IMPORTANT ANNIVERSARIES

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 12028, 21 May 1936, Page 2

IMPORTANT ANNIVERSARIES

20 YEARS AGO TO-DAY EARLA' ONE MORNING. There is a wood in Kent where dawn comes early in summer. Here one day rode William AVillett after his usual morning canter over the Downs, and, as he came into his own neighbourhood, he noticed how many blinds were drawn although it was broad daylight. “What a waste of sunshine,” thought William with springtime in his blood and a song in his heart. “Why not save daylight as we save money?” That was the beginning of it. A builder by trade, and a very good builder, too, he began to advocate early rising, and did it in a clever way, for instead of telling us all to get up an hour sooner, which was useless, he asked us all to put the clocks on an hour.

He kept hammering at his idea, and took it to Parliament. He was laughed at. He was ridiculed. Everybody thought it silly. Then the War came, and William went out in the dark in 1915, and Daylight saving came in in 1916.

Not in vain did he get up in a morning. His work was not thrown away, and on the 21st of May, 1916 at two in the morning, England put the clock on. It was a fine thing to do, and few things in our time have been wiser or better. Let us therefore think of William Willett to-day, and bless him for teaching us to look at the sun an hour longer.