British Summer Time

During British Summer Time (BST), civil time in the United Kingdom is advanced one hour forward of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), in effect changing the time zone from UTC±00:00 to UTC+01:00, so that mornings have one hour less daylight, and evenings one hour more. BST begins at 01:00 GMT every year on the last Sunday of March and ends at 01:00 GMT (02:00 BST) on the last Sunday of October. The starting and finishing times of daylight saving were aligned across the European Union on 22 October 1995, and the UK retained this alignment after it left the EU; both BST and Central European Summer Time begin and end on the same Sundays at 02:00 Central European Time, 01:00 GMT. Between 1972 and 1995, the BST period was defined as "beginning at two o'clock, Greenwich mean time, in the morning of the day after the third Saturday in March or, if that day is Easter Day, the day after the second Saturday in March, and ending at two o'clock, Greenwich mean time, in the morning of the day after the fourth Saturday in October." The following table lists recent-past and near-future start and end dates of British Summer Time: British Summer Time was first established by the Summer Time Act 1916, after a campaign by builder William Willett. His original proposal was to move the clocks forward by 80 minutes, in 20-minute weekly steps on Sundays in April and by the reverse procedure in September. In 1916, BST began on 21 May and ended on 1 October. Willett never lived to see his idea implemented, having died in early 1915. In the summers of 1941 to 1945, during the Second World War, Britain was two hours ahead of GMT and operating on British Double Summer Time (BDST). To bring this about, the clocks were not put back by an hour at the end of summer in 1940 (BST having started early, on 25 February 1940). In subsequent years, clocks continued to be advanced by one hour each spring (to BDST) and put back by an hour each autumn (to BST). On 15 July 1945, the clocks were put back by an hour, so BDST reverted to BST; the clocks were put back by an additional hour on 7 October 1945, so BST reverted to GMT for the winter of 1945.