Enjoy your lie in this morning? Don't forget the clocks went back an hour last night 

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Winter time officially arrived at 2am this morning, as the clocks make their annual leap back one hour to return to Greenwich Mean Time.

The good news is that it meant an extra hour in bed and not waking up in the dark in the morning. But the bad news is that it means the dark winter evenings are here at last.

But we haven’t always had to cope with the clock change.

Winter is here: Winter time officially arrived at 2am this morning, as the clocks make their annual leap back one hour to return to Greenwich Mean Time

The idea of British Summer Time, otherwise known as Daylight Saving Time, was first introduced by English builder William Willett in 1907, in a bid to save people from wasting valuable hours of light during summer mornings.

The enterprising Briton published a pamphlet called ‘The Waste of Daylight’, attempting to persuade people that it was a good idea to get out of bed earlier by putting clocks across the nation forward at the start of spring.

Willett’s idea was to push clocks forward by 80 minutes, in four stages, throughout April, and then move them back again in the same way during September.

In a tragic turn of events, Willett died aged just 58 in 1915 and never saw his ingenious plan put into action.

Just a year later, Germany adopted the scheme, setting their clocks forward at 11pm on April 30 1916.

Lucky lie-in: The good news is that it meant an extra hour in bed and not waking up in the dark in the morning. But the bad news is that it means the dark winter evenings are here at last

And only a month after that, on May 21 1916, Britain jumped on the band wagon. The first day of British Summer Time caused a media sensation.

The hope was that, in the midst of the First World War, the system would take pressure off the struggling wartime economy.

But the change back, that October, caused some unforeseen problems when people across the nation broke their clock mechanisms as they realised that their timepieces weren’t designed to be pushed back.

‘You should never turn the hands of a striking clock back, because you risk damaging the mechanism and it could throw off the timing,’ according to Alan Middleton, a curator at the British Horological Institute (BHI) in Upton, Nottinghamshire.

‘You either have to stop for an hour, or go forward 11 hours.’

The issue was such a matter of controversy that the Home Office and national newspapers had to put out special posters telling people how to reset their clocks.

Willett, champion of the time change, is remembered with a sundial in Petts Wood, near to his Surrey home, set permanently to Daylight Saving Time.

Interestingly, Willett is also the great-great-grandfather of Chris Martin, the front of Coldplay, who released the song ‘Clocks’ in their 2002 album ‘A Rush of Blood to the Head’.

But in the turmoil of the Second World War in 1940, the clocks in Britain weren’t put back by an hour at the end of Summer Time.

For the following years, however, clocks continued to be advanced by an hour each spring, and set back by an hour each autumn.

The confusing state of affairs, known as British Double Summer Time (BDST), continued until July 1945 when it was once again set to rights.

But it is a controversial topic for some, as to whether or not we should be using Daylight Saving.

Opponents have struck out at the scheme, claiming there’s no proof it makes any difference to energy usage, and that there are more accidents with people out and about in the dark.

But Tory MP Rebecca Harris set out in 2011 to have year-round Daylight Savings, and she was backed by the majority of Britons.

Warning: Alan Middleton, a curator at the British Horological Institute (BHI) in Upton, Nottinghamshire, warned that 'You should never turn the hands of a striking clock back, because you risk damaging the mechanism'

Historical: The astronomical clock at Hampton Court Palace in Surrey. Opponents have struck out at the Daylight Saving scheme, claiming there’s no proof it makes any difference to energy usage, and that there are more accidents with people out and about in the dark

A YouGov poll found that 53 per cent of Britons wanted to move the clocks forward by an hour permanently, while 32 per cent were against it.

The suggestion caused outrage in Scotland, with Alex Salmond claiming the campaign was an attempt to ‘plunge Scotland into morning darkness’.

SNP MP Angus MacNeil added: ‘It is no secret that Tories in the south want to leave Scotland in darkness, but fixing the clocks to British summertime would mean that dawn wouldn’t break in Scotland until nearly 9am.’

But while it makes a big difference for Britons, only about a quarter of countries in the world have a clock change at all, including Ireland, Israel, Spain and Portugal.

Overall, around a billion people will be affected by the change worldwide.

The use of clock changes around the world is linked to latitude. Countries close to the equator experience so little change to their daylight hours that they don’t need to shift.

Only two states across America don’t change their hours, Arizona and Hawaii. Although there is a small area within Arizona that does choose to make the change, called the Navajo Nation.

The UK’s longest day lasts for a grand total of 16 hours and 50 minutes, on the summer solstice in June.

But in the midst of winter, on the winter solstice in December, daylight lasts for just seven hours and 40 minutes.