[Dixonary] OT: Daylight Savings Time

[Dodi Schultz]

Guerri, I don't drive to or from work; I just go downstairs. But really,
around here, most of the folks I know seem to prefer Daylight Time; I guess
they tend not to rise all that early, no matter where they work. (Come to
think of it, back--WAY back--when I was on staff, I never got there at 9,
but I was often at my desk well after 5 or 6.)

It just occurred to me: Do you know (or does anyone here) WHEN the time
switch started? Here OR in Europe? AFAIK, it's been around all MY life.

--Dodi

[Paul Keating]

I can tell you when it started officially. The first government to pass a
law about it was the UK, in 1916, when it was introduced as a wartime
measure. That was before there was a standard meridian in the UK, so the law
specified one hour ahead of GMT in England, Scotland and Wales, and one hour
ahead of solar time at Dublin Castle for Ireland.

Canada followed suit in 1917 and the US in 1918 (in the same law that
recognized the timezones that the railways had been using for a generation).

Daylight saving time was unpopular in the US and was repealed in 1919, but
was brought back (year round), again as a wartime measure, 1942-45. Britain
persisted with it, however, and during the war it adopted "double summer
time", or "war time", which was one hour ahead of GMT in winter and two
hours in summer.

In years after the war it was a local option in the US, but this resulted in
an unwieldy patchwork with adjacent localities observing it, or not, and
adopting it on different dates, so eventually in 1966 Congress insisted that
everyone must change on the same day (or not change at all) and giving
states (rather than counties) the right to regulate timezones. Which in a
sense makes the US the last industrialized democracy to adopt it.

"Daylight saving" was the phrase used to make that law politically
palatable, though of course changing the clocks does nothing of the sort.
Europeans don't use the phrase: they talk about "summer time" instead.
Windows is convinced that the UK observes something called "GMT Daylight
Time" when in actual fact it's called British Summer Time.

In a similar spirit, Lord Tawnlaw, the British peer who wants to move the UK
onto CET, has named his legislation the Lighter Evenings Bill. Neglecting to
point out that he might with equal accuracy have called it the Darker
Mornings Bill.

I have some experience of that. Holland's nearest standard meridian is
Greenwich, 20 minutes of time to the west, but of course for practical
reasons it is on CET, which is 40 minutes of time to the east, and that
means we are on the best part of an hour of permanent summer time, plus
another hour in summer. In other words, we keep Rome time in the winter and
St. Petersburg time in the summer, with solar noon at about 13h40.

Just imagine what it would be like in Belfast, Northern Ireland (5degW)
under the noble lord's proposal. Solar noon would be about 14h20, sunset at
midsummer would be about 23h00 and it wouldn't be full dark until nearly
01h00 the next day. And in winter the sun wouldn't rise until nearly 10 in
the morning.

I can imagine the Republic of Ireland refusing to go along, so that you
would have to set your watch forward if you drove north from Dublin to
Belfast.

--
Paul Keating
The Hague

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dodi Schultz" <schultz (AT) compuserve (DOT) com>
Subject: [Dixonary] OT: Daylight Savings Time


> It just occurred to me: Do you know (or does anyone here) WHEN the time
> switch started? Here OR in Europe? AFAIK, it's been around all MY life.
>