Insects. Candles. Golf. Coal. Depending on who you ask, each of these three things have had a role in the "spring forward, fall back" mantra called Daylight Savings Time. (more after the break)
George Vernon Hudson of New Zealand, a postal worker by day, wanted more time for his hobby -- entomology, the study of insects. Hudson has taken a liking to insects early in life, having published his first paper on the subject at age 14. But there were never enough hours in the day -- literally. In 1895, then in his 20s, Hudson was a shift-worker for the post office, requiring that his hobby be relegated to after-hours. Noting that a two hour shift of daylight time would give him more time after work to study insects (while not impacting the number of daylight hours during which the post office was open), Hudson took his proposal to the powers that be in New Zealand, authoring two papers on the subject. He was unsuccessful in getting the plan adopted, but, for the first time in recorded history, someone had taken up the Daylight Savings Time mantle.
A few years later, a British man independently came up with the Daylight Savings Time concept. In 1907, William Willett, a builder, penned a paper called "The Waste of Daylight" (here) arguing that we spend too much of summer's daylight time asleep -- a terrible waste of leisure time. (While not in the paper itself, many believe that Willett originally took up the cause, in part, because he wanted more time to play golf.) He also estimated that the British economy lost over 2.5 million pound sterling due to the unnecessary use of artificial light. Then 51 years old, Willett devoted the rest of his life to the cause, proposing that clocks be turned forward 20 minutes each Sunday in April (for a total of 80 minutes) and returned to "normal" time slowly over four Sundays in September. While he managed to get the ear of a Member of Parliament and get a bill introduced, he was otherwise unsuccessful in getting anyone to adopt his plan. He died in 1915. The early work of this duo was not for naught. The seed of their ideas -- probably more Willet's than Hudson's, due to simple geography -- were well-planted and yielded results soon after -- in Germany.. On April 30, 1916, the Germans became the first nation to implement Daylight Savings Time, which they did for coal preservation. By turning the clocks forward, they burned less coal during wartime, and gained advantage of their adversaries. That advantage was short-lived, as most European nations quickly adopted Daylight Savings Time soon thereafter. Russia followed the next year, and the U.S. in 1918.
But Daylight Savings Times never has -- and never will be -- universal. The map above shows where DST is still employed (in blue), has never been used (red), and was once but is no longer (orange).
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