One name I have not seen on any list of the most important people of the millennium is Sir Sanford Fleming. His most notable and least known accomplishment, one that affected everyone everywhere, is that he invented "time" as we know and use it today. Well, he didn't really "invent" time, he just devised the method of telling time that is in world-wide use today.

Fleming was born at Kirkaldy, Scotland, in 1827 and came to Canada in 1845. He is known for the survey work on and construction of the Intercolonial Railway (eastern Canada), and for the survey of the route of the Canadian Pacific Railway to Vancouver.

In the early 1800's, a day was the period of time between two successive transits of the sun with the local meridian. Custom decreed that this time of transit was "noon" and came as close as possible to twelve o'clock. This resulted in a multiplicity of local time zones around the world. Since most people never travelled more than fifteen or twenty miles from their place of birth, nobody gave time differences any thought.

The English, who constructed the first railway, were the first to be faced with this problem of local time. They solved it in 1843 when, after about twenty years of discussion, they adopted the time at the Greenwich meridian (GMT) as the standard time throughout England, Scotland and Wales.

In the United States, when it was 12:00 in Chicago, it was 12:13 in Cincinnati, 12:17 in Toledo, and 11:39 in St. Paul. The Chicago Tribune listed 27 local times in Michigan, 27 in Illinois, and 38 in Wisconsin. There were between seventy-five and one hundred different times used by the railways (depending upon which authority you listened to).

In Canada, a traveller going from Halifax to Toronto on the newly opened Intercolonial Railway had to change his watch at Saint John, Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. When it was 12:00 noon in Washington, D.C. in the States, it was 12:54 p.m. in Halifax, 12:14 p.m. in Montreal, and 11:51 a.m. in Toronto.

Out of all this confusion in 1878, came Fleming's suggestion that the world be divided into twenty-four sections, each covering fifteen degrees of longitude and each differing by one hour. He also pointed out that his system wold require a starting point. He recommended that a Prime Meridian should be the meridian running through Greenwich, England, and that the time zone should extend 7.5 degrees on either side of it. Over the years those time zone boundaries have been altered for a variety of reasons.

Objections to the newly proposed system came from every direction. The Astronomer Royal at Greenwich, Sir George B. Airy, said in part, "...as to the need for a Prime Meridian, no practical man would ever want such a thing." The Astronomer Royal for Scotland said, "Mr. Sanford Fleming seems to know perfectly well that in making such a proposition he is running full tilt against common sense and universal experience."

Opposition to the changes by the masses was predictable. They wanted nothing to do with any change to "God's time". The New York Herald looked at it differently when it wrote, "... the man who went to church in New York today will hug himself with delight to find that the noon service has been curtailed to the extent of nearly four minutes, while every old maid on Beacon Hill in Boston will rejoice tonight to discover that she is younger by about sixteen minutes."

While governments held meetings and consulted experts, the railways, being most affected by this multitude of time zones, held the General Time Convention in Chicago on October 11, 1883. It adopted Fleming's system in North America. It came into effect at noon November 18, 1883.

Universal Standard Time became a fact of life on January 1, 1885, but many years passed before the new time system was accepted around the world. The French were one of the last to sign the treaty because they felt that the Prime Meridian should run through Paris.

Sir Sanford Fleming died July 22, 1915.

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