Clocks go back: Does the clock go back tonight, when do the clocks change?

The practice of changing the clocks in the UK has been in place for more than one hundred years. This weekend the clocks will change for the second time this year, as daylight hours get shorter and shorter on the run up to the winter solstice.

When do the clocks go back?

The clocks will go back at 2am on Sunday, October 31.

The time will revert to Greenwich Mean Time, going back by one hour to 1am.

This means UK residents will get an extra hour in bed on Sunday.

READ MORE: When the clocks go back is it darker in the mornings?

This is despite Edwardian builder William Willett first suggesting in 1907 the idea of British Summer Time in a bid to stop Britons wasting valuable daylight hours sleeping.

He published a pamphlet called “The Waste of Daylight” to inspire people to get out of bed earlier by changing the nation’s clocks.

It was eventually brought into practice with the Summer Time Act of 1916.

When the clocks go back, it effectively transfers an hour of daylight from the evening to the morning.

In works in tandem with the spring clock change, when the clocks go forward, transferring the hour to the evening.

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Around 70 countries still change the time every year, including:

All European Union countries
Most of North America
Parts of South America
Iran
Mexico
Argentina
Paraguay
Cuba
Haiti
The Levant
New Zealand
Parts of Australia