Dimensions
140 x 205 x 30mm
Sir Sandford Fleming And The Creation Of Standard Time
Even by Victorian standards, the Scottish born Canadian, Sir Sandford Fleming (1827 - 1915), was a man of extraordinary vision - designer of Canada's first postage stamp, surveyor and lithographer of the first street maps of Toronto, engineer of the trans-Canadian railway from Toronto to British Columbia and the trans-Pacific telegraph from London to Australia via Canada and Fiji.
Drawing on Fleming's vast archive of letters, diaries and reports, Clark Blaise in this book tells the story of yet another achievement - Fleming's greatest - the creation of a single time standard for the world. In 1878 Fleming's idea was rejected as too trivial for discussion by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, but six years later, after a campaign that took Fleming to every international meeting of astronomers and geographers, he had forged an influential network of engineers, railroad men and astronomers that proved irresistible. World standard time became a reality in 1884 at a diplomatic and scientific conference in Washington DC, called by the President of the United States.
The bitter failures and monumental triumphs of Sir Sandford Fleming introduce a major new figure in the pantheon of great Victorians, a man who arguably made the most important creation of them all which is still the central regulator of our lives.
