Sandford Fleming KCMG (1827 - 1915)

Born 7 Jan 1827 in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, United Kingdom

Ancestors

Husband of Anne Jane (Hall) Fleming — married 3 Jan 1855 in Peterborough, Canada West

Descendants

Died 22 Jul 1915 at age 88 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

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Biography

Sandford Fleming KCMG migrated from Scotland to Canada.

Sandford Fleming KCMG is Notable.

Sir Sandford Fleming was a Scottish-Canadian civil engineer. He was Canada's foremost railway surveyor and construction engineer of the 19th century as well as a distinguished inventor and scientist. He played a key role in the development of a worldwide system of keeping time by advocating the adoption of a standard or mean time. He also designed the country's first postage stamp.^[1]

Born in 1827 in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland, he was the son of Andrew Greig Fleming, a carpenter, and his wife Eliza Arnot. At the age of 14 he began his training as a surveyor. Four years later he emigrated with his older brother David and a cousin to Ontario (then the western half of the Province of Canada, at that time called Canada West), initially settling in Peterborough where he worked for a local surveyor. He qualified as a surveyor in Canada in 1849.

Fleming c. 1855

That same year he established the Royal Canadian Institute, a scientific society, with several friends. A talented map maker and artist, he designed the threepenny beaver, the first Canadian postage stamp, in 1851. Throughout this time he worked as a surveyor. In 1852 he was hired as an assistant engineer with what would become the Northern Railway and served as its chief engineer from 1855 until 1862.

Fleming was a member of the 10th Battalion Volunteer Rifles of Canada (the Royal Regiment of Canada) and was given the rank of captain in 1862. He retired from the militia in 1865.

In 1862 he presented the federal government with a plan for a transcontinental railway. As a result of his lobbying, he was appointed engineer-in-chief of the Intercolonial Railway, a post he held until 1876. His insistence on building iron and stone bridges instead of wooden ones was controversial at the time, but was soon vindicated by their superior strength (produced by Fleming's new engineering techniques) and their resistance to fire.

Intercolonial Railway workers. Fleming is at rear in top hat.

In 1871 Fleming was offered the chief engineer post on the Canadian Pacific Railway. He accepted and the following year set off with a small party, which included his son Frank, to survey the route. By 1880, with 600 miles completed, his independent opinions had made him a political liability and he was dismissed with a $30,000 payoff. Nevertheless, in 1884 he became a director of the CPR and was present as the last spike was driven.

As railways spread, the lack of a system of standard time led to problems with scheduling and keeping track of trains. No one understood this better than Fleming and in 1879 he wrote a report proposing a new system of standardizing the measurement of time. Coincidentally, Cleveland Abbe proposed a similar system that same year. The two joined forces to promote the need for standard time zones. In 1884 Fleming presented a position paper at the International Meridian Conference, which eventually accepted his main points. By 1929 the major countries of the world were using standard time zones.^[2][3]

Globe used by Fleming to illustrate principle of standard time

From 1880 to 1915, he served as chancellor of Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Throughout these years, Fleming devoted himself to writing and scientific research. He was knighted in 1897.^[4]

He died on July 22, 1915, in Halifax, Nova Scotia,^[5] and was buried at Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa.^[6]

Family Life
On January 3, 1855, Fleming married Ann Jane (Jean) Hall in Peterborough, Canada West (Ontario). They had five sons and four daughters. The Flemings lived in Toronto, Halifax and Ottawa.^[7][8] At Fleming's death, he was survived by three sons and two daughters.^[9]

Legacy and Honours

• Designated a National Historic Person in 1950.
• Two Canadian postage stamps (1977 and 2002) were issued in his honour.
• Geographical features named for him include the town of Fleming, Saskatchewan, and Mount Sir Sandford in British Columbia.
• Several buildings and institutions across the country have also been named in his honour.^[10]
• Honorary doctorates from the University of St Andrews in Scotland (1884), Columbia (1887), the University of Toronto (1907), and Queen’s (1908).^[11]

Sources

1. ↑ Canadian Encyclopedia
2. ↑ Wikipedia, entry for Sir Sandford Fleming.
3. ↑ Dictionary of Canadian Biography, entry for Sir Sandford Fleming.
4. ↑ Biography.com: http://www.biography.com/people/sandford-fleming-9297014.
5. ↑ "Nova Scotia Deaths, 1890-1955," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QK9S-474R : 8 November 2017), Sanford Fleming, 22 Jul 1915; citing Halifax, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, certificate 3236, Nova Scotia Archives, Halifax.
6. ↑ Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 12 February 2020), memorial page for Sir Sandford Arnot Fleming (27 Jan 1827–22 Jul 1915), Find A Grave: Memorial #8073028, citing Beechwood Cemetery, Ottawa, Ottawa Municipality, Ontario, Canada ; Maintained by Find A Grave .
7. ↑ "Canada Census, 1901," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KHLB-B48 : 18 March 2018), Sandford Fleming, Ottawa (city/cité), Ontario, Canada; citing p. 13, Library and Archives of Canada, Ottawa.
8. ↑ "Recensement du Canada de 1911," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QV9Y-Q3S9 : 16 March 2018), Sandford Fleming, 1911; citing Census, Ottawa Sub-Districts 4-44, Ontario, Canada, Library and Archives of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario; FHL microfilm 2,418,514.
9. ↑ Dictionary of Canadian Biography, entry for Sir Sandford Fleming
10. ↑ Wikipedia, entry for Sir Sandford Fleming
11. ↑ Dictionary of Canadian Biography, entry for Sir Sandford Fleming

See also:

• Biography.com: http://www.biography.com/people/sandford-fleming-9297014