It is sometimes asserted that DST was first proposed by Benjamin Franklin in a letter to the editors of the Journal of Paris [1] (http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/franklin3.html). However, the article was humorous; Franklin was not proposing DST, but rather that people should get up and go to bed earlier.
It was first seriously proposed by William Willett in the "Waste of Daylight" [2] (http://webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/willett.html), published in 1907, but he was unable to get the British government to adopt it, despite considerable lobbying.
