Does the early bird really catch the worm?

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, of lightening conductor fame, was the first person to suggest that the clocks should be put forward in summer; his essay, ‘An Economical Project’, appeared in 1784 when the great man was living in Paris as an American delegate.

The idea was not taken seriously, however, until 1907 when another pamphlet, ‘Waste of Daylight’, was published in England. Its author, William Willet, an early riser, protested that hours of sunlight were being wasted by people sleeping on in the morning. Willet wanted the clocks put forward by 20 minutes on each Sunday of April and put back on the Sundays in September. He is said to have spent a fortune campaigning but to little effect. Then, in 1909, Robert Pearce introduced a bill in the House of Commons. The proposal was ridiculed, but it started a debate; the seed had been sown.

The clocks went forward in Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Germany, the first country to introduce such a measure, in summer 1916. Britain soon followed suit. During World War II, the clocks were advanced by two hours. Nowadays, a one-hour change is enshrined in European Union directives, but there is still opposition to the measure in some quarters; acquaintances of mine, light sleepers whose body clocks are disrupted by the change, find it difficult to adjust.