British Summer Time

Did you know that British Summer Time was first initiated in Britain during the First World War?

It had first been heavily proposed by William Willet in 1907 as an argument against the ‘waste’ of daylight. Willet died in 1915 with the government still heavily resistant to his proposal.

However with Germany introducing a Daylight Saving Time in 1916, the British followed soon afterwards in an attempt to save valuable fuel and money by making the most of the increased hours of daylight.

British Summer Time has been through various incarnations since then, but the roots of the changing of the clocks from, Greenwich Mean Time during the summer are firmly set in the First World War.

Photograph – © Val Vannet