On the line – June 2008

Transcript

Natasha: Hello. I'm Natasha Waterson, and with me is David Rooney.

David: Hello, Natasha.

Natasha: David's one of our resident experts in the history of timekeeping, and today he's here to tell us more about the history of British Summer Time, which, 100 years ago this month, was just a controversial idea being proposed by a London builder called William Willett. David, tell us more.

David: Well, this builder, William Willett, used to like going horse riding around the woods in southeast London, where he lived. And he was incensed with what he saw as a waste of valuable daylight first thing in the morning in the summer months, when you've got more daylight to play with. And he decided to do something about it, to try and get people out of bed early.

Now, his plan was put to the British government. A bill was written and a select committee was formed, and in June, 1908, so that's 100 years ago this month, he was coming to the conclusion of a parliamentary battle to get his idea approved.

Natasha: So, what was his idea?

David: Well, his idea was instead of trying to convince people to get out of bed early in the summer to make better use of daylight, why not sort of give them a bit of a gentle trick to get out of bed early, which is to change the time on every clock and watch?

His idea originally was to put the hands of all the clocks forward by 20 minutes one week in the spring, and then the next week you'd put them forward another 20 minutes, and then the next week another 20 minutes, and then the next week a further 20 minutes, making a total of 80 minutes over four weeks, and then another four steps backwards in the autumn. It seems quite complex, and indeed it was.

In the select committee which was formed to look at his idea, witnesses were called from far and wide. You had astronomers, you had gardeners, industrialists, doctors, even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was called.

Natasha: And what did they all think?

David: Arthur Conan Doyle was brought in, he was in favor. He said this, he said, 'I think it would make for the happiness of family life if the head of the family could take his wife and children for some little excursion,' the idea being that he couldn't do that if he got home and it was dark.

So, he was in favor. Now, not everyone was quite so positive. I've got another reference here from a watchmaker called T.D. Wright, and T.D. Wright said, 'I think it's a very stupid suggestion.' And he wanted to put everything forward to Central European Time and advance it by an hour in summer and winter, so he didn't like the idea at all.

Natasha: And what did the Royal Observatory think? Were they for or against?

David: Well, this is where things got interesting. On 18 June 1908, the Astronomer Royal, the chief of the Royal Observatory, was called as a witness to the select committee. He was Sir William Christie and he had thought about it a lot, I mean, that was the nature of his job, and he really wasn't up for it at all. He said this:

'Such a tampering with the fundamental principle of time-reckoning, which regulates not merely our own life, but also our relations with the rest of world, would have far-reaching consequences which do not appear to have been sufficiently considered.'

Natasha: So, did the bill end up being approved in the end?

David: The 1908 bill didn't, no. It was actually, broadly speaking, approved by the committee. They said, look, this whole four times 20 minutes thing is a bit crazy, so we'll just put the idea forward for a one-hour change in spring, and a one-hour change in the autumn which, history relates, is exactly what we've got. But in the end, the prime minister of the day wasn't in favour of the scheme, so it fell at the final hurdle.

William Willett was not to be defeated, and in fact, the next year, in 1909, he put another bill, another select committee, they were very much against it, and so that didn't work. And he got more bills through the next few years, all of which were rejected.

In the end, he actually died before he saw his scheme in action. He died in 1915, in the First World War. The following year, Britain was at war with Germany and Germany had decided to try this daylight saving system, so they advanced their clocks in 1916. Britain hurriedly passed a law so that we would do the same because we didn't want to potentially lose out on anything that might give us the edge, and we've been changing the clocks ever since.

Natasha: David, thank you very much.

David: Thank you.