The Greenwich Time Lady
Visiting OnlineClock.net to get the precise time is a simple thing to do if you need to synchronize your clocks and watches; however, there was a period during the early part of the 20th century when getting the precise time was not an easy thing to accomplish.
Would you believe that at one time, you might have had to pay for the luxury of having the precise time? In fact, there was a woman in London who actually sold the time of day for a living. Granted, this may sound absurd to you, but selling time had been the family business for Ruth Belivlle for almost a century.
Selling the Time of Day
Ruth sold time to watchmakers and to anyone who wished to have the precise time. Like her grandfather and father before her, each week Ruth made a 12 mile trip to the Greenwich Royal Observatory to get the precise time by setting a silver-cased chronometer. The chronometer was affectionately named Arnold, and Ruth carried it with her to show it to her customers for a modest wage. For those of you who don’t know, a chronometer is a time piece that can be adjusted for a very high accuracy. Arnold was a very well-serviced pocket watch/chronometer that was made by a man named John Arnold in 1794, and is now on display at the Clockmakers’ Company Museum in Guildhall, London. Originally, Arnold was made with a gold case, but Ruth’s grandfather thought that the gold case could attract too much attention from the artful dodgers around London at the time. As a result, he had a silver case made in which to place the beloved Arnold inside.
David Rooney, curator of timekeeping at Greenwich’s Royal Observatory, wrote a book about the Belville family and how they constantly combated the changing times. The selling of time was once something that might have been understood before the telegraph was used to get the correct time, but Ruth sold time even after the telegraph was invented. She even sold time after a Speaking Clock was invented to keep time. Ruth weathered these developments and continued to knock on the doors of her customers delivering the precise time. Most of her customers went so far as to invite her inside for a cup of tea. Can you imagine making a living doing this? For the most part, Ruth had no trouble making her living this way for many years.
In Mr. Rooney’s book, Ruth Belville: The Greenwich Time Lady, the selling of time by the Belville family was previously a little-known story. Rooney states:
“It’s one of those stories that has only merited a couple of paragraphs in the histories of Greenwich and the Royal Observatory, and the only reference has been a fairly condescending suggestion that this service was carried on through tradition rather than necessity, but I don’t believe that people would pay good money for a service that didn’t work.”
Apparently, the battle for standardized time had become extremely bitter back then. In 1908, Ruth Belville became an irritant to the more ambitious commercial time companies. In an effort to get her and Arnold off the streets of London, one of these companies tried to make Ruth the victim of a dirty tricks campaign.
Ruth and her family had been given previous exclusive access to the Greenwich Royal Observatory for a very long time. Without this access, Arnold would most certainly lose the accuracy that Ruth guaranteed to her customers. The Standard Time Company had an interest in discontinuing Ruth’s access to the Royal Observatory. Mr. St. John Wynne, of the Standard Time Company, suggested that her link to the observatory was somehow improper. Mr. Wynne stated: “No mere man could get access to the esteemed guardians of the Greenwich Mean Time.” This said, in a proper English tone, was insinuating that Ruth was gaining access to the Greenwich Royal Observatory by performing select favors for the male time guardians (editor’s note: wow! this is really getting interesting 
). Mr. Wynne was publicly accusing Ruth of being perhaps one step above a harlot. Indeed, this was a bold, yet dirty move on his part. Ruth appeared unaffected by his accusation. You see, Ruth took a very sophisticated approach to publicity. She declined comment on such a low-blow by Mr. Wynne on behalf of his ambitious commercial time company.
As it turned out, Ruth was correct in her thinking. Mr. Wynne’s statements only served to bolster Ruth’s business. After all, she and her family had been keeping time for decades. Who was he to come along and accuse her of being an improper woman? If this had happened during more modern times, Mr. Wynne would’ve been sued for slander and loss of income, which would’ve cost him dearly. We shudder to think how much a nice, well-liked woman such as Ruth would’ve had to go through if people had believed Mr. Wynne. After all, in 1908 people were struggling to make enough money just to eat.
Ruth had been in and out of the households and businesses of many who could not afford a telegraph to keep accurate time, and with her help, watchmakers produced timepieces that displayed the precise time. The commoners who used her service celebrated the New Year at exactly midnight and not a second too early or too late when doing so. Everyone knew Ruth Belville and her family for such a long time. They would hardly believe that the proper, dowdy-looking Ruth would be promiscuous in any way. Certainly they could not imagine her using her feminine wiles in order to continue her access to the Greenwich Royal Observatory. The thought was simply ridiculous. It appeared to Ruth’s customers that Mr. Wynne was obviously making these statements over money.
Ruth Belville: she knew how to turn minutes into dough!
Ruth Belville was quite the smart lady. She knew that to continue to be successful she had to remain in the public eye, yet she had to be very careful of how that was done so as not to appear improper. Mr. Wynne had thrown out nasty, cutting words against her impeccable reputation. That was a mistake by Mr. Wynne, and a nice piece of free publicity for Ruth, since everyone saw right through what Mr. Wynne was trying to do to her. He wanted to put Ruth out of business, even if it meant that she would have no means of support after he cast her aside in the name of progress, and his commercial success. Setting aside Mr. Wynne’s antics, think about what Ruth had accomplished in her time. How could this woman, armed only with a pocket watch, weather the advances in technology and still maintain a robust business?
How the Selling of Time Continued Despite Technological Advancements
Author David Rooney outlined three strong reasons for her continued success at that time. He said:
“The first is that the technology worked – it was an 18th century pocket chronometer and it gave you the time to a 10th of a second. Even now that is very accurate. The chronometer was reliable and robust and could be maintained for 100-200 years – as long as you keep it serviced, it will keep going strong – and that’s what happened. The electric time services, which were more modern, were accurate to about a second and they often weren’t very reliable. Secondly, Ruth’s services didn’t need any maintenance or infrastructure – you gave her a cup of tea and you got the time. Linked to this was the issue of trust. Ruth brought a certificate from the Royal Observatory every week signed by an astronomer saying ‘this is the time.’ You didn’t get that from the company that tried to put Ruth out of business. The final thing was the personal touch and networking. If she visited all the watchmakers in a certain area then they were going to get a bit of information about their rivals. That was very important, especially in the 1920s and 1930s.”
As reliability and availability of electric time services increased, Ruth was getting older and she began to wind down.
There was a new time service introduced to London in 1936 that had a significant effect on Ruth’s profits.
The Speaking Clock gave the precise time by dialing the corresponding numbers to the letters TIM on the telephone. Ruth’s services were only needed by those who didn’t have access to a telephone and were no longer in high demand. Three years after the Speaking Clock was introduced, a war broke out. In 1943, Ruth suffered carbon-monoxide poisoning due to a faulty lamp. She died in her home at the ripe old age of 89. Ruth’s death made headlines: “Human ‘TIM’ Found Dead.”
Ruth Belville was a remarkable woman who will forever be linked to the history of Greenwich and its legacy of world time-keeping in London.
When using OnlineClock.net today, remember Ruth and appreciate our advancements. Imagine where we will go from here with the practice of time-keeping. Our website continues to invent new ways to use timing devices so that your experiences here will be useful and fun. Ruth may not have appreciated the fact that we offer the precise time free of charge, but she would be in awe at how far technology has taken the practice of time-keeping.
Ruth Belville, Online Clock salutes you!
Time Of Day For Sale is a post from: Alarm Clock Blog, the official blog of the original Online Alarm Clock.
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