A (very) Little Look at Harris Tweed

Summer Time’s at an end…..

British summer time ends on 30 October this year - as always the last Sunday of the month. But have you ever wondered how the practice of putting the clocks forward an hour in early spring began?

It was first introduced fin 1915 following a campaign by William Willett, who enjoyed his early morning rides and wanted to see more people up and about enjoying the beginning of the day. He published “The Waste of Daylight”, a plan to encourage early rising during the summer months by adjusting the clocks. His proposal was to move them forward 80 minutes, in 20 minute increments on Sundays during April, and then back again in September. Willett died in 1915 without seeing the introduction of his idea, but just a year later it was implemented as a “temporary” wartime measure.

In 1940, during the second world war, the clocks weren’t put back in the autumn, but were advanced again in spring as a fuel efficiency measure, known as British Double Summer Time. Though we returned to GMT at the end of the war, Double Summer Time was reintroduced in 1947 due to severe fuel shortages. Another arrangement was tried between 1968 and 1971 when we remained on BST all year in an attempt to reduce accidents on the roads. The results were inconclusive however, and so today we all spring forward by an hour in March and fall back again in October when we return to GMT.