THE clocks will ‘spring forward’ one hour tonight - thanks largely to the efforts of a humble Farnham builder more than a century ago.

William Willett - who coincidentally is also the great-great-grandfather of Coldplay singer Chris Martin, whose 2003 single ‘Clocks’ reached number nine in the UK charts - was born in Farnham in 1856, and educated at the Philological School.

After some commercial experience, he entered his father’s business Willett Building Services and between them they created a reputation for "Willett built" quality houses in choice parts of London and the south of England.

He lived most of his life in Kent, where, according to the William Willett Learning Trust, after riding his horse near his home early one summer morning and noticing how many blinds were still down, the idea for daylight saving time first occurred to him.

In 1907 William, using his own money, published a pamphlet ‘The Waste of Daylight’. In it he proposed that the clocks should be advanced by 80 minutes in four incremental steps during April and reversed the same way during September.

The evenings would then remain light for longer, increasing daylight recreation time and also saving £2.5 million in lighting costs. He suggested that the clocks should be advanced by 20 minutes at a time at 2am on successive Sundays in April and be retarded by the same amount on Sundays in September.

Through vigorous campaigning, by 1908 Willett had managed to gain the support of MP Robert Pearce, who made several unsuccessful attempts to get it passed into law.

A young Winston Churchill promoted it for a time, and the idea was examined again by a parliamentary select committee in 1909 but again nothing was done.

However, the outbreak of the First World War made the issue more important  primarily because of the need to save coal.

Germany had already introduced the scheme when the bill was finally passed in Britain on May 17, 1916 and the clocks were advanced by an hour on the following Sunday, May 21, enacted as a wartime production-boosting device under the Defence of the Realm Act. It was subsequently adopted in many other countries.

William Willett did not live to see daylight saving become law, as he died of influenza in 1915 at the age of 58. He is commemorated in Petts Wood, close to his home in Chislehurst, Kent, by a memorial sundial, set permanently to daylight saving time.

*The clocks are set to go forward one hour on Sunday, March 25 at 1am, meaning if you normally get up at 8am, it will feel like 7am.

The ’spring forward’ always takes place on the last weekend in March whereas the ’fall back’ happens in the final week of October.