Madras Time was a time zone

Time zone

A time zone is a region on Earth that has a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. In order for the same clock time to always correspond to the same portion of the day as the Earth rotates , different places on the Earth need to have different clock times...

 set up in 1802 by John Goldingham

John Goldingham

John Goldingham was the first official astronomer of the Madras Observatory, appointed in 1802. Goldingham headed the Madras Survey School later which grew into the Guindy Engineering College and then Anna University...

, the first official astronomer of the British East India Company

British East India Company

The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

 in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. It was set to 5 hours and 30 minutes ahead of Greenwich Mean Time

Greenwich Mean Time

Greenwich Mean Time is a term originally referring to mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. It is arguably the same as Coordinated Universal Time and when this is viewed as a time zone the name Greenwich Mean Time is especially used by bodies connected with the United...

 (GMT+05:30). After India's independence, it was adopted as the Indian Standard Time

Indian Standard Time

Indian Standard Time is the time observed throughout India and Sri Lanka, with a time offset of UTC+05:30. India does not observe daylight saving time or other seasonal adjustments, although DST was used briefly during the Sino–Indian War of 1962 and the Indo–Pakistani Wars of 1965 and 1971...

 and the location of the observatory was moved closer to the 82.5°E longitude in Mirzapur

Mirzapur

Mirzapur is a city in the heart of North India, nearly 650 km between Delhi and Kolkata and also equidistant from Allahabad and Varanasi. Located in the state of Uttar Pradesh, Mirzapur has a population of a little over 205,264 and is renowned for its famous carpet and brassware industry...

 in Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh

Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...

.

After Bombay time and Calcutta time

Calcutta time

Calcutta time was one of the two time zones established in British India in 1884. It was established during the International Meridian Conference held at Washington, D.C in the United States. It was then decided that India were to have two time zones, with Calcutta would use the 90th meridian east...

 were set up as the two official time zones of British India in 1884, railway companies in India began to use Madras time as an intermediate time zone between the two zones. This led to Madras time also being known as "Railway time#India".