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Ruth Belville, the "Greenwich Time Lady" (2022)
- throw0101b 2y agoAlso: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Belville https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Belville * https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/ruth-belville-the-greenwich-time-lady/ https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/ruth-belville-the-greenwic... Via a weblog from the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation: * https://rntfnd.org/2025/03/09/the-greenwich-time-lady-sold-time-from-1892-to-1940/ https://rntfnd.org/2025/03/09/the-greenwich-time-lady-sold-t...
- nhubbard 2y agoFans of Tom Scott's Citation Needed, if you haven't seen this... well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzfiF9ccZvQ&list=PLrkYtXgEpu5Reg3BCHcHpgpT0RccCo4Y2&index=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzfiF9ccZvQ&list=PLrkYtXgEpu...
- throwaway_ewell 2y agoExcited to see my village mentioned on the frontpages of HN!
- eb0la 2y agoFirst time you go to London, you visit everything else; but Greenwich is great. Probably because is far from city center, but totally worth the visit. I guess next time I travel to London I'll stay there.
- throwaway_ewell 2y ago[dead]
- Angostura 2y agoThe fast commuter boat from Greenwich to Westminster Pier is my favourite was to get into town
- colesantiago 2y agoSo is this not one of the earliest grifts?
- sampullman 2y agoGrifting must be pre-historic.
- entropicdrifter 2y agoYeah, for real. They think that grifting was invented as recently as 1892? That's insane. One of the earliest known pieces of written language is some sanskrit calling one guy's limestone a ripoff. Basically a bad Yelp review. Obviously you don't need reviews if everyone is honest, ergo grifting most likely existed before written language
- bigstrat2003 2y ago> One of the earliest known pieces of written language is some sanskrit calling one guy's limestone a ripoff. Basically a bad Yelp review. When you came, you said to me as follows: "I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots." You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger (Sit-Sin) and said: "If you want to take them, take them; if you do not want to take them, go away!" Tale as old as time, really.
- spiritplumber 2y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/EaNasir/ https://www.reddit.com/r/EaNasir/
- throw0101c 2y ago> So is this not one of the earliest grifts? This is one of the earliest instances of a Stratum 1 (2?) time server.
- 2y ago
- registeredcorn 2y ago>After his death John’s third wife Maria Elizabeth (neé Last) (1811-99), a teacher by profession, was denied a widow’s pension so lobbied to take over the manual distribution to provide an income for herself and their baby daughter Elizabeth Ruth Naomi Belville (known as Ruth). It would be interesting to know if it was common practice for widows to be denied pension, and if so, for what reason.
- guestbest 2y agoI wonder how many widows were taking a pension from the late John.
- dwighttk 2y agoGood point
- mytailorisrich 2y agoThere can only be one widow, surely...
- guestbest 2y agoHe had three wives in succession. Any one or three could make the claim. There was probably a limited budget that had to go through a small committee to allocate the new funds. After a while it runs out.
- mytailorisrich 2y ago> He had three wives in succession. This means that the first two probably died. Edit: I've checked and indeed his first wife died in 1826 (maybe during childbirth looking at the date), his second in 1851, he married his third wife that same year. Ruth was actually his 7th and last child. It was the 19th century. People didn't "just" divorce and people also tended to die of many deceases and during childbirth. > Any one or three could make the claim. Well, no. He could only be married to one at the time of his death (even if the others were still alive) and so only leave one widow behind to make a claim.
- ChoHag 2y ago[dead]
- noelwelsh 2y agoThis seems very mundane now that a Casio F-91W can give all the practical timekeeping position a person needs for the cost of a meal. I found it interesting the watch she used ("Mr Arnold") was some 40 years old when her father started the business and nearly 150 years old when she stopped. It was made by John Arnold[1], who essentially invented the accurate watch. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Arnold_(watchmaker) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Arnold_(watchmaker)
- alex_young 2y agoSurely Ruth Belville was the best antiquarian horologist of her or any time.
- walrus01 2y agoFor those who haven't read it in detail, the history of the invention and refinement of the marine chronometer is fascinating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_chronometer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_chronometer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison
- eb0la 2y agoIf visit Greenwich Observatory you'll see Harrison sea clocks H1, H2, and H3. I had the luck (and honor!) to meet a volunteer guide - Stephen - that knew everything about clocks and explained it perfectly. When you meet him, say hello :-). My kid barely spoke English and Stephen had the patience and virtue to answer everything with a smile. Best guide I ever met.
- bloomingeek 2y agoIt is a wonderful place. The walk up the hill at my advance age was a challenge, but well worth it!
- danans 2y ago> a teacher by profession, was denied a widow’s pension so lobbied to take over the manual distribution to provide an income for herself and their baby daughter > she retired in 1892, at age 81 > So Ruth was forced to move, for the last time to 57 Plough Lane in Beddington. She retired in 1940 and died aged 89 The time synchronization story is carrying another ominous story about elderly working class poverty of the gilded age. Mother and daughter working until their 80s probably due to necessity, and the daughter being forced out of her home shortly before she died. Let's not go back.
- dwighttk 2y agoI dunno… a job where I travel and walk outside and loyal customers sticking with me until I was ready to retire sounds pretty nice to me
- entropicdrifter 2y agoNobody said you had to retire. If you want to work until your 80s, have at it. Just don't support a society where it's a necessity
- bloomingeek 2y agoDone! I curse you to have to work until you are in your eighties. May your sore joints and muscles, sub-par wages (part of the deal, you chose it!) and failing eyesight and hearing be a constant companion. If you're a man, don't forget your prostate, If a woman, change of life issues and being a second class citizens in most countries of the world.
- louthy 2y ago> In 1833 James Pond, the Astronomer Royal, introduced the Greenwich Time Ball... Did he stand up and say: "My name is Pond... James Pond"?
- appleorchard46 2y agoWhile we're on the subject of names... > John’s third wife Maria Elizabeth (neé Last) I suppose it avoids any confusion as to what her last name is.
- dmurray 2y agoWell, her first last name was Last, but her last last name was Belville. And her last first name was Elizabeth, and her first first name was Maria.
- louthy 2y agoBravo! This is how Vaudeville was born :)
- jvan 2y agoWas there a fourth wife, or was she the Last?
- dmd 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=het1kl-A8qw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=het1kl-A8qw
- toast0 2y agoA shame she wasn't doing time distribution, or you could get the Last time.
- mytailorisrich 2y agoActually I think this is a typo, or a lapsus, and they are referring to John Pond [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pond
- mytailorisrich 2y agoIt's always interesting to compare pictures. The approximate location of the article's picture of the Observatory Clock from the 1870s: https://maps.app.goo.gl/7GSD3VytQ5cJ5ayR6 https://maps.app.goo.gl/7GSD3VytQ5cJ5ayR6 It provides a good view of Canary Wharf's skyscrappers today.
- beardyw 2y ago> Around 1911 she moved to Ewell Cottage, London Road, Ewell. The article seemed to wander off a bit at the end. But since this is from Epsom and Ewell ( nowhere near Greenwich) it now makes sense.
- jack_riminton 2y agoSeems like the red ball rising to near the top was regularly missed, I reckon an appropriately placed cannon that fired 5 minutes before the ball dropped would've been a suitably British way to warn everyone
- 2b3a51 2y agohttp://www.bidstonlighthouse.org.uk/fifty-years-after/ http://www.bidstonlighthouse.org.uk/fifty-years-after/ Childhood memory: waiting for the gun to be fired.
- warrenski 2y agoFunny you should mention a cannon, here in Cape Town the Noon Gun is still fired daily at noon local time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noon_Gun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noon_Gun
- codpiece 2y agoQuebec City too.
- munchler 2y ago> When the sun is at its highest in the sky we call it midday or noon but the earth spins on a slightly inclined axis so the point closest to the sun is constantly changing. This change means that a person in London will have their midday at a different time to a person in New York and that will be different to a person in Beijing This is a very misleading description. The point closest to the sun would be constantly changing even if the axis of earth's spin was not inclined relative to the sun.
- FredPret 2y agoMaybe they meant changing throughout the year
- gerdesj 2y agoIn the early noughties I ended up being called in as a consultant to sort out a somewhat broken Novell eDirectory. Password changes working sporadically, details not propagating sometimes - you probably know this story. I found a NTP stratum 1 source on site that someone had bought and forgotten about and the internet was available. DNS was also broken for IP and IPX/SPX was a bit special. I fixed up DNS and registered some host names and so on. I removed some odd routes in SPX and IP. I put all partitions on the three central office boxes and distributed the rest. I ran an awful lot of dsrepair and watched a lot of dstrace with various flags until the red turned to green. I'd get a partition into a decent state, then drop the replicas and rebuild them from the first one - all lots of fun. Anyway, it was DNS and NTP (it always is). That isn't the real punchline ... The company was called First Great Western (1)! I must stress this was not the time sources for their trains and operations equipment which was totally separate and properly managed by qualified professionals. Their general office IT needed a bit of a hand. So I can lay claim to bringing time to GWR, if you squint hard enough! A few years later I did a similar job for ScotRail, when they too still had Novell office servers. I used FGW's servers as sources - it seemed appropriate 8) (EDIT to add): (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_time - mentions GWR in line 1 and links to all the other related info.
- TRiG_Ireland 2y agoThe wonderful historical podcast Futility Closet did a great episode about Ruth Belville, which went some way to explaining her business model and how it still worked with technological advancements. https://www.futilitycloset.com/2016/06/06/podcast-episode-108-greenwich-time-lady/ https://www.futilitycloset.com/2016/06/06/podcast-episode-10... I found it initially while looking for the Citation Needed episode from The Technical Difficulties, which is less informed, but quite fun. https://youtu.be/RzfiF9ccZvQ https://youtu.be/RzfiF9ccZvQ
- shreyshnaccount 2y agotechdiff reference