Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Willett, William
WILLETT, WILLIAM (1856–1915), builder, and the originator of ‘daylight saving’, the eldest son of William Willett, builder, by his wife, Maria Box, was born at Farnham, Surrey, 10 August 1856. He was educated at the Marylebone grammar school. After acquiring some commercial experience, he entered his father's business. Between them they created a remarkable reputation for ‘Willett-built’ houses in London, Chislehurst, Hove, and other places. On Earl Cadogan's estate round Sloane Square, London, they replaced small houses and alleys by well-planned streets of large houses. Other examples of their methods of development are to be seen in South Kensington, in Avenue Road, Regent's Park, and in the roads round Eton Avenue, South Hampstead, which are laid out on ‘garden city’ lines. The typical Willett house differs from the ordinary stucco-fronted London dwelling in the use of good bricks, tiles, and Portland stone, giving to the exterior an effect of warmth, colour, and interest. Variety of elevation was aimed at and achieved. Great care was devoted to internal planning, ample window light, domestic convenience, and good craftsmanship. Although an architect was constantly employed in the firm's office, and others were commissioned from time to time, much of the credit for the success of these houses was due to the Willetts themselves, father and son, who took great pains to make every detail satisfactory.
William Willett, the younger, will be remembered chiefly, however, as the pioneer of ‘daylight saving’. The idea is said to have occurred to him early one summer morning in 1907 as he returned from his customary canter over a Kentish common, when he noticed how many blinds were still down in the large houses that he passed. As the result of his advocacy, the first Daylight Saving Bill was introduced by Mr. Robert Pearce in the House of Commons in the following March. From the first inception of his scheme up to the date of his death Willett devoted much energy, time, and money to the furtherance of this measure. Between 1907 and 1914 he wrote and published nineteen editions (in English and other languages) of a pamphlet entitled The Waste of Daylight, containing his arguments in favour of this reform. Nevertheless, in spite of many influential supporters, the Bill met with much opposition and ridicule, and, although introduced again in 1909 and 1911, did not become law until 1916, and then only as a wartime measure of economy. This continued in force until August 1925, when a new Summer Time Act received the royal assent. Thus Willett failed to see the realization of his hopes, for he died at Chislehurst, Kent, 4 March 1915. In 1923 his portrait, by Charles Shannon, R.A., publicly subscribed for as a memorial to his work, was unveiled in the council chamber of the Chelsea town hall.
Subsequently, more prominent recognition was given to Willett's efforts to establish ‘summer time’, by the purchase and handing over to the public of over eighty-seven acres of Pett's Wood, near Chislehurst, in May 1927. This beautiful wooded common is the place where the idea of daylight-saving first occurred to him.
[The Times, 5 March 1915, 1 October 1926, 9 April 1927, 23 May 1927; The Builder, 19 March 1915; private information.]