Such copycat behaviour was commonplace, Stephenson says. “Britain had long been borrowing from Germany – many British politicians and intellectuals were fascinated by the country as an example of superior national efficiency,” he says.

According to the new law, civil time would be advanced one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time during the newly-defined British Summer Time. Several other European nations soon followed suit, along with the US – coining its famous mnemonic of ‘spring forward, fall back’ – as well as Uruguay, New Zealand, Chile and Cuba.

Double-time it

Britain went on to witness occasional deviations. During World War Two, it operated two hours ahead of GMT in so-called Double Summer Time, once more to cut industrial costs. Trialled between 1968 and 1971 was British Standard Time, which advanced clocks by an hour year-round. Characterised by children wearing fluorescent armbands on inky winter mornings, it proved deeply unpopular.

Ever since, recurrent parliamentary bills have challenged DST. Not just in Britain, either: daylight saving measures are constantly being introduced, amended, disputed or ditched somewhere around the world.