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In an age that saw the development of the electric telegraph, radio, the 'six pips' and the telephone speaking clock, one family distributed time from Greenwich the old way: by carrying a pocket watch around London. How did the Belville family stay in business until 1940 using eighteenth-century technology? Who were the Edwardian electricians and businessmen that tried to put Ruth Belville out of work? And why did Londoners want to know the time at Greenwich in the first place? In this illustrated lecture, David Rooney reveals the remarkable story of Ruth Belville, the woman who took the time to town.

David Rooney is a writer, historian of technology and the curator of timekeeping at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. He was co-curator of the Observatory's Time Galleries (2006), awarded the prestigious Dibner Award for Excellence by the Society for the History of Technology. He writes and speaks widely on the history of timekeeping and frequently gives media interviews on the subject. The son of a prominent South Shields clockmaker, Rooney originally trained as a physicist before turning to the history of technology while working at the Science Museum, London. He is a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers (and a Steward in 2009) and lives in Greenwich.

'Ruth Belville: The Greenwich Time Lady' by David Rooney is out now. 'Rooney has a gift for making difficult concepts easily graspable, and a riveting way of setting scenes, describing characters and relating anecdotes' (The Daily Telegraph)