Why Chris Martin's great-great-grandad is responsible for us changing our clocks

Who'd have thought it, but a relative of Coldplay's Chris Martin is the reason we change our clocks twice a year.

William Willett, Chris Martin's great-great-grandad was a builder and in 1907 he published a leaflet titled The Waste of Daylight, which encouraged people to get out of bed earlier.

It's understood that it was when he was out riding one morning in 1905 that he noticed a lot of curtains were still drawn, so he came up with the idea of changing the clocks to take advantage of the earlier sunlight.

While William wasn't the first person to come up with the idea, American politician Benjamin Franklin had the idea in 1874, William published his leaflet and then campaigned for the clocks to be changed in the UK.

His idea was to change the time by four 20-minute increments during April, then reverse it in September, and while he had some supporters sadly the idea wasn't an immediate hit.

Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle supported the idea, however he suggested having just one time change (as we do today).

William felt so strongly about the cause that he continued to campaign for the clocks to be changed for eight years, however sadly he would never see the success of his campaign as he died in 1915.

In 1916 in the middle of World War One coal reserves were running low and British Summer Time was introduced in the UK.

In 2003 Coldplay released their song 'Clocks', however no link between the two has been confirmed.

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