"In loving memory of William Willett, born August 10 1856, died March 4 1915. Originator of the Daylight Saving Summer Time Act. 'So He giveth His beloved sleep.' - Psalm CXXVII.2. Also of his wife, Florence Mary Ann Willett, born August 27 1884, died June 15 1957." William Willett was born in Farnham in Surrey, the eldest son of another William Willett, a builder, and his wife, Maria Box. He was educated at St. Marylebone Grammar School, before he entered his father's business. Examples of their work can be seen on the Earl of Cadogan's estate around Sloane Square and in Eton Avenue in Hampstead, as well as in Hove and Chislehurst. Early one Summer morning in 1907, he was going for a constitutional near his house in the latter town, when he noticed how many of the houses he passed had the curtains in their windows drawn. This gave him the idea for Daylight Saving. Benjamin Franklin had had a similar idea many years earlier, but Willett's suggestion was that the clocks should be advanced by one hour at the end of March and revert to Greenwich Mean Time at the end of September. Between 1907 and 1914, he produced nineteen editions of a pamphlet entitled "The Waste of Daylight", which was translated into many languages. The first Daylight Saving Bill was introduced in March 1908 in the House of Commons by Robert Pearce, M.P. It was defeated, as were subsequent attempts in 1909 and 1911. When it was introduced, in 1916, a year after Willett's death, it was only as a means of economy during the First World War; but, in August 1925, the Summer Time Act received the Royal Assent. Two years after that, the eighty-seven acres of Petts Wood, where Willetts had been out for his walk when he had the idea, were given to the public in his memory. In the wood is a sundial which serves as his monument; appropriately, it is set to British Summer Time. William Willett's grave is in the South-East corner of the graveyard, four rows from the Eastern perimeter and right next to the fence along the Southern boundary, next to Manor Park Road.