HISTORY

In the past, knowing the exact time was much less important than it is now. With increasing urbanisation and industrialisation, however, the pattern of people’s working day was becoming regularised and didn’t necessarily fit with the natural day. In 1818, the factory owner, Robert Owen, was one of the first people to see the benefit of daylight saving and put the clocks forward by half an hour at his cotton mills in New Lanark. Although clearly a move intended to improve the efficiency of the mills it’s true to say that Owen was a radical reformer and did work hard to improve the conditions of his workers.

By the 18th century clocks were sufficiently accurate to record local time but this varied from place to place. With the introduction of the railways, it became increasingly clear that time needed to be standardised and in 1880 Greenwich Mean Time was recognised nationally.

It was not until the 20th century, however, that the idea of a national summer time was introduced. In 1907, an English builder called William Willett published a pamphlet called The Waste of Daylight, which advocated advancing the clocks in Spring and returning to GMT in the autumn. Although he and others lobbied parliament to adopt the idea there was considerable opposition it and although a Daylight Saving Bill was introduced in 1908 there was not enough support for it to pass.

Willetts and others continued their campaign and gained support during World War I when it was seen as a way of conserving scare energy resources and thus helping the war effort. Germany began daylight saving in April 1916 and on 17th May 1916 The Summer Time Act was passed in Britain. The clocks went forward one hour on Sunday, 21st May and returned to GMT on 1st October. Those old enough to recall the days when watches and clocks were mechanical may well remember that the advice was to move the hands forward 11 hours in October to prevent the mechanism breaking. How times change – now my clock makes the changes automatically!

Kindly provided by Elizabeth Friend, Axbridge Archaeological and Local History Society. www.aalhs.co.uk