Ruth Belville

In a world that saw the emergence of automatic time-balls, telegraph time signals, the speaking clock and the BBC's `six pips', one family provided Greenwich Time to paying customers across London for a staggering 103 years - using a pocket watch named `Arnold'. Ruth, the last of the time-sellers, finally retired in her 80s, in 1939, bringing to a close a remarkable episode in the history of timekeeping and of London life.

David Rooney, Curator of Timekeeping at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, seeks to show that the Belvilles operated a service that, while simple, was in many ways better than the`official' electric time signals from Greenwich.

This book will turn the story of the Greenwich Time Service on its head, showing for the first time the strengths of Ruth Belville and her family, and the weaknesses of the more familiar telegraphic services. Commercial propaganda, dirty tricks and failing technologies come together in a story of a Greenwich Time Lady with a will to succeed in Edwardian London.