IT'S getting to that time again when everyone needs to pick up their clock and change the time on it as we enter Winter.

On the last Sunday of October, which is tomorrow (October 27), clocks across the UK will be going back an hour - but why does this happen?

It all started in 1784 when Benjamin Franklin first suggested the idea of daylight saving time in a whimsical article.

Daylight saving, or summertime, is a mechanism to make the most of increased summer daylight hours in the northern hemisphere.

In the UK, once summer is over, the clocks change back in order to revert to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

A campaign at the beginning of the 20th century successfully argued in favour of changing the clocks during the summer months to avoid wasting time in the morning.

Fast forward to 1916 and The Summer Time Act was passed, ordaining that for a certain period during the year, the legal time should be one hour in advance of GMT.

Double summertime (GMT + 2 hours) was used during the Second World War.

Tomorrow (October 27), clocks will go back an hour at 2am, giving us all an extra hour in bed.

Of course, not everyone is tucked up in bed at 2am; employees who are scheduled to work a night shift at this time may find themselves working an extra hour when the clocks go back to 1am.

Night workers are often advised to check their contracts and discuss the situation with their employer.

By law, night workers must not work more than an average of 8 hours in a 24-hour period.

Some of the arguments in favour of changing the clocks include:

  • Reducing energy consumption for environmental reasons
  • Having longer evenings to support leisure and tourism
  • Encouraging people to exercise more outdoors
  • Reducing road accidents.

Louise Devoy is the Curator of the Royal Observatory and explains why the clocks never change at the Royal Observatory.

Louise said: "We deliberately keep most of our historic clocks on GMT all year round as they were mainly used before the first daylight saving came into effect in 1916.

"Visitors arriving at the Observatory in the summer are often confused by the apparent delay shown on the Shepherd Gate Clock but as Britain’s first public clock to show GMT, we’re proud to continue this tradition."