In addition, the precise start and end dates and times for Summer Time have been the subject of a great many individual orders detailed below. Adjusting the clocks has been an extremely effective way of really changing the times at which most people work as measured on a uniform time scale , while giving the misleading impression that they are not changing the times at which they work, but rather an act of government has changed the times at which the sun rises and sets.
In February I requested a review of the extended closure period of the World War 2 summer time records, and in May the Home Office concluded that they could now be opened to the public. Every so often, someone tries again to institute the keeping in the UK of a time one hour ahead of GMT in winter, and two hours ahead in summer.
Apart from arguments concerning notional convenience in dealing with Europe, the arguments for this seek lighter evenings say, after work , the arguments against lighter mornings say, for children going to school ; and either side may quote statistics on accident rates that suit its cause.
My personal view is that we should do away with the twice annual changing of clocks and maintain UTC as legal time for the whole year. People for whom dark mornings would be a problem need not go to earlier hours. It would be appropriate for governments to try to generally encourage changes in hours where those changes have benefits in the particular circumstances, for example through tax incentives for seasonally varying opening hours, for flexible arrangements allowing hours chosen by the individual, or more directly for energy efficiency; and if needed a greater degree of coercion could be applied in wartime.
I would consider the value of the honesty of being clear that the aim is to change working times, rather than hiding it behind changes of clocks, to out-weigh the advantages that may arise from such changes. While this attempt failed, it appeared that the idea that politicians could create extra daylight by legislating for it was unfortunately widespread.
While I believe that Summer Time should be done away with, the study of how politicians have managed to fiddle with such a simple matter simple legally, not technically as how to define the time of day has turned out to be fascinating, showing how governments can make such a mess of a simple matter, with over seventy relevant pieces of legislation in a little over a century, along with the oddities of the incompleteness of preservation of the record of published twentieth century secondary legislation.
Below, I attempt to present the details of every piece of legislation, primary, secondary and European, relating to Summer Time and legal time in the UK; along with such details as I have been able to uncover of the relevant legislation for the Crown Dependencies the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. The area that is now the Republic of Ireland is not covered after its independence, though it is thought to have followed mostly the same times except during World War 2, and the details for the Crown Dependencies have gaps.
Texts of legislation may eventually be provided here and be linked to below. Much of this is based on the work of Peter Ilieve for the public-domain UNIX timezone database distributed from elsie. In I tracked down various of the more elusive orders and filled in many of the gaps in this information; since then I have, as time permits, sought further details from the files in the National Archives formerly Public Record Office and elsewhere. None of the information provided here is official, and it should not be relied on for any purpose.
The nearest there is to an official source of summer time history is probably a table in the government consultation paper Summer Time: A Consultation Document Cm , but that table has errors in it. Information on summer time dates, including an accurate historical table of dates but not times , is available from the National Physical Laboratory.
For those interested in further study of this subject, a list of references of National Archives files relating to Summer Time may be of use; this list is somewhat of out date regarding records transferred in the past few years.
To understand the legislative history below, it may be useful to bear the following in mind. IANAL, this information simply reflects my understanding of the relevant law and may not be precise in all circumstances.
The laws discussed do not prescribe a specific name for the times zero, one or two hours ahead of GMT. I do not know what name was used for the time used in Ireland in summer , one hour ahead of Dublin mean time.
This list does not include those laws mentioned above as ones that I have not been able to obtain. This Act replaced the ruling in Curtis v. March by a statutory definition of legal time in Great Britain as being Greenwich mean time and in Ireland as being Dublin mean time. This replaced local mean time, which had been held to be the legal time since Curtis v. March in It was proclaimed in the Royal Square at around 4pm on Saturday 11 June thanks to Geraint Jennings for this research.
It was approved by the States on 18 June , with no specific commencement date so suggesting in the view of the staff in the Greffe, Guernsey that it came into effect immediately that day thanks to David Cranch for this research. This Act gave the power to extend wartime emergency legislation to the Isle of Man by Order in Council i.
It was used to provide for Summer Time in the Isle of Man. It applied to the year , and to such subsequent years during the continuance of the then present war as it might be extended to by Order in Council the Order in Council needing to be made during the year in question, and during the continuance of the war, though the period of Summer Time might end after the end of the war. It provided for the time to be advanced by one hour from Greenwich mean time in Great Britain; from Dublin mean time in Ireland during a specified period each year; for that period was specified as from Sunday 21 May to Sunday 1 October, each at 2am GMT in Great Britain and 2am Dublin mean time in Ireland; and for subsequent years the period was to be specified by Order in Council.
This Act changed the time used in Ireland to be the same as that used in Great Britain, both during Summer Time and at other times. This change took effect from 2am Dublin mean time on Sunday 1 October This was the time at which the change back from summer time would have happened; Great Britain had already gone back 25 minutes earlier, so Ireland had just one time transition that morning, where the time that would have been 3am according to the Summer Time then in operation in Ireland became GMT.
Note that the date of this order is actually two days after Summer Time is deemed to have started. This provides for the time in Alderney to be advanced by one hour between end dates and times specified in , which are the same as those in Great Britain. Though this is not the same time as that of the transition in Great Britain, it also says that the States the parliament of the island will determine the times for similar advances in subsequent years so as to keep the local official time always the same as the time in Great Britain.
This order has essentially the same wording as the Alderney one, and makes the same provision for the advance of time in Guernsey in This order, under the Summer Time Act, , declares the Act to be in force during , with start date Sunday 8th April and end date Monday 17th September, both at 2am Greenwich Mean Time so capitalised.
Note the unusual start on Easter Sunday and end on a Monday. This order, under the Summer Time Isle of Man Act, , declares the Act to be in force in the Isle of Man during , with the same start and end dates and times as in the United Kingdom.
This provides for the legal time in Guernsey to be advanced by one hour during the specified period in , which is the same as that in the UK. The wording is very similar to that of the order. This makes essentially the same provision for Alderney in as the previous order listed did for Guernsey. The copy in the National Archives file is a typescript with manuscript amendments. This typewritten extract from the Registers of Sark states that it was decided, at an extraordinary assembly held on the 15th of March, to advance the legal time for one hour for a specified period in The date of termination was declared, by Order in Council dated 10th August S.
Separate Orders could be and were made concerning the dates of termination of the war with specific countries, but only the date of termination of the war generally is relevant here. This order modifies both the previous two orders to change the end date for Summer Time in the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man in to Monday 25th October, the time of day being unchanged. This is reported by the consultation paper as being because of a coal strike.
This Act, among other extensions of various emergency laws, extends the power to make Orders in Council under the Summer Time Act, for a period of twelve months after the termination of the war i. The extension of powers covered the extension of the Act to the Isle of Man. This order, under the Termination of the Present War Definition Act, , declares that 31st August is to be taken as the date of termination of the War at midnight on that day. The power to make such orders under the Act, extended by the War Emergency Laws Continuance Act, , would finally expire on 31st August , but this order would still determine the end date of Summer Time in Note the reversion to Sunday end dates.
This order is omitted from the annual published volumes. Sadly William Willett died of the flu in aged 58 and never lived to see his daylight saving ideas become law. Rather fittingly, in Petts Wood there is a memorial sundial, set permanently to Daylight Saving Time, to honour him.
The clocks were turned back to GMT at the end of summer Since its introduction, Daylight Saving Time has had both its advocates and critics. Advocates for the system claim the lighter summer mornings save energy, reduce traffic accidents and get people out and about and more active. Critics however claim that if adopted all year round known as British Standard Time , this would result in darker winter mornings which would be more dangerous for children going to school and for those in the north and Scotland, the sun would not rise until well into the morning leaving farmers working for several hours in the dark each morning in the winter.
Some argue that because of this, England and Wales should have their own time zone and Scotland and Northern Ireland, another. The Harold Wilson government adopted British Standard Time between 27th October and 31st October as a trial but after a free vote, the House of Commons chose to end the experiment. They argue this would reduce accidents as a result of lighter evenings and have called for the government to run another trial.
Several attempts to amend or repeal British Summer Time have been brought to the House of Commons in recent years, however currently the UK retains the system first advocated back in the Edwardian era by William Willett. Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
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