Talk:Western European Summer Time

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—Yamara ✉ 08:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

1970s

In the 1970s for a year or two Britain abandoned summer time and stayed on GMT all year. Information about the reasons and results should be included. Lee M 03:28, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC) (HOW late???)

It was the 1960s (1968-71 actually) and they abandoned GMT and stayed on summer time all year but otherwise you are spot on, <grin>. The reasons were harmonisation with Western Europe. The results were consternation in the North of Scotland and the Northern Isles where daylight is in short supply in the winter time anyway. Running on Summer Time all the year round meant that hours of daylight were at inconvenient times of day during the winter. In particular children were walking to and from school in complete darkness and road traffic accidents involving them were a major concern. The experiment was ended and has not been repeated. -- Derek Ross | Talk 22:09, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

DBST

I believe that during the WWII we had double British Summer Time, but I'm not sure of the details. Mintguy (T) 14:22, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

According to this page Britain was on BDST between 1941-45 and in 1947; Between Summer 1940 and Summer 1945, winter time was GMT+1 and summer time was GMT+2. -- Arwel 14:39, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Yeah I found that too. How do you reckon that worked for 1947 then? Was that just 2 hours ahead of the winter time? Mintguy (T) 14:41, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I suppose so... -- Arwel 19:43, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Clocks were put foward to Single Summer Time (GMT+1) on 16 March 1947 and by a further hour to Double Summer Time (GMT+2) on 13 April. They were put back by one hour to Single Summer Time on 10 August and by a further hour to GMT on 2 November. -- Picapica (talk) 09:43, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Anyone bored? The table would be more useful if 2007 were at the top and 1916 at the bottom. Evertype 13:27, 2005 Apr 22 (UTC)

I thought they both might be usefull so I've created British Summer Time/Reverse. --βjweþþ (talk) 11:40, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

http://www.rospa.com/RoadSafety/info/summertime_paper2006v2.pdf says 'Although there was statutory provision to continue double summertime in 1947 and future years, it was not utilised and in that year Britain reverted to ‘British Summer Time’ (GMT + 1) from March to October and GMT from October to March. Alekksandr (talk) 17:42, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

If by "that year" they meant 1947 [the link no longer works] then ROSPA was wrong: Double Summer Time was indeed in effect from 01.00 GMT on 13 April to 01.00 GMT on 10 August 1947 -- Picapica (talk) 09:56, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Standard or Summer?

BST is British Standard Time, not Summer. This is a common misconception. User:Liamgilmartin

BST was British Standard Time during 1968-71. At all other times is has been British Summer Time, but no name has been specified in law except for 1968-71. The reference to "two different timezones for the first time in history" is misleading: Ireland was on Dublin Mean Time until 1916, when it moved to Dublin Mean Time plus one hour for the summer and changed to GMT when summer time ended, at 2am Dublin Mean Time on Sunday 1 October 1916. Joseph Myers 9 July 2005 00:17 (UTC)

Further to the above comment, I was under the impression that, prior to the arrival of Train timetables and the consequent requirement for accuracy, there were small time differences throughout the UK, such that midday occured at the sun's peak. Phil Wills 22 July 2005

Yes, towns ran on local solar time. Bristol, for example, was 12 minutes after London. -- Arwel 17:11, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

For the history of time in Britain before standard time, see Derek Howse, Greenwich Time and the Longitude (Philip Wilson Publishers / National Maritime Museum, 1997). GMT/DMT became legal time in 1880, though for most practical purposes they had been used for decades before (the adoption being driven by the railways). Joseph Myers 17:32, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Unification with continental Europe

Not sure if it's worth putting in the article itself, but I would point out that some cynics suggest that the motivation behind many people's advocation of moving the UK onto CET is unification with continental Europe, and not preventing accidents. JS.Farrar 15:41, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

It is not cynical, many advocates, particularly business interests, do argue that this is the primary reason. --Philip Baird Shearer 07:15, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Historical irony?

Is it an irony that the UK has long proudly been the home of GMT (GMT vs UTC discussions aside) - but only uses GMT+0 itself for half the year; and is fairly likely at some stage to ditch that in favour of BST? If GMT is, therefore, arguably not too suitable for the UK, why was it set as it was? Was it simply that light mornings were more important in the heady days of Greenwich?

The "M" in GMT stands for "Mean", ie Mean Solar Time. 12 noon GMT is the time of day when the sun is at its highest point in the sky ("Solar Noon"), at the Greenwich Meridian - hence the name GMT. However, it is usually more convenient to have sunlight in the afternoon than in the morning, so the time is shifted, by shifting noon relative to GMT. For example, at the equinoxes/equinoces/equinoxen (delete where applicable), under GMT it may be light from 6am to 6pm - under BST from 7am to 7pm (and under BDST 8am to 8pm). edd 17:15, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Why don't we just all get up one hour earlier all year round?

Maybe everyone wants to stay up past midnight :p —Preceding unsigned comment added by 57.66.65.38 (talk) 13:21, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Not entirely facetious. If we (for instance) really think that going home from work 1 hour earlier in winter saves lives (the main pro-BST/DBST argument), we could do so independent of government action, as an example of "people power".

Exile 16:36, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Mental effects, intended?

Humans have a built-in clock.

I remember when I was young, before my country started using summer time, then I always knew what time of day it was because I felt it in my mind. After summer time was introduced I have no idea what time it is without a watch. The summr time can be used to confuse and destabilize something deep inside our minds.

Considering how many other ways the government and the media people have invented to upset people, maybe summer time also is primarily a riot control measure, keep people confused and it makes ruling them much easier.

Has anyone studied this from that perspective? If they have, I think it should be included in this page.

I am not a conspirationist, but this looks suspicious, and it is is strange how easily governments all over the world were convinced about the positive effects of summer time.

It is like when christendom came to my Viking country. The rulers then adopted this new idea very quickly, for similar reasons, is my guess. It made it a lot easier to keep the people under control. Roger4911 05:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Governments are usually convinced by details such as reductions in electricity usage before and after converting to summer time and such, I'm not sure why there needs to be some deep hidden conspiracy to explain it. There might be a conspiracy as well, as they say just because you are paranoid doesn't mean someone isn't after you, but Ockham's razor would guide my first choice. Sfnhltb 15:56, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Map

Is there a reason why Iceland is pale blue but the rest of Europe is in bold colours? If bold denotes "Europe", then Iceland is in Europe - see Iceland#Geography. If the pale colour denotes non-EU, then Norway, Switzerland and others should also be pale. Bazza 15:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

From the caption of the picture: Pale colours indicate countries without daylight saving edd 14:33, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

To be fair, that part of the caption was added after the original question. Jmbox 15:29, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

So that explains why Morocco and Algeria are in different colours! It isn't immediately clear that they are supposed to be a lighter shade rather than totally different colours. Perhaps the legend could be changed to give the "no DST" colours explicitly? JRawle (Talk) 16:40, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers and articel update (and for pointing out that I hadn't not read a caption that wasn't there :-) ) Bazza 12:11, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Date and time of the changeover

Clocks in the UK change on the last Sundays of March and October, at 1:00am GMT on both occasions. As far as I'm aware, there are no plans to change the time and date. Yet some (IP addressed) users persist in changing it to midnight on the last Sunday of September. Does anyone have any references that indicate this change? If so, please include them here or in the article. Otherwise I'll continue to revert the article and consider the users as vandals. JRawle (Talk) 15:06, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Today 195.93.21.102 (talk • contribs) made edits suggesting that the date of the change to GMT will be September in 2008. One of the sources actually gives October for 2008, others stop at 2007. There is no source for this move to September, so as far as I'm concerned it is a hoax edit. Such a change would require either an EU directive to change the definition of summer time, or a statutary instrument in the UK parliament to remove the link between BST and European summer time. JRawle (Talk) 15:53, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

More changes today to assert that Summer Time in BST/CET changes at the end of September, this contradicts Official UK Gov Atricle on same Gerard Keating 17:59, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

Irish Summer Time or Irish Standard Time?

I seem to recall reading, possibly in Brendan McWilliams' Irish Times column, that the official names in Ireland were Irish Winter Time and Irish Standard Time. So does the S in IST stand for Summer or Standard? The 1968 act mentions "standard time" as the official time-of-day measure and equates it to GMT+1; it also defines "summer time" as the time-interval during the the year in which Daylight Savings Time applies. That's not entirely clear, but suggests "17:46 IST" should be read as "17:46 Irish Standard Time"; while saying "April 5: IST begins" should be read "April 5: Irish Summer Time begins". For "Irish Winter Time" there is no reference in the Act and only 3 googlehits. jnestorius^(talk) 09:11, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Presumably in 1968 they were preparing for the experiment when summer time was standard time at GMT+1 all year round for several years (I presume Ireland went along with the British experiment). More recently I've been in Ireland the weekend the clocks changed, and seen notices timed in "GMT" one side of the change and "IST" the other. -- Arwel (talk) 19:49, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I've never heard of "Irish Standard Time" nor "Irish Summer Time". Indeed the (as usual) bad research on RTE resulted in a news reader referring to our clocks changing to "British Standard Time". Whatever that is. More nonsense resulting in our wanting to be different from the British all the time. Being in Kerry the sun rises and sets 30 minutes after Greenwich so we may as well have a different time zone.Jm butler 08:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I think you've got that wrong. You'll find, in fact, that the sun in Greenwich rises and sets 30 minutes before it does in Kerry. ;-) Bazza 11:55, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

That's the same thing isn't it? "in Kerry the sun rises and sets 30 minutes after Greenwich" or "in Greenwich rises and sets 30 minutes before it does in Kerry." JRawle (Talk) 12:03, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Indeed! :-D Jm butler 21:45, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

My apologies - a moment of boredom at work allowed my sense of humour to momentarily get the better of me. Bazza 12:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The Irish 1968 Act, The Standard Time Act states: "The time for general purposes in the State (to be known as standard time) shall be one hour in advance of Greenwich mean time". Thus, Irish Standard Time was enacted. The subsequent act, Standard Time (Amendment) Act, 1971, then introduces Irish Winter Time where it provides for a "PERIOD WHICH SHALL BE KNOWN AS WINTER TIME AND DURING WHICH THE TIME FOR GENERAL PURPOSES IN THE STATE SHALL BE GREENWICH MEAN TIME". It does not change the name of the summer time period. So, Irish Standard Time is still the name for the time in Ireland during the summer.Murphyobrien 15:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Name Change

As this article contains numourous entries in relation to the Republic of Ireland's Irish Summer Time, should the article name not be changed to British Summer Time/Irish Summer Time. It doesn't seem logical to have information about Irish Standard Time under an article entitled British Summer Time. Éire32 02:27, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I find the discussion of how Irish time relates to BST interesting, and I think it's legitimate to discuss it in an article on BST. Whether you have a separate article on IST is another matter. British Summer Time/Irish Summer Time would be a very cumbersome title for an article anyway. Perhaps British and Irish Summer Time or British/Irish Summer Time would be better. JRawle (Talk) 16:22, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to reiterate that a name change should strongly be considered for this article. It should be recognised in the title, either in this article or another, that Ireland follows IST(Irish Summer Time), not BST. As this article contains numourous entries relating the IST and any reference to IST of other articles leads to this article, the title should be changed.

Éire32 14:41, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I detect a hint of national pride here ;-) . The article is predominantly about BST, probably because that's what most of the original research was done on. References to IST and WEST seem to be later additions. Renaming this article properly would be messy - BST/IST/WEST seems more cumbersome than helpful. I suggest either creating two new stand-alone articles - Irish Summer Time and West European Summer Time - and moving the appropriate content from this article to those, with links as appropriate; or (my own preference as it removes any potential for political mischief à la British Isles) renaming this article to West European Summer Time, giving the variants their own subsections, and redirecting British Summer Time and Irish Summer Time to that. Bazza 14:15, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I've moved it to Western European Summer Time. It makes more sense for the BST and IST pages to redirect to WEST as Ireland and UK are in Europe, Europe and Ireland aren't in the UK! PaulyR 20:27, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I've expanded and re-ordered the introduction to a style similar to the other Western and Central European zones. Bazza 13:52, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I've just noticed the page move. Most of the information in the article is about BST specifically, so I'm not sure the current arrangement is the best. Perhaps separate BST and WEST articles would be better? The table still refers to BST (I'm going to change the level of the heading for the moment) JRawle (Talk) 20:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I've not heard of WEST before. Is this a Wikipedia neologism? Jooler 21:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Putting the page at a neologism title is removing any potential for political mischief? Tell that to North Britain... 79.66.120.163 (talk) 01:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Sense?

While the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland always maintain the same time as each other, there is a slight difference how they maintain it. Everything okay with that sentence? 84.60.226.126 16:52, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I've changed one of the maintains to "keep", which makes the sentence sound a bit better. JRawle (Talk) 19:17, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Hahaha!

I love the table. It's ninjariffic. Vitriol 01:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

1945

There seems to be some confusion over 1945. The text says: "The clocks were not advanced for the summer of 1945 and were reverted to GMT at the end of the summer of 1945" but the table indicates a BDST from April to July, then normal BST till October.

The text is incorrect

from History of legal time in Britain S.R.&O. 1945 No. 312 (Emergency Powers (Defence)—Summer Time) Long title: Order in Council amending the Defence (Summer Time) Regulations, 1939. Date: 21st March 1945. This order, under the Emergency Powers (Defence) Acts, 1939 and 1940, amended the Defence (Summer Time) Regulations, 1939 to change the start date of double summer time to the day after the first Sunday in April, and the end date to the day after the second Saturday in July, both for 1945 only. The start on a Monday was because it was felt necessary for double summer time to operate from the beginning of April, but the 1st of April was Easter Day. (See Hansard, Oral Answers, 1 March 1945, columns 1559–1561.)

from History of legal time in Britain S.R.&O. 1945 No. 1208 (Emergency Powers (Defence)—Defence (General) Regulations—Amendments) Long title: Order in Council Revoking and Amending Certain Defence Regulations. Date: 28th September 1945.

This order, under the Emergency Powers (Defence) Acts, 1939 and 1940, revoked among other things the Defence (Summer Time) Regulations, 1939. Thus the time was now one hour in advance of GMT, being Summer Time rather than the year-round time one hour in advance of GMT used previously, and would revert to GMT at the time specified by the Summer Time Acts, 1922 to 1925, 2am GMT on 7 October.

--Timewatcher (talk) 22:48, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Iceland

How pretty Iceland looks on the map, coloured in that delicate shade of light blue. But what does that mean? I see in Iceland that its time zone is listed as GMT, but does it have no Summer Time? Martinevans123 (talk) 15:57, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I remember asking the same question a while ago, and some nice person added the explanation (which you have correctly supposed) to the map's caption. Bazza (talk) 12:53, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Bazza and apologies for my lack of observation, although that information is quite tucked away in there. That does explain why my search for "Iceland" on that page was fruitless. Maybe a written note in the article itself for the three countries concerned might help? But also, why exactly are the colours named in that map key? Is that wierd kind of Stroop effect really a wiki standard?. Maybe it's for the benefit of users with monochrone displays, haha. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:12, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I've taken your suggestion and added the country names to the caption. I think the colours are named because, whilst the map is a true image and can be seen as intended, the caption is just text; anyone with background colours disabled (for accesibility, for example) would not see them. Bazza (talk) 15:49, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks. I guess I had assumed that the colours in both map and key were drawn in the same way. One last moan - what about Greenland? Which, apparently, is "closely tied to Europe" if not actually in it. It doesn't fit easily into the map. Should it fit easily into the article? Regards. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:07, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Greenland

So what about Greenland, which apparently is "closely tied to Europe" if not actually in it? It may appear in the tourist brochures as "a timeless land in the frozen North", but it would still be useful to know what time it really is up there. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:25, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

So, is Greenland part of Denmark? I see that the Greenland article itself has "Time zone (UTC0 to -4) " while Denmark has "Time zone CET² (UTC+1) - Summer (DST) CEST² (UTC+2)" Martinevans123 (talk) 12:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The table

Is there some reason that table is in reverse-chronological order? —Micahbrwn (talk) 04:53, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

History of WEST

When was WEST introduced? Did it exist as a concept prior to the Second World war? Did other nations have their own Summer Time adjustments aside from UK/Ireland? 82.70.225.100 (talk) 14:08, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Coordination of summer time dates between the UK, France and Belgium was discussed at a conference at the Home Office on 22 November 1921 (see The National Archives file HO 45/11077/411632), but such coordination didn't actually happen for a long time. Start dates were coordinated across the EC/EU from 1981 onwards; from 1983 the directives specified two possible end dates and the end dates were coordinated from 1996 onwards. Joseph Myers (talk) 00:35, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

• WEST doesn't seem to exist by that name - this article currently seems to be an improper synthesis - inventing a name for the time zones which, as the article makes clear, have a separate history in the various countries. The article has no reliable sources for WEST and so needs recasting per WP:NEO to use proper language for the topic. I shall start editing accordingly. Colonel Warden (talk) 15:52, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

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Please see related RfC about UTC and GMT

Please see Talk:Greenwich Mean Time#RFC: Explain obsolete nature of GMT in the lead?. The issues there are similar to issues with recent changes to this article. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:03, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

@Klf uk:​ You reverted my edit which undid your conflation of GMT with UTC. My edit summary stated that the two are not the same, as stated in the Greenwich Mean Time article. You cannot have a time zone defined twice using two different definitions. Pick one or the other. Bazza (talk) 11:59, 12 September 2018 (UTC)

2002

This is noted in the table as the UK and Ireland adopting EU practice but the reality was the reverse of the EU moving to the UK and Ireland's 7 months of summer time.109.158.56.101 (talk) 22:03, 24 October 2021 (UTC)