What we know as British summer time, (originally known as daylight saving time), was pioneered and promoted by an English Builder called William Willett (1856 – 1915). It is said that the idea came to him whilst riding his horse in Petts Wood near his home in Chislehurst in Kent early one summer morning and noticing that many blinds on the windows of the houses he passed were stilldown even though it was light.
Being from the Construction Industry, he realised that if the clocks were adjusted during the summer months, workers could work later into the day during the warmer months. In 1907, using his own financial resources, he published a pamphlet “The waste of Daylight”. In it he proposed that clocks should be advanced in April and reversed in September and, even then, he worked out that £2.5 million could be saved in lighting costs. His idea was finally, after much campaigning, made law in 1916, a year after his death.