At the end of October, early risers can look forward to an extra hour curled up in bed, with clocks reverting back from British Summer Time (BST) to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Each year, on the last Sunday in October, the clocks will go back one hour at 2 am, allowing for more sunlight in the mornings as we enter the darker months ahead.
This year, those in the UK will see their clocks go back by one hour on Sunday, October 30th. If you set your alarm on your smartphone or another digital device then this should automatically update for you without any trouble. However, if you still go by an analog alarm clock, then it's probably best to get it wound up and ready before you hit the hay.
According to information on the Royal Museums Greenwich website, around 70 countries have some sort of daylight saving time in place, however, this tends to vary between regions. The idea was first suggested by one of the Founding Fathers of the US, Benjamin Franklin, who, in a satirical 1784 article, remarked that it could well help cut the cost of candles.
In 1907, English builder and inventor William Willett became a vocal advocate for introducing daylight-saving hours in the UK, inspired by an early morning horse ride one fateful summer.
The keen rider, who also happens to have been the great-great-grandfather of Coldplay frontman Chris Martin, couldn't help but notice how many curtains were closed against the sunlight and began to wonder why the clocks couldn't just be moved forward at the beginning of each summer.
Willett outlined his ideas in his 1907 pamphlet Waste of Daylight, in which he called for time to be brought forward by four 20-minute increments in the month of April, before being brought back in September.
He wrote: "Everyone appreciates the long light evenings. Everyone laments their shrinkage as the days grow shorter, and nearly everyone has given utterance to a regret that the clear bright light of early mornings, during Spring and Summer months, is so seldom seen or used."
A bill to advance clocks by one hour during spring and summer months was rejected by The House of Commons in 1908. However, Willett's ideas were finally adopted by parliament in 1916, one year after his death, as a means of reducing demand for coal during World War I.
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