It seems strange nowadays to think of parts of Britain having different local times, but coaches which travelled long distances once carried timepieces which added about 15 minutes a day when heading east to allow for local time differences.
With the improved communications brought by the Victorians, especially telegraph messages and the railways, the use of local times caused many problems.
In 1840 the Great Western Railway ordered that London time was to be used for all timetables and at all stations along the network. By 1852 many more railway companies were using "Greenwich Mean Time" but it was not until August 1880 that Greenwich Time was ordered by Parliament to be used everywhere in Britain.

This unusual entry is from the Log Book of Howey National School in 1867, and it provided a different excuse for being late ! ...
12th September - "Thursday. Several children late owing to the difference in Railway and country time".

Before the new law came into force in 1880 the time differences between Greenwich and distant places in Britain could be quite large. Even Oxford was over 5 minutes behind London, and towns in the north of England were almost 13 minutes behind !

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