Tag Archives: Daylight Saving

Arthur Linfoot occasionally notes local time changes resulting from daylight saving, the now common practice of advancing clocks by one hour during the summer months so that daylight extends further into the evening than would otherwise be the case. Daylight saving was still a novelty at the time of the diaries, having been introduced in the UK in 1916.

25 March 1917; Sunday

March 1917, , , , ,

Up at 7 by new time – 6 in reality1. On duty as usual. Sandwith and a friend came very gamely to see me in the morning and we talked all the while. We were issued with waterproof capes in the evening. Received letter from Ernie. Went to service at the Y M at night and after the service played the piano until closing time, while several other chaps sang. Had a good time. First time I have played since last August. Went to bed and swotted a bit French last thing.

  1. Daylight saving in France started at 23:00 on 24 March 1917, with clocks being advanced by one hour to 00:00 on the 25th. ↩

2 October 1916; Monday

October 1916, ,

Up at usual time1. Busy all day. Rather bad weather.

  1. “Usual time”: The 2nd of October was the day on which daylight saving ended in France in 1916, with clocks being retarded by one hour at midnight to 23:00 the previous day. By this reckoning, the usual time would have effectively been one hour later, although unlike at other, similar points in the diary, ALL makes no mention here of the change. ↩

20 May 1916; Saturday

May 1916, , ,

On Main Gate Guard from 9.15. Managed pretty well. Had a lot to do at night especially. Leishman helped me through and I put on the guard room clock at 2 o’clock1.

Daylight Saving Bill came into force at midnight2.

  1. See note below re daylight saving. “I put on the guard room clock” presumably means “I advanced the guard room clock by one hour.” 2 A.M. was the time at which the hour officially changed. ↩

  2. Daylight saving time was introduced in Britain by the Summer Time Act 1916 and was implemented in 1916 as GMT plus one hour and Dublin Mean Time plus one hour (Dublin time was 25 minutes behind London at this time). For 1916, DST extended from 21 May to 1 October. ↩