View source for International Meridian Conference

{{Short description|1884 conference in Washington, D.C., United States}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2016}}

{{Infobox summit meeting
| name         = 
| other_titles = 
| image        = Time Zones (2012).gif
| alt          = <!-- See [[Wikipedia:Alternative text for images]] -->
| caption      = The vertical red line left of the middle is the [[Greenwich meridian]].
| country      = {{flag|United States|1877}}
| date         = {{Start date|1884|10|1|df=y}}<ref name=imc />
| venues       = 
| cities       = [[Washington, D.C.]]
| participants = 
| chairperson  = [[Christopher Raymond Perry Rodgers|C. R. P. Rodgers]]<ref name=imc />
| follows      = 
| precedes     = 
| keypoints    = {{Blist|Establishment of [[Universal Time]]|Agreement of the [[Prime meridian (Greenwich)|Greenwich meridian]] as the international standard for 0° longitude}}
}}

The '''International Meridian Conference''' was a conference held in October 1884 in [[Washington, D.C.]], in the [[United States]], to determine a [[prime meridian]] for international use.<ref name=imc>{{cite web|title=International Conference Held at Washington for the Purpose of Fixing a Prime Meridian and a Universal Day. October, 1884. Protocols of the proceedings.|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17759/17759-h/17759-h.htm|publisher=Project Gutenberg|access-date=30 November 2012|year=1884}}</ref>  The conference was held at the request of [[President of the United States|U.S. President]] [[Chester A. Arthur]].<ref name=imc/> The subject to discuss was the choice of "a meridian to be employed as a common zero of longitude and standard of time reckoning throughout the world".<ref name=imc/> It resulted in the recommendation of the [[Greenwich Meridian]] as the international standard for zero degrees [[longitude]].<ref name=imc/>

==Background==
By the 1870s there was pressure both to establish a prime meridian for worldwide navigation purposes and to unify local times for railway timetables. The first [[International Geographical Union|International Geographical Congress]], held in Antwerp in 1871, passed a motion in favour of the use of the [[Prime meridian (Greenwich)|Greenwich Meridian]] for (smaller scale) passage [[Nautical chart|charts]], suggesting that it should become mandatory within 15{{nbs}}years.{{sfn|Howse|1980|p=131}}

[[File:Comparative-time-table.jpg|350px|thumb|Local times in major towns across the United States, as published in 1857 when, as the document states, 'There is no "Standard Railroad Time" in the United States or Canada']]
In Britain, the [[Great Western Railway]] had standardised time by 1840 and in 1847 the ''Railway Clearing Union'' decreed that "[[Greenwich Mean Time|GMT]] be adopted at all stations as soon as the General Post Office permitted it". The Post Office was by this time transmitting time signals from Greenwich by telegraph to most parts of the country to set the clocks. By January{{nbs}}1848, [[George Bradshaw#Bradshaw's railway guides|Bradshaw's railway guide]] showed the unified times and met with general approval, although legal disputes meant that it was not until 1880 that GMT was formally established across the UK.<ref>{{harvnb|Howse|1980|pp=87–115}}</ref>

In New Zealand, the impetus for introducing a standard time was to coordinate the operating hours of telegraph offices. By the end of 1868, it was formally defined nationwide as being 11½ hours in advance of GMT, making it the first country to explicitly refer its civil time to the Greenwich Meridian.<ref>{{Cite web |title=New Zealand mean time {{!}} Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand |url=https://teara.govt.nz/en/timekeeping/page-2 |access-date=2025-10-22 |website=teara.govt.nz |language=en}}</ref>

In the United States, the problems were much more severe, with one table showing over 100 [[Local mean time|local]] times varying by more than 3{{nbs}}hours. In 1870, [[Charles F. Dowd]] published a pamphlet titled ''A System of national time and its application'' advocating three time zones across the country based on the [[Washington meridian]], modifying this to four zones based on the Greenwich meridian in 1872.

The first proposal for a consistent treatment of time worldwide was a memoir entitled ''Terrestrial Time'' by [[Sandford Fleming]], at the time the chief engineer of the [[Canadian Pacific Railway]], presented to the [[Canadian Institute]] in 1876. This envisaged clocks showing 24-hour [[Universal Time|universal time]] with an extra dial having a local time rounded to the nearest hour.<ref>
{{cite journal |url=https://archive.org/details/cihm_03138|title=Terrestrial Time|first=Sandford|last=Fleming|year=1876|journal=[[Canadian Institute]]|access-date=18 January 2013}}
</ref> He also pointed out that many of the corrections for [[local mean time]] were greater than those involved in abandoning [[solar time]]. In 1878/79, he produced modified proposals using the Greenwich meridian. Fleming's two papers were considered so important that in June 1879 the British Government forwarded copies to eighteen foreign countries and to various scientific bodies in England.<ref>{{harvnb|Howse|1980|p=132}}</ref> At the same time the ''American Metrological Society'' produced a "Report on Standard Time" by [[Cleveland Abbe]], chief of the United States Weather Service proposing essentially the same scheme.

These proposals did not meet universal approval in the scientific community, being opposed by [[John Rodgers (American Civil War naval officer)|John Rodgers]], Superintendent of the [[United States Naval Observatory|Naval Observatory, Washington]] and British [[Astronomer Royal]], [[George Airy]]  who had both established wire services supporting local time in various cities. The Naval Observatory had also foiled the onward transmission of the Greenwich time signal from [[Harvard University|Harvard]], where it was received via [[Transatlantic telegraph cable|transatlantic cable]] and used to time a [[time ball]] in [[Boston]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/mawhite/Papers/TimeZones.pdf |first=Matthew W. |last=White |year=2004 |title=Economics of Time Zones |page=5 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060911152247/http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/mawhite/Papers/TimeZones.pdf |archive-date=11 September 2006 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all }}</ref> Nevertheless, the United States passed an Act of Congress on {{nowrap|3 August 1882}} authorizing the President to call an international conference to fix on a common prime meridian for time and longitude throughout the world.<ref>{{harvnb|Howse|1980|p=138}}</ref>

The International Meridian Conference had its origins in the Third International Geographical Congress held in [[Venice]] in 1881, in which the establishment of a universal prime meridian and a uniform standard of time was high on the agenda. The Seventh International Geodesic Conference in Rome in October{{nbs}}1883 then thrashed out most of the technical details, leaving the diplomatic agreements to a later conference.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Comptes-rendus des seances de la Septiéme Conférence Géodésique Internationale pour la mesure des degrés en Europe. Reunie a Rome du 15 au 24 Octobre 1863 |editor-first1=A. |editor-last1=Hirsch |editor-first2=Th. |editor-last2=von Oppolzer |date=1884 |publisher=G. Reimer |trans-title=Proceedings of the Seventh International Geodesic Conference for the measurement of degrees in Europe. Held in Rome from 15 to 24 October, 1863 |chapter=Rapport de la Commission chargée d'examiner les propositions du bureau de l'Association sur l'unification des longitudes et des heures |trans-chapter=Report of the Commission charged with examining the proposals of the Bureau of the Association on the unification of longitudes and times. |language=fr |location=Berlin |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2AVKAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA178 |pp=[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2AVKAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA201 201{{ndash}}202]}}</ref> 

On 11 October 1883, a convention of railroad executives met in Chicago and agreed to the implementation of five time zones in North America, using as a basis Greenwich Mean Time.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://publications.newberry.org/cbq/?p=1205 |title=Railroads standardize time; country follows − Everywhere West |date=2018-03-23 |website=Newberry Library |language=en-US |access-date=2018-03-23 |archive-date=24 March 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180324041056/http://publications.newberry.org/cbq/?p=1205 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1883/10/12/archives/the-new-railroad-time-favorable-action-of-the-convention-in.html |title=The New Railroad Time; Favorable Action of the Convention in Chicago. The New Standard Adopted by 78,000 Miles of Road and the Convention Selecting Nov. 18 for the Change. |date=1883-10-12 |website=The New York Times}}</ref> Before the invitations to the Washington conference were sent out on 1{{nbs}}December, the joint efforts of Abbe, Fleming and [[William Frederick Allen]], Secretary of the US railways' ''General Time Convention'' and Managing Editor of the ''Travellers' Official Guide to the Railways'', had brought the US railway companies to an agreement which led to standard railway time being introduced at noon on {{nowrap|18 November 1883}} across the nation.  Thus, a strong sense of ''[[fait accompli]]'' preceded the Washington conference, although setting local times was not part of the remit of the conference<ref>{{harvnb|Howse|1980|p=152}}</ref> and it was not legally established until 1918.

== Participants ==
Twenty-six countries, represented by 41 delegates, participated in the conference:<ref name=imc/>

{{div col|colwidth=22em}}
* {{flag|Austria-Hungary}}
* {{flagcountry|Empire of Brazil}}
* {{flag|Chile}}
* {{flag|Colombia}}
* {{flag|Costa Rica|1848}}
* {{flag|Denmark}} (absent)
* {{flagcountry|French Third Republic|1794}}
* {{flag|German Empire|name=Germany}}
* {{flag|Guatemala}}
* {{flag|Kingdom of Hawaii|name=Hawaii}}
* {{flagcountry|Kingdom of Italy}}
* {{flagcountry|Empire of Japan}}
* {{flag|Liberia}}
* {{flag|Mexico|1823}}
* {{flag|Netherlands}}
* {{flag|Ottoman Empire}}
* {{flag|Paraguay}}
* {{flag|Russian Empire|name=Russia}}
* {{flag|El Salvador|1875|name=Salvador}}
* {{flag|Dominican Republic|name=Santo Domingo}}
* {{flagcountry|Restoration (Spain)}}
* {{flagcountry|Union between Sweden and Norway}}
* {{flag|Switzerland}}
* {{flag|British Empire|name={{not a typo|United Kingdom}}}}'', included delegates from''
** {{flag|British Raj|name=British India}}
** {{flag|Canada|1868}}
* {{flag|United States|1877}}
* {{flagcountry|United States of Venezuela}}
{{div col end}}

== Resolutions ==

On 22 October 1884, the following resolutions were adopted by the conference (voting took place on 13 October):<ref>{{harvnb|Howse|1997|p=12}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Howse|1997|p=137}}</ref>
{{poemquote|
# That it is the opinion of this Congress that it is desirable to adopt a single prime meridian for all nations, in place of the multiplicity of initial meridians which now exist. (This resolution was unanimously adopted.)
# That the Conference proposes to the Governments here represented the adoption of the meridian passing through the centre of the transit instrument at the Observatory of Greenwich as the initial meridian for longitude. (Ayes, 22; noes, 1; abstaining, 2.)
# That from this meridian longitude shall be counted in two directions up to 180 degrees, east longitude being plus and west longitude minus. (Ayes, 14; noes, 5; abstaining, 6.)
# That the Conference proposes the adoption of a universal day for all purposes for which it may be found convenient, and which shall not interfere with the use of local or standard time where desirable. (Ayes, 23; abstaining, 2.)
# That this universal day is to be a mean solar day; is to begin for all the world at the moment of mean midnight of the initial meridian, coinciding with the beginning of the civil day and date of that meridian; and is to be counted from zero up to twenty-four hours. (Ayes, 14; noes, 3; abstaining, 7.)
# That the Conference expresses the hope that as soon as may be practicable the astronomical and nautical days will be arranged everywhere to begin at midnight.
# That the Conference expresses the hope that the technical studies designed to regulate and extend the application of the decimal system to the division of angular space and of time shall be resumed, so as to permit the extension of this application to all cases in which it presents real advantages. (Ayes, 21; abstaining, 3.)}}

Resolution 2, fixing the meridian at Greenwich, was passed 22–1 (San Domingo, now the [[Dominican Republic]], voted against); France and Brazil abstained. The French did not adopt the Greenwich meridian as the beginning of the universal day until 1911. Even then it refused to use the name "Greenwich", instead using the term "Paris mean time, retarded by 9{{nbs}}minutes and 21{{nbs}}seconds". France finally replaced this phrase with "Coordinated Universal Time" (UTC) in 1978.<ref name=Paris>{{citation |last1=Seago |first1=John H. |last2=Seidelmann |first2=P. Kenneth |last3=Allen |first3=Steve |title=Legislative specifications for coordinating with Universal Time |journal=Science and Technology<!--Not the Scientific & Academic Publishing journal--> |publisher=American Astronautical Society |volume=113 |year=2012 |url=https://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/seago.pdf |page=41}}</ref> 

Resolution 4 expressly exempts standard time from the universal day. Although two delegates, including [[Sandford Fleming]], proposed the adoption of standard time by all nations, other delegates objected, stating that it was outside the purview of the conference, so neither proposal was subjected to a vote. Thus the conference did ''not'' adopt any [[time zone]]s, contrary to popular belief.

Regarding resolution 6: Great Britain had already shifted the beginning of the nautical day from noon, twelve hours before midnight, to midnight in 1805, during the [[Battle of Trafalgar]]. The astronomical day was shifted from noon, twelve hours after midnight, to midnight effective {{nowrap|1 January 1925}} by a resolution of the newly formed [[International Astronomical Union]].<ref name=Sadler>{{citation |last=Sadler |first=D. H. |title=Mean Solar Time on the Meridian of Greenwich |bibcode=1978QJRAS..19..290S |journal=Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society |volume=19 |pages=290–309 |year=1978}}</ref>

On 13 October 1884, the following resolution was not adopted:
{{poemquote|# That the initial meridian should have a character of absolute neutrality. It should be chosen exclusively so as to secure to science and to international commerce all possible advantages, and especially should cut no great continent—neither Europe nor America. (Ayes, 3; noes, 21.)}}

Twenty-one countries voted against the proposal, while three (France, Brazil, San Domingo) voted in favor.

== Delegates ==
From the Act of the Conference<ref name=imc/> the Delegates were:
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! Name
! Designation
! on behalf of ...
|-
| colspan="3"|''Present''
|-
| Baron Ignatz von Schäffer || Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary || Austria-Hungary
|-
| [[Luís Cruls]] || Director of the [[National Observatory (Brazil)|Imperial Observatory of Rio de Janeiro]] || Brazil
|-
| Commodore S. R. Franklin || U.S. Navy, Superintendent [[United States Naval Observatory|U.S. Naval Observatory]] || Colombia
|-
| Juan Francisco Echeverria || Civil Engineer || Costa Rica
|-
| A. Lefaivre || Minister Plenipotentiary and Consul-General || France
|-
| [[Pierre Janssen]] || Director of the Physical Observatory of Paris || France
|-
| Baron H. von Alvensleben || Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary || German Empire
|-
| Captain [[Frederick John Owen Evans|Sir F. J. O. Evans]] || Royal Navy || Great Britain
|-
| [[John Couch Adams|J. C. Adams]] || Director of the [[Cambridge Observatory]] || Great Britain
|-
| Lieut.-General [[Richard Strachey]] || Member of the [[Council of India]] || Great Britain
|-
| [[Sandford Fleming]] || representing the Dominion of Canada || Great Britain
|-
| M. Miles Rock || President of the Boundary Commission || Guatemala
|-
| Hon. [[William DeWitt Alexander|W. D. Alexander]] || Surveyor-General || Hawaii
|-
| Hon. [[Luther Aholo]] || Privy Counsellor || Hawaii
|-
| Count [[Alberto De Foresta]] || First Secretary of Legation || Italy
|-
| Professor [[Kikuchi Dairoku]] || Dean of the Scientific Department of the [[University of Tokyo]] || Japan
|-
| Leandro Fernandez || Civil Engineer || Mexico
|-
| Angel Anguiano || Director of the National Observatory of Mexico || Mexico
|-
| Captain John Stewart || Counsul-General || Paraguay
|-
| [[Karl von Struve|C. de Struve]] || Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary || Russia
|-
| Major-General Stebnitzki || Imperial Russian Staff || Russia
|-
| J. de Kologrivoff || Conseiller d'État actuel || Russia
|-
| [[Manuel de Jesús Galván|M. de J. Galvan]] || Envoy extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary || San Domingo
|-
| Antonio Batres || Envoy extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary || Salvador
|-
| Juan Valera || Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary || Spain
|-
| Emilio Ruiz del Arbol || Naval Attaché to the Spanish Legation || Spain
|-
| Juan Pastorin || Officer of the Navy || Spain
|-
| Count [[Carl Lewenhaupt]] || Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary || Sweden
|-
| Colonel [[Emil Frey]] || Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary || Switzerland
|-
| Rear-Admiral [[Christopher Raymond Perry Rodgers|C. R. P. Rodgers]] || U.S. Navy || United States
|-
| [[Lewis Morris Rutherfurd]] ||  || United States
|-
| W. F. Allen || Secretary Railway Time Conventions || United States
|-
| Commander [[William T. Sampson|W. T. Sampson]] || U.S. Navy || United States
|-
| Professor [[Cleveland Abbe]] || U.S. Signal Office || United States
|-
| Señor A. M. Soteldo || Chargé d'Affaires || Venezuela
|-style="background:silver;"
| colspan="3"|''Not present''
|-style="background:silver;"
| [[Francisco Vidal Gormaz]] || Director of the Hydrographic Office || Chile
|-style="background:silver;"
| Alavaro Bianchi Tupper || Assistant Director || Chile
|-style="background:silver;"
| Carl Steen Andersen de Bille || Minister Resident and Consul-General || Denmark
|-style="background:silver;"
| Hinckeldeyn || Attaché of the German Legation || Germany
|-style="background:silver;"
| William Coppinger || Consul-General || Liberia
|-style="background:silver;"
| Wilhelm de Weckherlin || Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary || Netherlands
|-style="background:silver;"
| [[Ahmet Rüstem Bey]] || Secretary of Legation || Ottoman Empire
|}

==Outcomes==
{{refimprove|section|date=October 2018}}<!--first two paragraphs have no citations-->
The main issue at the conference, apart from procedural issues such as the provision of an authorized French translation of the proceedings, was France's insistence that the meridian should have a strictly neutral character in the same way that they maintained that the [[metre]] was a neutral measure. This requirement conflicted with the need to base measurements on an established observatory on land and Fleming's proposal of using the [[180th meridian|anti-meridian]] of Greenwich was not supported by the British delegation. In the end, the pragmatic argument for continuity with most nautical charts won the day and the French delegation abstained in the vote.

On the question of universal time, Fleming's opinion to one of the lead-up committees was borne out: "In my judgment, the nearest approach to it which may be attempted with any chance of success, is to have ''first'', a primary standard time, based on the prime meridian that is to be used for non-local purposes; ''second'', to have twenty-four secondary standard times to govern local reckoning."<ref>
{{cite book |title=What shall be the prime meridian for the world? |series=Report of Committee on standard time and prime meridian, International institute for preserving and perfecting weights and measures.|place=Cleveland, Ohio|year=1884|url=http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000201552}} 
</ref> There was discussion of setting zones as small as 10{{nbs}}minutes (i.e. 10{{nbs}}[[minute|minutes of time]]; 2½° or 150{{nbsp}}[[arcminute]]s of longitude), but no motion was tabled, as there was little experience to guide the choice.

Most European countries [[Universal Time#Adoption in various countries|aligned their clocks with Greenwich]] within ten years, Sweden and North America already having done so, and the trend continued. The French maintained Paris time till 1911 and the following year convened a second conference to address the differences between different observatories which had become apparent, leading to the establishment of the [[International Time Bureau|Bureau International de l'Heure]] after [[World War I]].<ref>{{harvnb|Howse|1980|pp=164–165}}</ref>

== References ==
{{reflist}}

==Bibliography==
*{{cite book|title=Greenwich Time and the discovery of the longitude|url=https://archive.org/details/greenwichtimedis0000hows|url-access=registration|first=Derek|last=Howse|date=1980|publisher=Oxford Univ Press |isbn=978-0-19-215948-9 }}
*{{cite book | last = Howse | first = Derek | title = Greenwich Time and the Longitude | date = 1997 | publisher = Phillip Wilson | isbn = 0-85667-468-0 | url = https://archive.org/details/greenwichtimelon0000hows | url-access = registration }}

== External links ==
{{Commons category|International Meridian Conference}}
{{Commons|International Meridian Conference (protocols)}}
* [http://www.ucolick.org/~sla/leapsecs/scans-meridian.html Proceedings of the 1884 International Meridian Conference] - notes with links to scanned page images at Steve Allen's site
* {{cite book |title=Recommendations suggested|first=Sandford|last=Fleming|series=International Prime Meridian Conference|year=1884|isbn=9780665031311 |url=https://archive.org/details/cihm_03131|access-date=9 February 2013}}
* {{Gutenberg author | id=38341}}
** [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17759 Proceedings of the 1884 International Meridian Conference]
* {{Internet Archive author |search=("International Meridian Conference")}}
{{Chester A. Arthur}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Diplomatic conferences in the United States]]
[[Category:Geography conferences]]
[[Category:19th-century diplomatic conferences]]
[[Category:1884 in the United States]]
[[Category:1884 in international relations]]
[[Category:1884 in Washington, D.C.]]
[[Category:1884 conferences]]
[[Category:Meridians (geography)]]
[[Category:October 1884]]
[[Category:Presidency of Chester A. Arthur]]