The first scientific study
Meanwhile, back in 1870, Otto Struve, the Director of the Pulkova Observatory had presented a study of five meridians to the Geographical Society of Russia – three that were in common use Greenwich, Paris and Hierro (defined as 20° W of the meridian of Paris) along with Greenwich + 30° (W) and the Greenwich antemeridian (Greenwich + 180°). Struve’s study looked not only at the needs of geographers but also of navigators and astronomers. His preferred meridian was Greenwich, but he was only too aware of the likely objections from those in other countries unable or unwilling to relinquish their national meridians. As Ian Bartky puts it in his book One Time Fits All, Struve’s study ‘can be considered the first salvo in what turned out to be a half century of skirmishes aimed at having the world adopt Greenwich as the common meridian for longitudes’.