Bug-hunting Kiwi’s time-change plan

‘Spring forwards, fall backwards.”

Or in other words — as we move forward into the autumn months, time is set to go backwards by an hour at 3am this Sunday, April 2, when daylight saving time ends.

That means before bed this Saturday night, people across the country will be resetting the time on their clocks and watches (and probably leaving the one in the car because it’s just too complicated and it will be correct again in a few months) and looking forward to an hour’s lie-in on Sunday morning.

As you lie in bed, savouring that extra hour before you actually have to get up, do something or be somewhere, spare a thought for George Hudson, the Kiwi responsible for your extra hour of sleep time.

Back in 1895, as a keen amateur entomologist and daytime post office worker, George put great value in the hours of daylight after his shift ended, when he could find and collect a wide range of bugs.

That year, he presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society suggesting a two-hour daylightsaving shift in time to create lighter evenings for hobbyists.

While his idea got some support, it wasn’t enough to initiate any official appetite for change, and George had to wait until 1927 for New Zealand to introduce daylight saving time (and he only got one hour, not the two he had proposed).

In his birthplace of England, however, George’s idea was gaining some traction.

There, builder (and greatgrandfather of Chris Martin of Coldplay fame) William Willett published a pamphlet called The Waste of Daylight in 1907, in which he proposed clocks should be advanced by 20 minutes each week in April, making a total of 80 minutes of time change, and then reversed in the same way in September.

He argued this would create lighter evenings, saving a few million pounds in lighting costs, and would prevent people “wasting daylight”.

His idea gained support from many, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Winston Churchill, but was rejected by the British government of the time.

The outbreak of World War I brought his idea back in favour, with the need to save coal. Willett’s muchpublicised campaigning got the attention of Germany and Austria, and driven by a need to save coal and candles, as well as extending the working day to help the war effort, the two countries introduced daylight saving time in 1916.

A few weeks later Britain followed suit, and on Sunday, May 21, 1916 enacted a change of one hour to clock times as a wartime productionboosting device under the Defence of the Realm Act.

Other countries involved in the war followed suit, including the US, where it became known as “war time”, reflecting the reason behind the change. But for George and his bugs, it was a longer wait. It was 32 years after he had first suggested the idea that daylight saving time was finally introduced in this country.

So this weekend, as daylight saving time ends (until September 23 this year), spare a thought for George and remember to turn your clocks back, check your smoke alarm batteries and enjoy that extra hour of sleep.