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‘The Waste of Daylight’: Rhythmicity, Workers’ Health and Britain’s Edwardian Daylight Saving Time Bills

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Kristin HusseyORCiD

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Abstract

This article explores an interesting episode in the history of time, health, and modernity: Britain’s 1908 and 1909 Daylight Saving Time (DST) Bills. While the original DST scheme was unsuccessful, the discussions surrounding its implementation reveal tensions central to early twentieth century modernity, namely between industrial time and ‘natural’ bodily rhythms. This article argues that DST was essentially a public health measure aimed at improving the conditions of indoor workers like shop girls and clerks through government regulation of the private time of the labouring classes. Drawing on the extensive evidence provided to two House of Commons Special Committees, this article reveals how DST debates drew together contemporary discussions around sunlight therapy, night work, and the importance of regular sleeping and eating to tackle Britain's endemic urban diseases like consumption and anaemia. I suggest that the idea of bodily rhythms was increasingly important in medical thinking in this period and that the study of rhythmicity points to the potential for incorporating temporality as an analytical category in medical history.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Hussey KD

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Social History of Medicine

Year: 2022

Volume: 35

Issue: 2

Pages: 422-443

Print publication date: 02/05/2022

Online publication date: 27/09/2021

Acceptance date: 08/09/2021

Date deposited: 05/06/2024

ISSN (print): 0951-631X

ISSN (electronic): 1477-4666

Publisher: Oxford University Press

URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkab105

DOI: 10.1093/shm/hkab105

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