Too Much Time#
Back in the day, every place had its own time. Not just its own local village fete, its own market day or County Assizes, but its own time.
When it was midday in Oxford it was just after five past twelve in London (or 5 minutes and two seconds passed twelve to be precise). At the same time, it was five minutes to twelve in Bristol.
Time followed the sun.
So when people said “London is ahead of the times”, that was true, in a certain sense: daylight gets there before many places in the UK. And if people say, “the folk in the West Country are so behind the times”, that could also be true…
Every evening at 9 o’clock “Oxford Time” (which is to say five past nine in London time), the bell at Christ Church College, Great Tom, rings out a hundred and one times, once for each of the college’s original 101 students, calling the colleges to lock their gates. Thereupon, it remains silent until it resumes announcing the London hour, every hour from 8am the next morning. To this day the people of Oxford know their own time.
As they do in Bristol. If you’re ever on the Big Island, and happen to visit Bristol, and if you find yourself stood in from of the old Corn Exchange, look up to the clock tower: as well as the rather unusual red painted numbers, you’ll notice it has two minute hands. The red minute hand shows London time, Greenwich Mean Time; but a second, black minute hand shows local Bristol time, 10 minutes behind.
Having your own time could lead to problems. In 1858, at the Dorchester Assizes, a hearing was set for 10 o’clock a.m. The case involved an action of ejectment, which is to say a property case. In those days, ownership of land could be transferred by ritual and custom as much as it was by legal document.
The medieval livery of seisin, which remained as valid in law until 1925, fewer than a hundred years ago, when my own grandparents were children, required the original landowner and whoever was being given the land, along with any witnesses to gather somewhere on the land; the owner would then pick up a handful of earth and hand it over, literally handing of the ownership of it.
If there was a land dispute, an “action of ejectment” could be brought by someone who argued that they had wrongfully been dispossessed of the land or had a better right to it.
I don’t know if the particular case involved the livery of seisin, but it makes for a more colourful story if it does!
And so it was that on November 25th, at 10 am, the case of Curtis versus Wade, in the matter of an action of ejectment, was called.
“The plaintiff’s counsel commenced his address to the jury, but as the defendant was not present and no one appeared for him, the learned Judge directed a verdict for the plaintiff. The defendant’s counsel then entered the Court and claimed to have the cause tried, on the ground that it had been disposed of before 10 o’clock.”
The Judge looked to the clock in the court, and it showed the time a little after 10. The defence had not been in court at the appointed time, had not been there to provide a defence, and so, because there was no defence, the case had gone against them.
The defence counsel perhaps coughed, and spluttered, pointing to the town clock that could be seen through the window of the court: it was still one and a half minutes to 10 o’clock.
If you look at where Dorchester is on a map of England, you find it just above, and to the right of Weymouth; if you look further up the map, higher in latitude but at the same longitude, you’ll see it’s just slightly to the right of Bristol…
…and as such, almost 10 minutes behind London time.
In Dorchester, the town clock was running on local time; the court clock was set to Greenwich mean time, to London time. The defence council, checking the time by the town clock, had arrived, or so he thought, in good time.
The case was taken to appeal in the Court of Exchequer, in London, also known as The Exchequer of Pleas, who considered the matter and made their decision: “[w]hen it is stated that a court will sit at a particular hour, that is understood by all persons as the time at the place where the court sits. We are as much bound to take judicial notice that a particular place lies east or west of Greenwich, and consequently has a different time from it, as we are to know the days of the year”.
The Exchequer of Pleas ruled in favour of the defendant, allowing them to have “an opportunity of trying the cause”.
“A person hearing that the court would sit at 10 o’clock would naturally understand that to mean 10 o’clock by the time of the place , unless the contrary was expressed . In this case, looking to the difference of time (of which we are bound to take judicial notice), the defendant was in court before 10 o’clock.”
If the trial is set in Dorchester, to be on Thursday at 10 in Dorchester, then the case will be heard, on Thursday, at 10, in Dorchester, using the local time of that place.
Such is the way of the law in Britain and Ireland, a Common Law approach, where judges rulings in the absence of statute, or interpretation of enacted laws and statutes, are the law, Curtis versus Wade defined “standard time” as used in the courts of Great Britain and Ireland.
Standard time as London time, as Greenwich mean time, GMT, did not enter the statute book until 1880, and the reign of Queen Victoria, in an August 1880 “Act to remove doubts as to the meaning of Expressions relative to Time occurring in Acts of Parliament, deeds, and other legal instruments”.
WHEREAS it is expedient to remove certain doubts as to whether expressions of time occurring in Acts of Parliament, deeds, and other legal instruments relate in England and Scotland to Greenwich time, and in Ireland to Dublin time, or to the mean astronomical time in each locality:
Be it therefore enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows; (that is to say,)
Whenever any expression of time occurs in any Act of Parliament, deed, or other legal instrument, the time referred shall, unless it is otherwise specifically stated, be held in the case of Great Britain to be Greenwich mean time, and in the case of Ireland, Dublin mean time.
This Act may be cited as the Statutes (Definition of Time) Act, 1880.
Reference: [vol. iii. of Hurlstone and Norman’s `Exchequer Reports,’ p. 866 (1858), https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Exchequer_Reports/edEsAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1]