The Greenwich time team

Forget the pips, the speaking clock and the electric telegraph, it was the Belvilles who ensured that when many Londoners greeted the new year, they were doing so not a second too early or a second too late.

At the turn of the 19th century the business was branded an anachronism – but this may well have been the Belville’s finest hour.

For while new technology took decades to match hype to delivery, the Belville clan marched on, as faithful and unswerving as the impeccable chronometer they carried throughout their years in
business.

From father to daughter to granddaughter, they would take a weekly reading from the Greenwich Royal Observatory and then walk their high end timepiece and its officially certified time around to their paying customers in London – mostly watchmakers and jewellers.

Step forward John Belville, (born 1795), and his daughter Maria and granddaughter Ruth (died 1943) who, between them, wrote this curious but fascinating footnote to the story of standardised time.

Faithful Arnold

And not forgetting Arnold, of course.

Faithful Arnold, who served all three of them without ever falling off the pace. Arnold was a pocket watch, a silver-cased chronometer (No. 485/786) of 1794 made by John Arnold and now on display in the Clockmakers’ Company museum in Guildhall.

Originally made for the Duke of Sussex, John Belville replaced its flash gold casing with silver to reduce its visibility among London’s artful dodgers.

Well serviced – as it was – this watch was more reliable by a factor of 10 than the electric telegraph that sent its message at the speed of light but had little to say when it arrived.

David Rooney, son of a clockmaker and curator of timekeeping at Greenwich’s Royal Observatory, has scoured archives and newspaper cuttings to illuminate the little-known story of the Belville family and how they combatted changing times with unerring constancy. He has written a book about his findings – Ruth Belville: The Greenwich Time Lady.

Mr Rooney told The Wharf: “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 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.

“I just wanted to find out why people took this service and I wanted to tell the story of this one family that kept London on time for almost a century.�

While the struggles of the Belville family were mostly low-key – involving the diplomacy required to maintain exclusive access to the Royal Observatory – a century ago their cosy business suddenly made national newspaper headlines as the battle for standardised time became increasingly bitter.

Their finest hour

In 1908, this little family business was such an irritant for the larger, more ambitious commercial time companies that Ruth Belville, the third and last of the triumvirate, became the victim of a dirty tricks campaign.

Mr St John Wynne, of the Standard Time Company, attempted to drive her out of business, suggesting her exclusive link to the Royal Observatory was improper, saying “no mere man� could get access to the esteemed guardians of Greenwich Mean Time.

But even this flurry of opposition bolstered the canny Belvilles’ trade.

Mr Rooney said: “The press attention got into all the newspapers and gave Ruth free advertising. The guys who tried to put her out of business – the electrical time providers – even lost a few customers because they were seen to be underhand.�

Mr Rooney added: “Ruth and Maria had a very sophisticated approach to publicity. They knew they had to keep themselves in the public eye but they knew they had to be careful how they did it so they did not appear improper. To do that was very tricky – and in the scientific world even trickier. Hats off to them.�

Getting ahead

So why could a woman with a pocket watch defy the odds and maintain a customer base sufficiently robust to keep them in business in a time-conscious world of railways, working time legislation and enforced liquor licensing?

“Three strong reasons,� said David Rooney. “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 and Maria didn’t need any maintenance or infrastructure – you gave them a cup of tea and you got the time. Linked to this was the issue of trust – they 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’re going to get a bit of information about their rivals. That was very important, especially in the ’20s and ’30s when people were on their uppers.�

The increasing reliability and availability of the electric services took their toll. But, by then, Ruth Belville was herself winding down.

Winding down

Combative to the end she defied the second Greenwich Time Lady – Ethel Caine, the voice of TIM, the new speaking clock – for a few more years while privately accepting the inevitable.

Three years after the speaking clock went live, war broke out. In 1943 Ruth Belville succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty lamp and died aged 89, bringing to a close a remarkable chapter in the story of Greenwich and its place at the heart of world time-keeping.

Her death brought her headlines once again. The News Of The World declared: “Human ‘TIM’ Found Dead.�

Mr Rooney said: “I’ve met a relative of Ruth’s who met Ruth in the 1930s and I’ve shaken his hand and it was an honour to do so because this is recent history, the history of people who have to scratch a living in London.�

“It’s amazing to think that there was an octogenarian with a pocket watch in her handbag selling the time to London in the time of the pips and speaking clock.�

Ruth Belville: The Greenwich Time Lady by David Rooney. Published by the National Maritime Museum, £12.99