Daylight Saving Time, or British Summer Time as it is known here, was an idea dreamed up by a builder living in
Petts Wood, Kent. His name was William Willett (1857-1915), and in 1907 he circulated a
pamphlet to Members of Parliament, town councils and businesses, observing that "for nearly half the year the sun shines upon the land for several hours each day while we are asleep, and is rapidly nearing the horizon, having already passed its western limit, when we reach home from work before it is over" (notice that he was talking about
then, not now). He obviously hadn't considered getting up earlier!
His proposal was to "improve health and happiness" (?) by advancing the clocks twenty minutes on each of four Sundays in April, and by reversing this idea by the same amount on four Sundays in September. He reckoned that it would not only improve health and happiness but it would save the country £ 2.5 million (even after taking into account the loss of earnings to the producers of artificial light).
Though the scheme was ridiculed and met with considerable opposition, a Daylight Saving Bill was introduced in 1909, though it met with no success before war broke out in 1914.
In April 1916, Daylight Saving Time was introduced as a "wartime economy measure", not only in Britain but, within a week or so, in nearly all countries, both allied and enemy. Sadly, William had died the previous year so never saw his idea put into effect.
Although most countries abandoned Daylight Saving Time after the First World War, many reintroduced it eventually, and some even began to keep it throughout the year (now,
there's an idea)!
From 1968 until 1971 Britain tried the experiment of keeping BST (to be called British Standard Time) throughout the year. This was mainly for commercial (political?) reasons because Britain would then conform to the time kept by other European Countries. However, it was not good for the children of Scotland as it meant they had to go to school in the dark during the winter months (no-one thought of adjusting school hours, apparently). The experiment was abandoned in 1972, and Britain has reverted to keeping GMT in winter and BST in summer since then.
It should be noted also that it is Brussels (that is, EU bureaucrats) who decree the start and end dates of British Summer Time, not Greenwich. And no, we
don't want to stick to Central European Time (one hour ahead of GMT)!
Thank you very much Mr. Willett. You changed the world, as well as the clocks (in the days when there was only one in the house)! But things have moved on a tad in the last hundred years or so, and now we all inhabit a "Global Village" and keep (what we may refer to as) internet hours. So now Mr. Hannis would like to start the ball rolling to retain GMT throughout the year. Think Zulu!
