Everything you need to know about the clocks going forward this weekend

In the age of smartphones and even smarter watches, the time will alter automatically but in case you still need to change a clock manually, this weekend is the time to do it.

The clocks will go forward in the early hours of Sunday morning (March 31) at 1am meaning we will lose an hour of sleep this weekend. The sun won’t set on Sunday until after 7pm, and it’ll keep getting later until this year’s summer solstice on June 21.

British Summer Time (BST) was first introduced 98 years ago to help the war effort during the summer months during the First World War.

It meant agricultural work, which had fewer workers around after many farmhands joined the armed services, could go on later into the evening.

Between 1968 and 1971, the clocks were changed to BST permanently as an experiment but after complaints that it made Scotland too dark in the mornings, the Government reverted to using BST between March and October.

The clock-changing campaign

The idea of some sort of Daylight Saving Time (DST) was first floated by Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the US, in 1784. He wanted to save on candle usage and get people out of bed earlier.

More than 100 years later, in 1895, New Zealand entomologist George Vernon Hudson suggested clocks be put forward two hours in the summer.

Clock-changing in Britain was spearheaded by builder William Willett – the great-great-grandfather of Coldplay’s Chris Martin.

The House of Commons essentially gave clock-changing its seal of approval in 1916 – the year after Mr Willett passed away.

Some are campaigning for British time to be brought in line with other European countries to reduce accidents. This would make it two hours ahead of GMT in the summer and one hour ahead in the winter.

Others want to forego turning the clocks back in October.