SANDFORD FLEMING: BIOGRAPHY AND INVENTIONS - ARTE - 2025

Sandford Fleming (1827-1915) was a Scottish engineer, inventor, draftsman, and university rector known for being the inventor of time zones. He was also famous for having participated in the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railroad and for designing the three pence beaver, a type of local Canadian currency commonly known as “beaver coins”. Fleming also supported the creation of several educational institutions in Canada.

Fleming's father was a carpenter, Andrew Greg Fleming, and his mother was named Elizabeth Arnold. He had a brother named David Fleming. It was in Peterborough that he met the family of his future wife Ann Jean Hall in 1845. However, it took ten years until Fleming decided to marry, in 1855, a union resulting from which five sons and four daughters were born. Two of them died at an early age.

Sandford Fleming and his little sons in 1893. Source: William James Topley

Biography

Early years

Sandford Fleming did his first studies at Kennoway and Kirkcaldy. At the age of 14 he was a student of the well-known Scottish surveyor and engineer John Sang. He then emigrated to Upper Canada in 1845, along with his brother and a cousin.

They initially came to Peterborough and there Fleming met a surveyor, Richard Birdsall, who hired him to work for him. He then contracted with John Stoughton Dennis in Weston, Toronto, to obtain a recertification required by law.

To have income before this certification what he did was prepare maps of Hamilton, Toronto and Peterborough. The last map made in conjunction with Dennis earned them the Hugh Scoobie firm to publish them in 1851.

That same year, Fleming also designed the first Canadian stamp and it would be the beginning of the beaver's popularity as the country's emblem animal.

Canadian Institute

In his tireless scientific work throughout his life, Fleming helped consolidate several academic institutions. In 1849, in the company of Kivas Tully and Frederic William Cumberland, he joined forces to found the Canadian Institute, a society of architects, engineers and surveyors that would gain strength over the years thanks to the work of Fleming.

He helped the society build a broad foundation until he left Toronto in 1864. Just over ten years later, Daniel Wilson, a staunch supporter of the time zone project, reinstated Fleming into the Institute. Around 1852 he also promoted the institute's Canadian Journal.

Disputes with Cumberland

Then Fleming in 1852 became an assistant engineer for Cumberland, with the company that years later was called the Northern Railway. It was the construction of the railroad that linked Toronto and Georgian Bay, but the relations between them were not the best.

Cumberland handled various matters far removed from the daily workings of the railroad and led Fleming to collaborate and involve him more and more. In 1855 Cumberland finally kicked him out of the company, but Fleming decided to take him to the railroad board.

They then made him promise that he would be able to return to work on the condition that he dedicate all his time to the railway work. Then Cumberland lashed out and kicked him off the project again. Three years of bickering passed, until 1866, when Fleming finally lost in that tug of war and had to pay Cumberland.

Pacific Railroad

The railroad board however granted Fleming permission to carry out other activities. This is how, in 1858 and together with Collingwood Schreiber, he designed the Palace of Toronto, where he amply demonstrated his capabilities when working iron constructions with new technologies.

From that year on he was enthusiastic about a project, a transcontinental railroad, and in 1862 he was the first to present to the government the first plan to build the Pacific Railroad. He made a trip to Great Britain in 1863 in order to get the imperial government interested in the project, but it was unsuccessful.

On his return the efforts were put on an Intercolonial Railroad. In 1863 Sandford Fleming was appointed head of studies for the new project by unanimous decision of the local government and the Colonial Office.

He was later appointed Chief Engineer of the Intercolonial Railroad until 1876, a period in which he led his employees to take an interest in exploring new routes, approved several contracts, and even built a new line for Nova Scotia.

The construction of the Intercolonial became a federal project. In 1868 a board was created to supervise the works, but Fleming disagreed with it, especially in the materials to be used in some bridges that were quite a challenge for the time.

The board preferred wood, and Fleming stone and iron, more resistant materials that were finally used, a matter for which they lasted for many years. In addition, it innovated with some engineering techniques and soil sampling. Later he had an affair with Charles Brydges, a former member of the railway commission.

Inventor of the time zone

Before Fleming's invention, people were guided by the sun, taking into account that it was 12:00 noon when the sun was at its highest. This brought obvious errors as the country changed.

Apparently, Fleming's proposal came when he lost a train in Ireland in 1876, since the printed ticket did not specify whether the time was am or pm. What he devised was the time zones, 24 zones in which the entire Earth could fit to differentiate the hours either being further east or west.

The spindles are defined in relation to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and are centered on the Greenwich meridian. Thus, when going east and going from one zone to another, one hour is added; and, conversely, in the west direction, one hour is subtracted.

In 1879 he proposed to create a schedule and thus unify the system to know the exact time in any part of the planet. The 24 zones were delimited by meridians that ran from north to south. Starting from Greenwich in England to the East would add an hour in each zone.

That year, at a meeting of the Canadian Institute he proposed that time zones be used locally, although they depended on the single world time, which he called Cosmic Time. In the International Meridian Conference of 1884 a different version of that Universal Time was accepted, but they did not want to accept the zones, affirming that this was already a more local competence. It wasn't until 1929 that all countries accepted time zones.

books

As a scientist and engineer, Fleming also spent time writing various articles and books, among which we can mention Railway Inventions (1847); A railway to the Pacific through British territory (1858); The Intercolonial (1876); England and Canada: A Summer Between Old and New Westminster (1884), and Canadian and British Imperial Cables (1900).

Last years

In 1880 he accepted to be Chancellor of Queen's University, in Kingston, Ontario. The last 35 years he has been in this position. He also advocated the construction of an underwater telegraph cable connecting the entire British Empire, called the All Red Line, which was finally built in 1902.

He was also a member and founder of several cement companies and a founding owner of the Nova Scotia Cotton Manufacturing Company in Halifax. He was Vice President of the Ottawa Horticultural Society and President of the Rideau Curling Club. In 1897 Fleming was knighted by Queen Victoria.

Death

Fleming co-founded with George Grant in 1883 the first Alpine Club of Canada. Although this club was short-lived, in 1906 he founded a more modern version of it in Winnipeg and Sir Sandford Fleming became the first President and Honorary President.

He spent his last years in retirement at his home in Halifax. At this stage in his life he was also a lay leader of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, lectured several times, and wrote on political issues.

He donated his home and 38-hectare land to the city, where Dingle Park is now located. He died in 1915 and was buried in Ottawa, in the Beechwood Cemetery.

Legacy

Several buildings today bear the brand new name of this great Scottish engineer and inventor. At Queen's in 1901 the Fleming Hall was built in his honor.

In Peterborough, Ontario, Fleming College opened in 1967, a community college of applied arts and technology.

At the University of Toronto the building of the Faculty of Applied Sciences and Engineering is also named after him.

In Vancouver in 1913, the first Sir Sandford Fleming School opened its doors.

ÇIn Kirkaldy, Fleming's hometown in Scotland, there is a plaque commemorating his life; It is dedicated to the "inventor of standard time."

But not only educational and scientific institutions bear his name, as the highest mountain in Selkirk also has it, as well as the 12 peak of British Columbia. There are also the islands Sandford and Fleming, in Barkley Sound.

Other inventions

-He designed the first Canadian stamp in 1851, the three-cent stamp that had a beaver (Canadian national animal).

-He designed an inline skate in 1850.

References

1. Bellis, M. (2018). Biography of Sir Sandford Fleming (1827-1915). Recovered from thoughtco.com
2. EB (2017). Sandford Fleming, the man who came up with time zones and linked the planet's time. Recovered from abc.es
3. The Country (2017). Sandford Fleming, the man who made the world stop being ruled by the sun. Recovered from elpais.com
4. Drafting Barcelona (2017). Google pays tribute to Sandford Fleming, creator of time zones. Recovered fromvanaguardia.com
5. Regehr, TD (2015). Sir Sandford Fleming. Recovered from thecanadianencyclopedia.ca
6. Undiscovered Scotland (nd). Sandford Fleming. Recovered from undiscoveredscotland.co.uk