014 MARKING TIME WITH LOCAL LANDMARKS
THE TIMESthey are a changing
On Sunday 27th October, we will turn our clocks back, enjoying an indulgent extra hour in bed – but at the same time signalling the start of shorter days, and winter ahead. But what’s behind the twice-yearly change that’s been happening for more than a century – and can you spot some of Tunbridge Wells’ most historic timepieces?
Sophie Astin I TIME ZONES
t was American inventor, scientist and statesman, Benjamin Franklin, who fi rst conceived the idea of summer time – or “daylight saving time” as it became known.
He proposed the concept in a satirical essay, published in 1784, in which he argued that “all the diffi culty will be in the fi rst two or three days; after which the reformation will be as natural and easy as the present irregularity [...] Oblige a man to rise at four in the morning, and it is more than probable he will go willingly to bed at eight in the evening; and, having had eight hours sleep, he will rise more willingly at four in the morning following.” Sounds simple...But it wasn’t until 1907 that William Willett, a businessman and builder from Chislehurst in Kent – also the great- great-grandfather of Coldplay frontman, Chris Martin – put forward a serious proposal for daylight
that clocks be advanced by 20 minutes at a time at 2am on successive Sundays in April (80 minutes in total) and then reversed in September. Willett never lived to see his idea come to fruition, but in 1916, a year after his death, Germany became the fi rst country to adopt daylight saving followed soon after by the UK a few weeks later, along with several other European countries.
Time for a change? THE EUROPEAN
PARLIAMENT VOTED EARLIER THIS YEAR, IN FACT, TO SCRAP DAYLIGHT SAVING BY 2021
saving time. His theory was that morning daylight would no longer be wasted and evenings would remain lighter for longer, thus increasing daylight recreation time – and saving £2.5 million in lighting costs. Willett self-published a pamphlet, The Waste of Daylight, in which he suggested
Although many countries across the world have adopted daylight saving, the custom of changing the clocks by an hour in spring and autumn continues to be the source of ongoing debate. The European Parliament voted earlier this year, in fact, to scrap it by 2021, leaving only national governments to now give their assent. Since most of us
carry a timepiece of some sort, there’s little need to look for a public clock. Visitors to London may be disappointed to see the
capital’s iconic landmark, often referred to as Big Ben, in the midst of a large- scale restoration project, but right here in Tunbridge Wells we have some fi ne examples of clocks, large and small, old and new, which often go unnoticed as we go about our daily lives (see far right).
• During the Second World War, British Double Summer Time – that is, two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) – was temporarily introduced to increase productivity for the period when ordinary daylight saving would be in force. During the winter, clocks were kept just one hour in advance of GMT. • When the clocks fi rst changed in 1916, there were concerns that delicate striking clocks could be damaged by people trying to force the hands back an hour. Offi cial warnings and guidelines were even printed in newspapers and magazines to reduce the number of “clock casualties”. (Source: Royal Museums Greenwich.)
• So why does daylight saving time begin at 2am and not at the stroke of midnight? It was thought that since most of us would be asleep, most workers with early shifts still in bed and most bars and restaurants closed, that the change in time would not be noticed. • King Edward VII even employed his own version of daylight savings. Due to his love of hunting at his country estate in Sandringham, Norfolk, he decided to make the most of the daylight and so in 1901, he stipulated that all clocks on the estate should run 30 minutes fast, thus creating his own (enormously confusing) “Sandringham Time”.
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