Madras Time was a

time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude, because it ...

established in 1802 by

John Goldingham John Goldingham FRS (1767 - July 1849) was the first official astronomer of the Madras Observatory, appointed in 1802. Goldingham was also an architect and surveyor who headed the Madras Survey School which later grew into the Guindy Engineering ...

, the first official astronomer of the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

when he determined the longitude of

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

as 5 hours, 21 minutes and 14 seconds ahead of

Greenwich Mean Time Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London, counted from midnight. At different times in the past, it has been calculated in different ways, including being calculated from noon; as a c ...

. It has been described as 8 minutes and 46 seconds from UTC+05:30 and 32 minutes and 6 seconds behind

Calcutta Time Calcutta time was one of the two time zones established in British India in 1884. It was established during the International Meridian Conference held at Washington, D.C. in the United States. It was decided that India had two time zones: Calcu ...

which puts it at ( UTC+05:21:14). Before India's independence, it was the closest precursor to

Indian Standard Time Indian Standard Time (IST), sometimes also called India Standard Time, is the time zone observed throughout India, with a time offset of UTC+05:30. India does not observe daylight saving time or other seasonal adjustments. In military and ...

which is derived from the location of the observatory at 82.5°E longitude in Shankargarh

Allahabad Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administra ...

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 195 ...

. After

Bombay Time Bombay Time was one of the two official time zones established in British India in 1884. The time zone was established during the International Meridian Conference held at Washington, D.C. in the United States in 1884. It was then decided that I ...

and

were set up as the two official time zones of

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

in 1884, railway companies in India began to use Madras time as an intermediate time zone between the two zones. This led to Madras time also being known as " Railway time of India".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Madras Time History of Chennai Time zones Time in India History of rail transport in India 1802 establishments in British India

See also

References