willett

William Willett loved light and open space. In 1890, then a wealthy builder, he moved to Camden Park in Chislehurst – ex-residence of Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie of France during their exile.
William would take an early morning ride across Petts Wood Common. These rides in sunshine when many were still asleep encouraged him to adopt ideas, originally proposed by Benjamin Franklin, to change the clock to take advantage of the early morning light. He outlined his ideas in a pamphlet ‘Waste of Daylight’. He believed that his proposals would be of great benefit to the working classes who spent much time living and working by candle and gaslight. He campaigned hard and gained the support of Edward VII. However, in 1908 a parliamentary bill was killed off by the government of the day and William died a year before his ideas were put into practice in 1916 – not as an humanist act but a wartime emergency measure! The Summer Time Act was finally passed in 1925. 

In 1927 the National Trust bought the woodland at Petts Wood as a memorial to Willett.  There is a road named after him and the pub near to Petts Wood station is named The Daylight Inn.  Willett was also a local benefactor; providing much money for Bromley Hospital and helping to set up the London Homeopathic Hospital.