People have been using the position of the sun to measure time for thousands of years. Back before sundials, if the sun was in the highest place in the sky, that meant it was noon. The 
Sundial (the original clock) was eventually invented and used well into the Middle Ages. Then sometime during the Middle Ages, the clock was invented.
If you were in Town A, and you measured time on your clock as 12 noon, Town B, an hour away, would measure their time at 11 am or 1pm because the sun was in a different location in Town B at the very moment the sun was at high noon in Town A. This inconsistency didn’t matter much before people started to travel more often.
This “time” inconsistency became more of an issue when countries started to develop railway systems with stations and times of departure and arrival.
Services we provide as Electricians for Daylights Savings Time:
PIE Superior Services offers a full range of electrical services including adjusting time clocks. Something to keep in mind related to Daylight Savings Time–when it gets dark earlier it creates a potential safety issue. You may have employees or residents heading to their cars in the dark so it is important to make sure all the lights in the parking lots, hallways and walkways are operational and well maintained.
Other Electrical Services We Provide in West Palm Beach for Commercial and Residential:
- Power System Installation & Lighting Design
- Tenant Improvement & Expansion
- Electrical Equipment/System Troubleshooting
- Lighting Maintenance
- Copier Circuits & Coffee Pot Circuits
- Generator and Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS) Installation
- Power Quality Analysis & Correction
- Surge Suppression & Lightning Protection
- Installation & Lighting Design
- Electrical Service Installation, Electrical Meter & Federal Pacific (FPE) Panel Replacement
- Kitchen Remodels
- Bathroom Remodels
- Hot Tub, Welder, Air Compressor Connections
- Electric Car Charging Outlets
- Electrical Equipment/System Troubleshooting
- Electrical System Inspections (Home Sales/Purchases)
- Power Quality Analysis & Correction
- Power Quality Monitoring Equipment
- Load Monitoring Equipment
- Amperage/Voltage monitoring equipment
Who was first to set a time throughout a geographical area?
There were inconsistencies when it came to time and cities but if you didn’t travel, it didn’t matter. The local time was the time as far as you were concerned. The railways were a different story. Since they were traveling through cities which had their own local varied times, it made for plenty of confusion as far as departure times and arrival times, etc. The railways began to demand a fix to the time inconsistencies in the late 1830’s.
In November of 1840, The Great Western Railway was the first to adopt “London time.” Other railways jumped on the bandwagon, and by 1847 most railways used “London time.” Dr. William Hyde Wollaston (1766-1828) was credited with first coming up with the idea of having a geographical area adhere to the same Standard Time. The idea was popularized by Abraham Follett Osler (1808-1903).
Eventually in 1847, an industry standards body, called the Railway Clearing House, recommended that Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) be adopted at all railway stations. They had to wait for the General Post Office to allow it but when they did, the transition happened on December 1st 1847. By 1848 most of the railways were on GMT.
The majority of public clocks in Britain were set to GMT by 1855 and the last hold out, the legal system, finally switched to GMT in 1880 but only until the Statutes Act (Definition of Time) took effect and received the Royal Assent on August 2, 1880.
United States and Canada Standard Time Acceptance
An amateur astronomer, William Lambert, presented to Congress a recommendation for the establishment of time meridians in 1809. Congress did not embrace the recommendation. Many, many years later in 1872 a man named Charles Dowd of Saratoga Spring, N.Y. proposed something similar. After Dowd revised his proposal in 1883, not only was his proposal adopted, both the United States and Canadian railways adopted it with almost no changes.
A Canadian civil and railway engineer named Sanford Fleming started the effort that led to the adoption of the present time meridians in the United States and Canada. He was also instrumental in the development of a worldwide system of keeping time. He promoted and advocated the adoption of a Standard Time with hourly variations. He was also instrumental in convening the 1884 International Prime Meridian Conference in Washington, where the system of international standard of time was adopted. That system is still in use today.
What’s interesting is that even though the railway systems in Canada and the United States adopted a Standard Time, it took several years before people accepted and started to use Standard Time. Because of the obvious advantages of having everyone on the same time, eventually, Standard Time was fully adopted.
In the United States, it was made legal with the establishment of the Standard Time Act of 1918. In this act, Congress adopted Standard Time zones based on what was created and establish by the various railway companies. Also in this act, the Interstate Commerce Commission was given the tasks and responsibility to make any changes in the time zones. When, in 1966, 
Congress created the Department of Transportation, the tasks and responsibility were given to them.
Although China did observe Daylight Savings Time between 1986 through 1991, currently, China, India and Japan are the only larger developed countries that do not observe some version of daylight savings. Most countries, approximately 70, use Daylight Savings time in at least some part of the country. In addition to that, lower latitudes countries, both Equatorial and Tropic, do not generally observe Daylight Savings Time. There is no up-side to moving clocks forward during the summer when the daylight hours are similar for each season.
Most countries that do observe Daylight Savings Time change their clocks some time between midnight and 3am.
Permanent Daylight Saving Time and Florida
In March of 2018, Florida overwhelmingly showed their interests of not wanting to participate in springing forward or falling back when they passed the Sunshine State Protection Act. This bill, first in the nation, indicates our desire to stay on Daylight Savings Time.
Then why are we still Springing forward and Falling back?
Florida doesn’t control the nation’s time zones (Standard Time), federal Congress does. Federal Congress would have to approve Florida’s bill and that is not going to happen unless the other states are in agreement. So really, passing a law in Florida let the world know about the desire to stay on Daylight Savings Time, to stop the clock, so to speak, but it didn’t actually change our “time” reality.
Individual states can choose to exempt themselves from Daylight Savings Time (more sun in the morning, less at night) putting themselves on Standard Time, but the federal government has no laws allowing states to exempt themselves from Standard Time. Since a majority of the country and Canada is on Daylight Savings Time, we need to be in line with them. Currently, the only 2 states to exempt themselves from Daylight Savings Time are Hawaii and Arizona.
Florida just wanted to be the leader in stating loudly that they would prefer to see more sun in the morning and less night at night, permanently. They are hoping other states follow their lead.
Call us today for electrical services in West Palm Beach including changing clocks for Daylight Savings Time and parking lot lighting replacement and maintenance.
