The time change was not always automatic. Today, smart devices are automatically set, one hour ahead or one hour back, when the time change takes place, and to set any clock well, at any time, it is enough to glance at your mobile phone. But it wasn’t always like that. A few decades ago, a phone call to the then three-digit number, 141, was enough to hear the characteristic female voice informing about the time in Greece: “On the next tone, the time will be…” followed by the long tone: “beep”. The one second between the two was enough time to get ready to press in on the winder on the side of the watch to start the hands turning.

Even earlier, however, time-setting and time-keeping were a particular puzzle. At the end of the 19th century, when the Observatory was under the direction of the University of Athens, the Astronomical Department undertook, in addition to scientific research and astronomy-related activities, one of the most important practical tasks of the time: the regulation of pendulums and chronometers, mainly of the ships of the royal and merchant navy, but also of other ships visiting Piraeus, in order to regulate, among other things, the time sail to port.

The development of watchmaking, however, also brought an additional help from the university side to social life: the regulation of time in the city of Athens and Piraeus. As there was no other way of informing the capital of the exact time, the watchmakers of Athens and Piraeus were allowed to visit the Observatory between 3 and 4 p.m. daily in order to synchronize their clocks.

However, informing citizens of the exact time was very difficult, due to a lack of public clocks. Thus, it was decided to ring the church bells every noon, with the observatory’s flag lowered, in order to mark noon. “On the outside of the Observatory, as was customary a long time ago, the lowering of the flag marking the meridian in the city followed”, it is stated in the Annual Report of the Observatory for the period 1897-1898. As for the rest of the cities, “[η] time of Athens you telegraph almost every one of them to the various cities of the State, according to the regulation of these clocks” (Annual Report of the Observatory, 1897-1898).

However, the human factor significantly affected the accuracy, as some employees and the priests of the churches who were in charge of ringing the bell “did not perform their duty with great consistency, thus creating discrepancies in the time of various regions, which undermined the orderly operation of state services and public transport” (K. Gavroglou, E. Karamanolakis, X. Barkula, 2014).

At the European level, the 19th century was marked by the development of the precision of measurements and instruments, as a statutory element of state formation, thus, the Athens Observatory undertook the creation of a network of electric clocks.

In the Annual Report of the Observatory for the period 1897-1898, the “absolute necessity” of accurate time is underlined, while it is pointed out that “[η] perfecting the chronometric service in the observatories is also dictated by industrial reasons” and that “[η] development and perfection of watchmaking among us is impossible to achieve without a fully functioning chronometric service in the Observatory”. In fact, there is talk of best practices coming from Switzerland.

Thus, in order to achieve greater accuracy in setting the time, the Observatory proposed to the Municipality of Athens that electric clocks be installed, the regulation of which would be undertaken by the Municipality. However, while this proposal was accepted by the Municipal Council, the Prefecture did not approve it for reasons of economy, and therefore “each of the fellow citizens still has a time that differs from the exact one by up to a quarter of the time” (Prytaniki Logoi, 1891-1892, 225).

Electric clocks finally came to the capital in the early 1890s, solving the problem of accurate time and facilitating the running of services, trains and ports. The Constantinopolitan Nikolaos Zarifis (1820-1895), after the advice of Dimitrios Aeginitis -professor of Meteorology and Astronomy at the University of Athens and director of the Observatory at the time-, undertook the financing of a large electric clock in the Observatory, as well as 12 electric clocks in various parts of Athens. The municipal authority installed another 5 and thus Athens acquired a total of 17 electric clocks that were regulated directly from the Observatory.

Thus it was possible for the inhabitants of all districts to be informed of the exact time at any moment of the day, thus definitively solving the question of time-keeping in the city and at the same time giving the Observatory an accurate means of monitoring its chronometric work.

The inauguration of the network of electric clocks took place on March 25, 1892. As for the cities beyond the capital, the time continued to be communicated by telegraph, with special emphasis on cities where seismographic stations had been installed, such as Aegio, Zakynthos and Kalamata (Annual Observatory Report, 1903-1904).

It was an addition that radically changed the way in which the Athenians experienced their daily life, as accuracy had now entered their lives, as Vangelis Karamanolakis, associate professor of Theory and History of Historiography and president of the Steering Committee of the Historical Archive of the University of Athens, said speaking to APE-MPE.

“How shocking a change would it have been to the life of an Athenian in the late 19th century to know the exact time, based on the network of electric clocks installed in the city thanks to the Observatory and the University of Athens?”, Mr. Karamanolakis wondered. “People could now set their pocket watches to work with the hallmark of modern times: accuracy,” he added.

It is worth noting that the installation of the clocks was one of the many activities of the Observatory, in which seismology and meteorology departments were established at the same time.

“The Observatory, the Chemistry, the Physics Laboratory, but also the university hospitals and clinics carried out a series of activities aimed at establishing a culture of precision, which was necessary for the functioning of a modern state – as was the case in Western Europe at that time,” explained Mr. Karamanolakis.

“Valid measurements or safe chemical and medical analyses, activities of the University’s laboratories, did not only ensure scientific ethics. They legitimized within society the belief that the ‘modern’ and ‘progressive’ way of life could be achieved by adopting this culture of precision,” he concluded.