Anarchy in the UK: Part 3: In the Mean Time

Steven’s wife, Amy Miller (a friend of mine from my St. Martin’s Press days circa. 1990–1991—it was I who introduced her to Steven, an old college buddy), is a curator at London’s National Maritime Museum. Last month, she had been beavering away on a special exhibit of her own creation called “Sailor Chic,” a look at British naval couture and the adoption of it by civilian society (she has a Masters in the Decorative Arts and did a stint at the Embroiderers’ Guild in Hampton Court Palace, so she knows of what she speaks). Tuesday morning, she had to go in early as she was being interviewed by BBC Radio about the exhibit; Steven and I listened to the interview, then set off to visit the Maritime Museum and check it out.

The National Maritime Museum is located just south of the Thames in Greenwich and is part of the Royal Observatory (about which more shortly). Beginning with a painting of a young Prince Albert in a sailor suit, the exhibit traced the evolution of British military garb over the years, and how naval fashion insinuated itself in pop culture, from subtle sailor-garb-influenced pants and tops, to New Romantic Adam Ant’s sailor jacket as seen in the video for “Goody Two Shoes.” Also part of the exhibit was the extent to which the adoption of military fashion was a subversive act—underground filmmakers sporting naval jackets, etc. And let’s not forget (try as we might) the adoption of naval chic by certain elements of the gay community (yes, part of the video presentation included the Village People’s “In the Navy”—fitting, I suppose, but no less upsetting).

Anyway, it was an interesting exhibit, which I say not entirely because Amy is a friend of mine. I naturally bought her book; you can buy it here.
The rest of the museum is also interesting; they had the jacket that Nelson was shot in, complete with bullet hole (they don’t like when you point out that it looks like it’s only a moth hole). There is also a large painting of the death of Nelson, and I thought I had discovered an inconsistency. The jacket has the bullet hole on the left shoulder, but in the painting, Nelson’s attendants had a cloth over his right shoulder. I thought, “Aha! A conspiracy! Can anyone explain this discrepancy?” I had thoughts of writing a bestseller like The Da Vinci Code—Maybe The Nelson Coat, or something. When I confronted Amy, she pointed out that in the painting, the cloth was not to stanch the bleeding from the bullet wound, but to hide the fact that Nelson’s right arm had been shot off. Oh. Well, so much for fame and fortune. But, then again, The Da Vinci Code was based on flimsier evidence, so maybe I still had something, though I’m not exactly sure what.

After getting lost in the Maritime Museum, Steven and I walked up to the Royal Observatory...actually, what I had been really looking forward to.

There are many significant things about the Royal Observatory, not the least of which is that it is the locale of the Prime Meridian (0 degrees longitude) and, of course, of Greenwich Mean Time.
The Royal Observatory was begun in 1674, initially as a way to solve the so-called “Longitude Problem.” That is, as readers of Dava Sobel’s excellent book Longitude know, the biggest problem facing sailors in the 17th century was how to figure out exactly where they were when out in the open sea. Sure, finding one’s latitude north or south of the equator was easy enough, but without a corresponding east/west coordinate, that left a lot of ocean that a ship could potentially be in. If England was going to be a naval powerhouse (or, perhaps more importantly, an overseas trader) the problem had to be resolved. Thus, King Charles II arranged to found an Observatory to solve the problem, and astronomer John Flamsteed was appointed as the first Astronomer Royal. Indeed, the Flamsteed House—designed by our old friend Christopher Wren (though on a decidedly smaller scale than St. Paul’s) is the original portion of the Observatory.

Interesting thing about Flamsteed. He was such a perfectionist; he had compiled an extensive star catalog but was loath to publish it until he noodled with it some more. Unfortunately, his friend Edmund Halley got his hands on them and published Flamsteed’s work, albeit anonymously. Flamsteed, needless to say, was furious (and was as hot as Halley’s Comet, perhaps you could say) and bought up every copy he could get his hands on and burned the lot of them.

Anyway, despite all the efforts of the Royal Observatory, the problem of longitude was actually solved by a humble clockmaker named John Harrison, who after several tries managed to build a reliable clock that could be carried on ships. This way, by knowing what time it was back in Greenwich and knowing how the stars should look at a given time, and knowing your latitude at sea, you can work out your longitude.

Anyway, there’s a lot more to the story than that, and this is a simple travelblog....
Because I am n geeky where n is a large, positive integer, I was thrilled to stand astride the prime meridian—although I did have to keep resetting my watch. There have actually been several prime meridians over the years, and the Observatory grounds are littered with the remains of meridians past.
Greenwich is also the world’s timekeeper. Originally, the “official Greenwich” time was indicated by placing a large ball on the roof of the observatory and its daily drop at 1:00 p.m. G.M.T. was used by navigators on the River Thames to calibrate their marine chronometers. As the need to distribute the time more widely became necessary, an Observatory assistant, John Belville, set his pocket watch—which he called Arnold (don’t ask)—to GMT and then set out into the City to distribute the time more or less door to door. Happily, the advent of the telegraph soon led to a way to transmit the correct time via electrical impulses.
The Observatory has a vast collection of exhibits related to time and timekeeping. I could go on, but I simply don’t have the time.

John Flamsteed was the first Astronomer Royal, and was succeeded by his “friend” Edmund Halley. Here’s a good trivia question: who is the current Astronomer Royal? Lord Rees of Ludlow, who has occupied the position since 1995.

There is, as it turns out, a difference between the “Royal Observatory, Greenwich” and the “Royal Greenwich Observatory.” In the 1920s and 30s, thanks to the construction of new electrical power stations and the growing light and air pollution in London, it was becoming more and more difficult for astronomers to see much from the Observatory, so gradually the “RGO” was moved to Herstmonceaux Castle out in Sussex. It has moved about since and even I have not been able to keep track of it. Perhaps if I knew its longitude...

After spending some time wandering about the Flamsteed House, it was lunch time, so Steven and I walked down to the River to the Trafalgar Pub—another excellent pub. After lunch, we walked along the Thames to a tunnel through which you can walk underneath the Thames from Greenwich to Millwall Park. At the north end of the tunnel, there is a very strange hexagonal, wood-paneled elevator that takes you up to street level. Very weird.

We were then off to Whitehall and the Cabinet War Rooms. To be continued...