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UK has always used either (probably since printing started, but certainly some UK Victorian works), it's just the single quote dialogue is more common. It's not decided by the author unless self-published. It varies by time period and publisher. Irish publishers historically more often used double quotes for punctuation of dialogue. Non-dialogue such as a title might use italics or single quotes.
One British printer wanted to use the German system of lowered and raised quotes.
Other languages use other systems.
The use of en-dashes ‘ – ’ with a space for an aside but em-dash ‘—’ for cut-off is pretty universal in times and publishers in UK & Ireland. The USA mostly uses em-dash ‘—’ for asides (with no spaces) and cut-off speech.
The " and ' are not ever used in proper printing but compromises for typewriters. Often they only had O for O and 0 and I (small L) for 1.
Also wordprocessors, so now some books wrongly put ” and ’ for double prime ″ and single prime ′ marks which are for minutes (time or 1/60ths of a degree) and hours, or inches and feet.
Note your wordprocessor often incorrectly does a single opening quote ‘ (from you typing ') on ’90s or ’tis which are apostrophes.
Another mistake is people using the ` key as an opening quote, it should be a dead or combining key for à è ì ò ù etc. Which is usually is on Linux and is on MS Windows International layouts.
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