Idea of Daylight Saving Time
The idea of daylight saving was first conceived by Benjamin Franklin (portrait at right) during his sojourn as an American delegate in Paris in 1784, in an essay, "An Economical Project." Read more about Franklin's essay.
Some of Franklin's friends, inventors of a new kind of oil lamp, were so taken by the scheme that they continued corresponding with Franklin even after he returned to America.
The idea was first advocated seriously by a London builder, William Willett (1857-1915), in the pamphlet "Waste of Daylight" (1907) that proposed advancing clocks 20 minutes on each of four Sundays in April, and retarding them by the same amount on four Sundays in September. As he was taking an early morning a ride through Petts Wood, near Croydon, Willett was struck by the fact that the blinds of nearby houses were closed, even though the sun was fully risen. When questioned as to why he didn't simply get up an hour earlier, Willett replied with typical British humor, "What?" In his pamphlet "The Waste of Daylight" he wrote:
"Everyone appreciates the long, light evenings. Everyone laments their shortage as Autumn approaches; and everyone has given utterance to regret that the clear, bright light of an early morning during Spring and Summer months is so seldom seen or used".
Early British laws and lax observance
About twelve months after Willett began to advocate daylight saving (he spent a fortune lobbying), he attracted the attention of the authorities and Mr. Pearce later Sir Robert Pearce introduced a Bill in the House of Commons to make it compulsory to adjust the clocks. The bill was drafted in 1909 and introduced in Parliament several times, but it met with ridicule and opposition, especially from farming interests. Generally lampooned at the time, Willett died on March 4, 1915.
Willett had suggested a complex scheme of adding eighty minutes, in four separate movements. On May 17, 1916, an Act was passed and scheme was put in operation on the following Sunday, May 21, 1916, following the lead of Germany. There was a storm of opposition, confusion and prejudice. The Royal Meteorological Society insisted that Greenwich time would still be used to measure tides. The parks belonging to the Office of Works and the London County Council decided to close at dusk, which meant that they would be open an extra hour in the evening. Kew Gardens, on the other hand, ignored the daylight saving scheme and decided to close by the clock.
In Edinburgh, the confusion was even more marked, for the gun at the Castle was fired at 1 p.m. summer time, while the ball on the top of the Nelson monument on Calton Hill fell at 1 o'clock Greenwich time. That arrangement was carried on for the benefit of seamen who could see it from the Firth of Forth. The time fixed for changing clocks was 2 a.m. on a Sunday.
There was a fair bit of opposition from the general public and from agricultural interests who wanted daylight in the morning, but Lord Balfour came forward with a unique concern:
[on the night the clocks are set back] Supposing some unfortunate lady was confined with twins and one child was born 10 minutes before 1 o'clock. ... the time of birth of the two children would be reversed. ... Such an alteration might conceivably affect the property and titles in that House.
After the War, several Acts of Parliament were passed relating to summer time. Eventually, in 1925, it was enacted that summer time should begin on the day following the third Saturday in April (or one week earlier if that day was Easter Day). The date for closing of summer time was fixed for the day after the first Saturday in October.
The energy saving benefits of this were recognized during World War II, when clocks in Britian were put two hours ahead of GMT during the Summer. This became known as Double Summer Time. During the war, clocks remained one hour ahead of GMT throughout the winter.
http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/c.html
