On Sunday, the UK will set their clocks forward an hour and British Summer Time will begin, meaning that there will be darker mornings and brighter evenings until they go back to the last Sunday in October but why do we observe this time change instead of using GMT all of the time? 

Ancient civilizations first implemented something similar to BST however they were more flexible and divided the hours based on daylight and so varied though the seasons. In 1810 The Spanish National Assembly Cortes of Cadiz issued regulations that meant that certain meeting times were brought forward by an hour; however this did not change the clocks. The first proposed modern BST was brought forward by New Zealand Entomologist as his job had given him time to collect insects and began to value after-hours daylights and in 1895 presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society. The first city in the world to enact BST was Port Arthur in Ontario Canada in July 1908 with the first country to adopt it being the German Empire and Austria-Hungary on April 30 1916 to conserve coal during World War 1.  

But do we need BST nowadays? It has definitely lost most of its appeal considering that we often are still awake during the night-time as well as the days being mostly normal throughout the year meaning that it is mostly useless. So, should we abolish it? On the one hand, it would simplify the time and make everything be chosevie and eliminate any confusion. However, on the other hand, it’s not important in the grand scheme of things and there are more important things for the government to consider before this so it’s looking likely that BST will stay for at least the next few years.