Nobody knows for sure who came up with the concept but Benjamin Franklin appeared to have first mentioned it in 1784, when he suggested a national change in sleeping schedules so that the early morning daylight wouldn’t be “wasted” by people sleeping later. By getting up earlier, people could make more use of the sunlight and, it was hoped, this would boost overall productivity and ultimately the national economy. There was apparently no consideration of the health impacts of sleep deprivation.

The resetting of clocks to achieve this was not widely adopted until much later however. In World War I troops from several countries were ordered to get up an hour earlier to so as to save on fuel for powering artificial lights once the sun had set. This was before night-vision goggles.

Source: NASA