The campaign for British Summer Time came about at the beginning of the 20th century when parliament passed the Summer Time Act in 1916.
British builder William Willett led the movement, inspired by his love of the outdoors. He advocated for BST in his 1907 ‘Waste of Daylight’ pamphlet to increase opportunities for leisure and help reduce energy costs.
He suggested a plan which included 20-minute changes four Sundays in a row in April and September to minimise disruption to people’s biological clocks, arguing that they would “lose nothing and gain substantially”.
He died in 1915 before his vision would become a reality.
The following year, a simplified version of his proposal – a change of an hour – was introduced as the country suffered from huge coal shortages during the First World War.
It has undergone some changes: During the Second World War, Britain kept clocks one hour ahead of GMT through the winter and, from 1941, adopted British Double Summer Time, placing clocks two hours ahead of GMT during summer months. It was then returned to GMT at the end of summer 1945.
