Elizabeth Ruth Naomi Belville (5 March 1854 – 7 December 1943), also known as the Greenwich Time Lady, was a businesswoman from London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

. She, her mother Maria Elizabeth, and her father John Henry, sold people the time

Time

Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....

. This was done by setting a watch to Greenwich Mean Time

Greenwich Mean Time

Greenwich Mean Time is a term originally referring to mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. It is arguably the same as Coordinated Universal Time and when this is viewed as a time zone the name Greenwich Mean Time is especially used by bodies connected with the United...

, as shown by the Greenwich clock, and then selling people the time by letting them look at their watch.

History

Ruth Belville's father, John Henry Belville, created a service for 200 clients in 1836. Each morning, John Henry went to Greenwich Observatory, where he worked, and set his watch to Greenwich Mean Time. He would then set off in his buggy and would set the clocks correctly for clients subscribed to the service.

John Henry continued this service up until his death in 1856. His widow, Maria, was granted the privilege of carrying on the work as a means of livelihood and continued the business until her retirement in 1892, when she was in her eighties. Ruth Belville then took over the business. She continued the business up until 1940, by which time World War Two had started. Belville was in her eighties when she retired and at the age of 86 she was still able to journey about twelve miles from her home and attend at the Observatory by 9 a.m. She died at the age of 90.

The watch used by the business was a John Arnold

John Arnold

John Arnold was an English watchmaker and inventor.John Arnold was the first to design a watch that was both practical and accurate, and also brought the term "Chronometer" in to use in its modern sense, meaning a precision timekeeper...

 pocket chronometer No. 485/786, nicknamed "Arnold". It was originally made for the Duke of Sussex

Duke of Sussex

Duke of Sussex was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was conferred on 27 November 1801 upon The Prince Augustus Frederick, the sixth son of George III, who was created Duke of Sussex, Earl of Inverness, and Baron Arklow, all in the Peerage of the United Kingdom...

 and had a gold case. When it was given to John Henry, he changed the case to silver

Silver

Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...

 because he was worried thieves might steal a gold watch. When Ruth died, the watch was left to the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers

Worshipful Company of Clockmakers

The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. The Clockmakers were formed by a Royal Charter in 1631. Originally, no person was allowed to sell clocks unless they were a member of the Company. However, such requirements have since been relaxed and later...

.

Criticism

Belville's business came under attack from St John Wynne, a director of the Standard Time Company, which sold a telegraphic time signal service and was therefore Belville's main competitor. Wynne made a speech at the city United Wards Club attacking Belville, claiming, "that her [Belville's] methods were amusingly out of date," he also implied that she might have been using her femininity to gain business."

The speech was published in The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

newspaper, but the article did not mention the Standard Time Company and the fact that he was Belville's competitor. Following the publication of the comments, Belville was besieged by reporters interested in her business and also the possible scandal, which was implied by Wynne's comments. However, Belville managed to cope, and the resulting publicity resulted in an increase in sales. Belville said that all Wynne had managed to do was to give her free advertising.