0:02:28And since the fastest way of getting from A to B was a mail coach,
0:02:28 > 0:02:33top speed about 10mph, this muddled system didn't matter.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40But by the mid-1830s, Britain wanted to go faster,
0:02:40 > 0:02:42so they turned to people like
0:02:42 > 0:02:44Isambard Kingdom Brunel to make that happen.
0:02:44 > 0:02:48- ANNOUNCEMENT:- 11:06 Great Western railway service to Plymouth...
0:02:52 > 0:02:55Brunel was commissioned by a group of Bristol businessmen to create
0:02:55 > 0:02:58a railway to rival those up North,
0:02:58 > 0:03:00but they didn't just want any old railway,
0:03:00 > 0:03:02they wanted the fastest railway in the world.
0:03:07 > 0:03:10Today's Great Western Railway follows exactly the same route
0:03:10 > 0:03:13as he laid out, and I'm taking the train to Bristol.
0:03:21 > 0:03:25So, Eleni, Brunel was tasked with developing a railway that was fast
0:03:25 > 0:03:28and a smooth ride, but what was his starting point?
0:03:28 > 0:03:32Brunel was already thinking about the railways from the early 1830s.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35He could actually draw a perfect circle, and in 1831,
0:03:35 > 0:03:38when he rides on the Liverpool and Manchester railway,
0:03:38 > 0:03:40he tries to see how he can draw that perfect circle,
0:03:40 > 0:03:42as you can see here in his sketchbook,
0:03:42 > 0:03:44to test the smoothness of the line.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47Well, you can see from this drawing it's not particularly smooth at all,
0:03:47 > 0:03:50obviously, cos his circles are all over the place.
0:03:50 > 0:03:54But how did he actually make this railway of his fast and smooth?
0:03:54 > 0:03:56Well, Brunel decided to take a step away from what the other railways
0:03:56 > 0:03:58were trying to achieve,
0:03:58 > 0:04:00so the Great Western Railway was going to be about passengers,
0:04:00 > 0:04:02but also about speed and efficiency.
0:04:02 > 0:04:07So Brunel implemented a network of bridges, viaducts, tunnels
0:04:07 > 0:04:10in order to ensure the smoothness
0:04:10 > 0:04:13and the speed of this innovative railway.
0:04:15 > 0:04:18Brunel's line was fast, with its smooth level route
0:04:18 > 0:04:23and powerful locomotives like the Firefly and Iron Duke,
0:04:23 > 0:04:26speeds of 50mph became routine.
0:04:28 > 0:04:30But there was a catch.
0:04:30 > 0:04:34Since British towns and cities all kept their own local time,
0:04:34 > 0:04:36the further west you went, the
0:04:36 > 0:04:38further back you had to set your watch.
0:04:38 > 0:04:40Not a problem when the mail coach
0:04:40 > 0:04:43took all day to complete its journey,
0:04:43 > 0:04:46but now, with London to Bristol in four hours,
0:04:46 > 0:04:48things started to get very confusing.
0:04:50 > 0:04:52So, the engineers encountered something of a problem
0:04:52 > 0:04:54crossing time zones?
0:04:54 > 0:04:56That's right, and Brunel seems to be aware of that.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59There is a note in his fact book during the period when he's working
0:04:59 > 0:05:00on the Great Western Railway
0:05:00 > 0:05:03where there is a note indicating all the different stations,
0:05:03 > 0:05:07all the way from Paddington to Exeter, alongside the Greenwich time
0:05:07 > 0:05:09and the time difference alongside those cities.
0:05:09 > 0:05:12So crossing these different time zones basically means that you're
0:05:12 > 0:05:15going to have to adjust your time to meet the time of the place
0:05:15 > 0:05:18where you arrive at. That's totally confusing, isn't it?
0:05:18 > 0:05:21It's very confusing. You're basically going back in time,
0:05:21 > 0:05:24and it does not really fit in or satisfy Brunel's vision for this
0:05:24 > 0:05:26innovative, wonderful railway.
0:05:28 > 0:05:31It was a muddle, but the solution was simple.
0:05:31 > 0:05:34The whole of Brunel's railway adopted one time zone
0:05:34 > 0:05:37taking its time from Greenwich in London,
0:05:37 > 0:05:39established by King Charles II as
0:05:39 > 0:05:41the home of timekeeping and navigation.
0:05:45 > 0:05:48So, by the time the last part of the Great Western Railway was opened
0:05:48 > 0:05:51here to Bristol in June 1841,
0:05:51 > 0:05:54the train arriving and the station it was arriving at
0:05:54 > 0:05:56were perfectly synchronised.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00The idea was soon taken up by other companies,
0:06:00 > 0:06:03and railway time was born.
0:06:07 > 0:06:11But keeping the network in sync with Greenwich was no easy task.
0:06:12 > 0:06:14In the early days, there was no electric telegraph,
0:06:14 > 0:06:16there was no electric clocks,
0:06:16 > 0:06:21so it would've been carried by specially made and well-guarded
0:06:21 > 0:06:25pocket watch carried by mail guards on the trains.
0:06:31 > 0:06:34However, running a railway on one single time zone
0:06:34 > 0:06:36created a new problem.
0:06:36 > 0:06:40Stations were now out of sync with the towns and cities they were in.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44A confusion exposed the every first time the London train
0:06:44 > 0:06:45arrived at Bristol.
0:06:47 > 0:06:50A party of Bristol dignitaries was supposed to meet the passengers
0:06:50 > 0:06:51arriving off the train,
0:06:51 > 0:06:55but with their watches set to Bristol rather than London time,
0:06:55 > 0:06:57they arrived ten minutes too late.
0:06:57 > 0:06:58They'd missed the train.
0:07:05 > 0:07:08The solution was that was so bizarre you'd be forgiven for thinking
0:07:08 > 0:07:10it was April Fool's Day.
0:07:15 > 0:07:19A clock. A clock with two minute hands. One set to London time,
0:07:19 > 0:07:21the other to Bristol time,
0:07:21 > 0:07:23ten minutes and 23 seconds behind London.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29Today, the clock still shows Greenwich Mean Time in red
0:07:29 > 0:07:32and Bristol time in black.
0:07:34 > 0:07:38This is a quality clock built as a regulator, it was made in 1819.
0:07:38 > 0:07:40It's got quite a number of wheels,
0:07:40 > 0:07:42rather more wheels than a clock would normally have.
0:07:42 > 0:07:44The reason being you've got bigger pinions,
0:07:44 > 0:07:48which are the small gear wheels, and that means there's less friction,
0:07:48 > 0:07:53so less friction means it can be a better timekeeper.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56It's got another feature - there's a maintainer, as it's called,
0:07:56 > 0:07:59so that when you wind up the clock it'll keep it running so it doesn't
0:07:59 > 0:08:01lose a few minutes while you wind it up,
0:08:01 > 0:08:04and people would have relied on this as this was the one that was chosen
0:08:04 > 0:08:08to represent the time, local time in Bristol.
0:08:08 > 0:08:12For a 200-year-old clock... Well, almost 200-year-old,
0:08:12 > 0:08:14does it still keep good time?
0:08:14 > 0:08:18It keeps as good time as any pendulum clock can.
0:08:18 > 0:08:20It'll be within half a minute a week,
0:08:20 > 0:08:23which, in this day and age, you may not think is particularly good
0:08:23 > 0:08:26timekeeping, but that was pretty outstanding at the time,
0:08:26 > 0:08:30and the double minute hand was because, when the railway came to
0:08:30 > 0:08:33Bristol - that was 1841 - the railway ran on Greenwich time,
0:08:33 > 0:08:35so anyone who wanted to catch the
0:08:35 > 0:08:37train in Bristol relying on local time,
0:08:37 > 0:08:41which this clock would've shown as the important main Bristol public
0:08:41 > 0:08:44timekeeper, they would arrive for the train just over ten minutes too
0:08:44 > 0:08:46late, and if the train was on time, well, tough.
0:08:48 > 0:08:52So, the solution was, a year later, to add an additional minute hand,
0:08:52 > 0:08:55so one showed local time and the other showed railway time.
0:09:00 > 0:09:02As absurd as it seems now,
0:09:02 > 0:09:06having the clock with two minute hands was quite a canny solution,
0:09:06 > 0:09:07but it also exposed Britain's
0:09:07 > 0:09:09increasingly chaotic approach to time.
0:09:15 > 0:09:19Things weren't much easier for those who had mastered railway time.
0:09:19 > 0:09:23Negotiating the right train meant using baffling time sheets,
0:09:23 > 0:09:25like this one, with endless variations
0:09:25 > 0:09:27published by different railway companies.
0:09:37 > 0:09:39But beyond the escalating confusion,
0:09:39 > 0:09:41there was help for the Victorian traveller
0:09:41 > 0:09:43in the form of Bradshaw's timetables.
0:09:54 > 0:09:58George Bradshaw was a Quaker and cartographer from Manchester.
0:09:58 > 0:10:03His little booklets of railway times, first published in 1839,
0:10:03 > 0:10:05would endure for 100 years.
0:10:09 > 0:10:13What he realised is that there was a need for a compendium
0:10:13 > 0:10:17of all of these timing sheets for the benefit of the public.
0:10:17 > 0:10:21They were known as companions and they were made small enough,
0:10:21 > 0:10:26very small, so that it was possible for the purchaser just to pop it
0:10:26 > 0:10:29into their pocket or into their handbag or what-have-you.
0:10:29 > 0:10:31Were they easy to use?
0:10:31 > 0:10:36What made it much easier to use was that Bradshaw introduced a new form
0:10:36 > 0:10:42of presentation - a time table - and the timetable used two axes.
0:10:42 > 0:10:46The Y axis was the list of the stations,
0:10:46 > 0:10:49and then along the X axis was the actual time.
0:10:49 > 0:10:53The main benefit, of course, was in connections.
0:10:53 > 0:10:56So, if you had to change trains then you could do that in the knowledge
0:10:56 > 0:11:00that the train would arrive at a particular time and then you had
0:11:00 > 0:11:01a certain number of minutes to catch
0:11:01 > 0:11:04your next train on to your destination.
0:11:04 > 0:11:07How popular were Bradshaw's companions?
0:11:07 > 0:11:11They were very popular, because it was the one source that people could
0:11:11 > 0:11:15obtain knowledge about the developing railway system,
0:11:15 > 0:11:19because the routes that were being added in the late 1830s and all the
0:11:19 > 0:11:22way through the 1840s was quite astonishing.
0:11:22 > 0:11:26Then the little companion became extremely helpful
0:11:26 > 0:11:29and it grew with time.
0:11:29 > 0:11:32This is one of the very, very earliest ones, it's very thin.
0:11:33 > 0:11:35You just take it down to 1844 and you can see...
0:11:35 > 0:11:38- That's more than double.- It's more than double in thickness.
0:11:38 > 0:11:41That reflects the opening of so many railways
0:11:41 > 0:11:44during the course of those few years.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50Having expanded so fast, the network was finding itself stretched,
0:11:50 > 0:11:53and the service often fell short of what was in the book.
0:11:54 > 0:11:57What were people's reactions when there were delays?
0:11:57 > 0:12:00I think they were just as grumpy then as we are today,
0:12:00 > 0:12:02I mean, inevitably.
0:12:02 > 0:12:07Whereas before the railways came, time wasn't actually very important.
0:12:07 > 0:12:12People lived their lives without constant reference to clocks and
0:12:12 > 0:12:16watches, but as soon as you introduce timetables,
0:12:16 > 0:12:19strict timetables, then people's expectations rose.
0:12:19 > 0:12:22They expected that if a train is going to leave at 11,
0:12:22 > 0:12:23that it leaves at 11,
0:12:23 > 0:12:26and if it arrives at 12, that it will arrive at 12.
0:12:31 > 0:12:34Loved, hated, frequently satirised,
0:12:34 > 0:12:39Bradshaw's companions became firmly embedded in Victorian culture.
0:12:39 > 0:12:42Even Charles Dickens complained that...
0:12:42 > 0:12:45'The smallest child in the neighbourhood who can tell the clock
0:12:45 > 0:12:49'is now convinced it hasn't the time to say "20 minutes to 12",
0:12:49 > 0:12:52'but comes back and jerks out like a little Bradshaw,
0:12:53 > 0:12:54"11:40".'
0:12:58 > 0:13:00Bradshaw's timetables are a beautiful example
0:13:00 > 0:13:04of a Victorian Britain that was efficient and perfectly
0:13:04 > 0:13:07synchronised. Of course, this was far from the truth.
0:13:08 > 0:13:12While rail companies were choosing to follow Greenwich Mean Time during
0:13:12 > 0:13:14the 1840s, beyond the railways,
0:13:14 > 0:13:18Britain was still a hotchpotch of different time zones.
0:13:19 > 0:13:23One man determined to sort this mess out was another railway pioneer,
0:13:23 > 0:13:24Henry Booth.
0:13:26 > 0:13:29Having established Greenwich Mean Time on his railway,
0:13:29 > 0:13:31the Liverpool and Manchester line,
0:13:31 > 0:13:35Booth felt that the whole of society would benefit from one unified time,
0:13:35 > 0:13:38so he took his case to Parliament.
0:13:39 > 0:13:43So, this pamphlet that he created and sent to his MP
0:13:43 > 0:13:45was quite humorous and also quite patriotic
0:13:45 > 0:13:48in terms of its sort of rallying cry and vision.
0:13:48 > 0:13:52He talked about the "mighty people" of Great Britain
0:13:52 > 0:13:54really, sort of, being unified.
0:13:54 > 0:13:57It contained some of the funny situations of travelling east
0:13:57 > 0:13:59to west that the timetables of the time,
0:13:59 > 0:14:03the Bradshaw's timetables that were so frequently used...
0:14:03 > 0:14:07It looked like it was a quicker journey travelling from east to west
0:14:07 > 0:14:08than it was from west to east.
0:14:08 > 0:14:11And that's obviously preposterous.
0:14:11 > 0:14:15And so he highlighted this by saying that the Bradshaws
0:14:15 > 0:14:17were the standard for the whole country
0:14:17 > 0:14:19and yet so many facts and fallacies were intermingled,
0:14:19 > 0:14:22that it was just not worth the paper it was written on.
0:14:23 > 0:14:26And then he talks a bit about his vision for the country,
0:14:26 > 0:14:30so he says that he wanted the bells of St Paul's to ring out at
0:14:30 > 0:14:32one o'clock in the afternoon,
0:14:32 > 0:14:36for the bells to also ring out in England, Wales and Scotland.
0:14:39 > 0:14:41For many people, it didn't really matter.
0:14:41 > 0:14:43They were quite happy with the convenience that it brought,
0:14:43 > 0:14:47the ease of use of railway timetables, for instance,
0:14:47 > 0:14:49but for some people it did matter,
0:14:49 > 0:14:52because actually the time on our clocks is more
0:14:52 > 0:14:54than just a convenience.
0:14:54 > 0:14:58You know, there's politics involved here as well, and so if you...
0:14:59 > 0:15:03If you're quite proud, if you're a proud city or a proud nation later,
0:15:03 > 0:15:08the idea of somebody else's time regulating your business might seem
0:15:08 > 0:15:13to be a little bit... A little bit off, a little bit unacceptable.
0:15:13 > 0:15:16So, for some people it felt a little bit like what was sometimes called
0:15:16 > 0:15:19railway aggression - the idea that, you know,
0:15:19 > 0:15:22the metropolis could bring their time and we march to their beat.
0:15:24 > 0:15:29Booth's proposals for standardising time met with resistance.
0:15:29 > 0:15:33By 1851, over ten years on from the initial introduction
0:15:33 > 0:15:35of Greenwich time on railways,
0:15:35 > 0:15:38many cities were still proudly refusing to update
0:15:38 > 0:15:41their local time to match. Cities like Exeter.
0:15:43 > 0:15:46Here, a group of powerful businessmen, led by the mayor,
0:15:46 > 0:15:49signed a petition calling for Greenwich Mean Time
0:15:49 > 0:15:51to replace Exeter local time, some
0:15:51 > 0:15:5414 minutes and 12 seconds behind London.
0:15:57 > 0:16:01But they faced opposition from an altogether higher power.
0:16:01 > 0:16:04In Exeter, timekeeping was a Church matter.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07The city set its watches by the cathedral bell,
0:16:07 > 0:16:10which stuck rigidly to local time.
0:16:10 > 0:16:11CHURCH BELL CHIMES
0:16:22 > 0:16:26So, this is the clock by which Exeter time was set.
0:16:26 > 0:16:31Indeed, this is our wonderful medieval astronomical clock which
0:16:31 > 0:16:33has the Earth at the centre.
0:16:33 > 0:16:36It's a fabulous survivor from the Middle Ages.
0:16:36 > 0:16:38And it's famous for another reason, isn't it?
0:16:38 > 0:16:40Well, yes, it's said that this is where the nursery rhyme
0:16:40 > 0:16:43Hickory-Dickory-Dock comes from, because there's access
0:16:43 > 0:16:45up to the back of the clock which a mouse could easily do
0:16:45 > 0:16:48to eat the fat off the ropes and things,
0:16:48 > 0:16:51and there's a cat flap at the bottom to enable the cat to go chase it,
0:16:51 > 0:16:53and the cathedral kept a cat for that purpose.
0:16:53 > 0:16:56But that was the key clock in Exeter,
0:16:56 > 0:16:58from which all other clocks took their time.
0:16:58 > 0:17:01And it was decided in court that this was
0:17:01 > 0:17:03the official timepiece for Exeter.
0:17:03 > 0:17:07And was there a particular legal case that established who had the
0:17:07 > 0:17:08right to the time?
0:17:08 > 0:17:12Well, sort of. There was a case about a woman coming of age and,
0:17:12 > 0:17:17because the cathedral clock was 14 minutes later than Greenwich time,
0:17:17 > 0:17:21as it was called then, the case went to court to decide when she came of
0:17:21 > 0:17:23age, and it was decided that this
0:17:23 > 0:17:26was legally the official timepiece for Exeter.
0:17:26 > 0:17:29And they really took it so seriously as to go to court?
0:17:29 > 0:17:30Very seriously.
0:17:30 > 0:17:33Churches have always been the keepers of time
0:17:33 > 0:17:34in a lot of respects.
0:17:36 > 0:17:38But with the arrival of the railway,
0:17:38 > 0:17:42the cathedral's monopoly on time was coming under fire.
0:17:45 > 0:17:48I've got a letter here from the town clerk of the city,
0:17:48 > 0:17:51dated October 1851.
0:17:52 > 0:17:55"Resolved that the Mayor be requested to confer
0:17:55 > 0:17:56"with the Dean and Chapter
0:17:56 > 0:18:00"on the propriety of altering the clocks of the city
0:18:00 > 0:18:03"so that they indicate Greenwich time."
0:18:03 > 0:18:05It's quite short and to the point, isn't it?
0:18:05 > 0:18:06Very short and to the point.
0:18:06 > 0:18:09So, what was the Dean's response to this?
0:18:09 > 0:18:11Well, Deans are very good at resisting pressure,
0:18:11 > 0:18:14and the Dean at the time did exactly that.
0:18:14 > 0:18:17Just held out for a while after that.
0:18:17 > 0:18:18But effectively just said no.
0:18:22 > 0:18:24The standoff would drag on for a whole year
0:18:24 > 0:18:28until the arrival of another great innovation of the industrial age -
0:18:28 > 0:18:30the electric telegraph.
0:18:35 > 0:18:39This had been evolving hand-in-hand with the new railways,
0:18:39 > 0:18:43but now, and for years to come, it's importance became truly apparent
0:18:43 > 0:18:46through the impact it had on safety,
0:18:46 > 0:18:48like here on the South Devon Railway,
0:18:48 > 0:18:50a branch-line of the Great Western.
0:18:55 > 0:18:57If you go right back to the early days of signalling,
0:18:57 > 0:18:59they used to use policemen.
0:18:59 > 0:19:02A signalman to this day is still nicknamed Bobby.
0:19:02 > 0:19:06And they would stand at the edge of a track like this, with their flag,
0:19:06 > 0:19:09and they would actually control trains going in.
0:19:09 > 0:19:11This was referred to as the time interval system.
0:19:11 > 0:19:15You let one train go and then you wouldn't let another one go
0:19:15 > 0:19:18until a certain period of time had elapsed.
0:19:18 > 0:19:22Which was all very well as long as the one in front didn't, erm...
0:19:22 > 0:19:24didn't stop for some reason, which sometimes they did,
0:19:24 > 0:19:25and hence you got accidents.
0:19:28 > 0:19:32Fatal crashes had become so commonplace that they threatened the
0:19:32 > 0:19:34future of the railways.
0:19:34 > 0:19:36But now the electric telegraph would come to the rescue.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42In 1838, a pilot section ran along 13 miles
0:19:42 > 0:19:46of the Great Western Railway from London.
0:19:47 > 0:19:51It was so successful it was soon rolled out across the country,
0:19:51 > 0:19:53and the legacy of that network is still in operation.
0:19:59 > 0:20:03Signalmen, like Frank, use a complex language of bell codes
0:20:03 > 0:20:07triggered by the telegraph to communicate with other signal boxes
0:20:07 > 0:20:08down the line.
0:20:11 > 0:20:14So, Frank, once the telegraph was established,
0:20:14 > 0:20:16how much of a difference did it really make?
0:20:16 > 0:20:18It made a tremendous amount of difference.
0:20:18 > 0:20:23It would be virtually impossible to run the system we do now without
0:20:23 > 0:20:24communication of some sort.
0:20:24 > 0:20:27The whole history of signalling on the rail,
0:20:27 > 0:20:30particularly the Tyer's electric token,
0:20:30 > 0:20:32which is still in use here today.
0:20:33 > 0:20:36There are three safeguards to ensure that this happens.
0:20:36 > 0:20:40One is that you get a thing called a token from the instrument
0:20:40 > 0:20:42in the signal box.
0:20:44 > 0:20:47The driver must carry that. That's golden rule number one.
0:20:57 > 0:21:01Secondly, you have fixed signals to control the movements of trains.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12Third thing is, although the driver is driving the engine,
0:21:12 > 0:21:15the person in charge of the train is the guard,
0:21:15 > 0:21:19and he also has a duty to monitor the operation of signals
0:21:19 > 0:21:23and if he sees the driver going past a red light
0:21:23 > 0:21:25he can put the brake on from his van, completely independent.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28Those three things between them, basically,
0:21:28 > 0:21:30are what guarantees safety on a single line.
0:21:30 > 0:21:31WHISTLE BLOWS
0:21:39 > 0:21:43The telegraph undoubtedly made railway travel safer
0:21:43 > 0:21:46and it made it faster, but it was where the telegraph would go next
0:21:46 > 0:21:49that would leave an even longer-lasting legacy.
0:21:53 > 0:21:55In 1844,
0:21:55 > 0:21:59a wonderfully eccentric five-needle telegraph had brought news of the
0:21:59 > 0:22:04birth of Queen Victoria's fourth child, one letter at a time.
0:22:07 > 0:22:09And a year later, a murderer,
0:22:09 > 0:22:13John Torwell, absconding by train, was caught when a description of him
0:22:13 > 0:22:15was sent down the line to Paddington.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20The public marvelled at what the newspapers called
0:22:20 > 0:22:21"the electric constable".
0:22:26 > 0:22:30Soon even clocks were being controlled via the telegraph,
0:22:30 > 0:22:32synchronising them with Greenwich.
0:22:33 > 0:22:36This was revolutionary and radical,
0:22:36 > 0:22:40and when the electric telegraph started distributing time signals
0:22:40 > 0:22:41along the railway network,
0:22:41 > 0:22:46it was harder and harder for the people to resist this advance,
0:22:46 > 0:22:51if you like, of railway time, London time, Greenwich time.
0:22:51 > 0:22:56And it became more and more widely used in correcting public clocks.
0:22:59 > 0:23:03The telegraph was driving forward the timekeeping revolution
0:23:03 > 0:23:04that the railways had begun.
0:23:07 > 0:23:11In Exeter, the cathedral finally lost its monopoly on time.
0:23:11 > 0:23:14The city wound its clocks forward 14 minutes,
0:23:14 > 0:23:17and Exeter local time was lost forever.
0:23:22 > 0:23:25As the telegraph followed the growing railway network,
0:23:25 > 0:23:29the march toward one standard time picked up pace.
0:23:29 > 0:23:33What's more, the British public could communicate like never before.
0:23:35 > 0:23:39What had taken days by mail coach, and hours by train,
0:23:39 > 0:23:41was now almost instantaneous.
0:23:44 > 0:23:48By the end of the century there would be 15,000 telegraph sets like
0:23:48 > 0:23:52this one, sending an early version of text messages across the country.
0:23:59 > 0:24:03Now it would leap beyond our shores to cross oceans and continents,
0:24:03 > 0:24:06as Britain fought to maintain and grow her empire.
0:24:10 > 0:24:14A worldwide network of undersea cables was laid from Porthcurno
0:24:14 > 0:24:19in Cornwall, connected to telegraph lines that traced British railways
0:24:19 > 0:24:20across colonial territories.
0:24:24 > 0:24:27So, when was the overseas telegraph connection to Porthcurno?
0:24:27 > 0:24:29When did that happen?
0:24:29 > 0:24:31Well, that came in in 1870,
0:24:31 > 0:24:37and that link was from Porthcurno to Carcavelos, just outside Lisbon,
0:24:37 > 0:24:42and that was part of a chain that then went on through Gibraltar,
0:24:42 > 0:24:44Malta, through the Mediterranean,
0:24:44 > 0:24:48and eventually right out to what was then called Bombay in India.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51Up until that point, communication from this country to India
0:24:51 > 0:24:55or, indeed, any other part of the British empire,
0:24:55 > 0:24:57could take six or eight weeks.
0:24:57 > 0:25:00The electric telegraph and the undersea communication
0:25:00 > 0:25:04meant that this country could communicate
0:25:04 > 0:25:06with India in nine minutes.
0:25:07 > 0:25:10And, of course, that radically changed the way in which
0:25:10 > 0:25:13this country controlled the empire.
0:25:15 > 0:25:19In its heyday, there were 14 cables that connected to other parts of the
0:25:19 > 0:25:23world, and it was the hub of communication for this country,
0:25:23 > 0:25:25for the British empire,
0:25:25 > 0:25:28and really one of the most important cable stations in the world.
0:25:31 > 0:25:34Communication, spread through the telegraph,
0:25:34 > 0:25:37brought even greater control across the empire
0:25:37 > 0:25:40with infrastructure powered by British-built railways.
0:25:43 > 0:25:45And bringing the wealth back home,
0:25:45 > 0:25:49a merchant navy using Greenwich time as its standard.
0:25:53 > 0:25:59Finally, in 1880, 40 years after railway time was first used,
0:25:59 > 0:26:02the government passed the Definition Of Time Act...
0:26:04 > 0:26:07..and the time we have today was put into law.
0:26:12 > 0:26:15But that's not quite the whole story.
0:26:17 > 0:26:21In 1884, a huge conference in Washington DC,
0:26:21 > 0:26:25attended by very many countries in the world,
0:26:25 > 0:26:26came together to solve one problem,
0:26:26 > 0:26:30which was to choose a single prime meridian for the world.
0:26:30 > 0:26:33Now, Greenwich was chosen as that prime meridian after
0:26:33 > 0:26:35many, many days of discussions and arguments,
0:26:35 > 0:26:38and it certainly wasn't inevitable that Greenwich would've been chosen,
0:26:38 > 0:26:42but it was chosen because, actually for a very practical reason,
0:26:42 > 0:26:46that most of the charts used by ships on the seas at that time
0:26:46 > 0:26:49used Greenwich time as their meridian.
0:26:49 > 0:26:52Therefore, it inconvenienced the fewest people to use Greenwich
0:26:52 > 0:26:54for our prime meridian for the world.
0:26:54 > 0:26:59But, as with the use of Greenwich time for British towns and cities
0:26:59 > 0:27:01in the 1840s and 1850s,
0:27:01 > 0:27:04in the 1880s the use of Greenwich time for other countries
0:27:04 > 0:27:08looked to many like an act of aggression, an act of imperialism.
0:27:10 > 0:27:13And yet what looked aggressive was simply convenience,
0:27:13 > 0:27:17the result of power borne of an Industrial Revolution.
0:27:18 > 0:27:22From the railways to the telegraph to time itself.
0:27:25 > 0:27:27I think one thing that we can take form all of this
0:27:27 > 0:27:31is that you can't look at any technological network in isolation.
0:27:31 > 0:27:34So the building of telecommunications networks
0:27:34 > 0:27:36like the electric telegraph
0:27:36 > 0:27:40was intimately connected with the building of railway networks
0:27:40 > 0:27:41and then of steamship networks.
0:27:44 > 0:27:47It's not to say that it's just the railways that affected
0:27:47 > 0:27:50the development of time and communication,
0:27:50 > 0:27:52but it's to say that all three networks
0:27:52 > 0:27:54are absolutely closely connected.
0:27:58 > 0:28:00It's hard to imagine that once there
0:28:00 > 0:28:02were so many different versions of time.
0:28:02 > 0:28:07Nowadays, our lives are completely ruled by timetables and schedules.
0:28:07 > 0:28:11The railways sped up our lives and helped make Britain the rich and
0:28:11 > 0:28:13prosperous country it is today.
0:28:14 > 0:28:17They truly were the making of our
0:28:17 > 0:28:20nation and changed the world forever.