Piero Ranfagni wrote: > > hello all, > > I have a question for you. Do you know when Mean Solar Time was > introduced in every country ? Have you a copy of the official documents > used by the Governments to introduce Solar Mean time ? > Here attached you find the italian official documents that introduced > three mean solar times in 1863 and an unified mean solar time in 1893. > I'm very curious to know which country, in the last century, was the > first to use mean solar time in civil life. > I'm waiting a lot of interesting replies from you, so thank you in > advance. Best reagards. > > Piero Ranfagni > > ---------------------------------------------------------------
Hello Piero, This is an intersting question and I will try to tell how the time system in our country was develloped. In The Netherlands many places had its own mean solar time, regulated by local authorities. But form 1892 the railway companies used Greenwich mean time. So you were able to get the train of let's say 10:00 by leaving your home at 10:05 or even later. Some public clocks had a second (red) minute finger to show the difference between public time and railway time. At 23 july 1908 a law was proclaimed to use the mean time of Amsterdam for whole the country. This law was affected at 1 may 1909. The difference with Greenwich time than was about 20 minutes, not exactly. At 17 march 1937 the time in The Netherlands was based on the meridian of 5 degrees east and the difference with Greenwich than was exactly 20 minutes. That was a little easier in use. In Belgium the mean time was introduced at 1 may 1882, equal to the time of Greenwich. Between the neighbouring countries Belgium and The Netherlands thus there was a difference in the used public time. In 1940 the time system in The Netherlandsd wss changed into mid european time, the mean time of the meridian of 15 degrees east. This time we still use, however also daylight saving time was introduced during some periods. Also nowadays we use daylight saving time, but there is a discussion in some european countries to stop with it. Fer de Vries.
