Please see below for some interesting and fun facts regarding ‘The British Calendar Act of 1751!’
Did you know, Prior to 1751, the calendar year in the some parts of the UK used to start on 25th of March? This differed from neighbouring nations and also differed in Scotland.
It was also found that the Julian Calendar (used in British Dominions) was erroneous in that the Spring Equinox, which, since the year 325 had been recorded as happening on 21st March, was in fact happening on the 9th or 10th of each month! If the same date was used, it was found that this would require several equinoxes and solstices to fall at very different times of the year.
So, to rectify this, to bring matters inline with Europe, to prevent inconvenience to merchants; and to prevent mistakes and disputes concerning dates of letters and accounts, the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 was created.
This had the effect that after December 1751, the year would commence on 1st January and end on 31 December.
One other effect of this piece of legislation was that in the year of 1752, the days 3 September and 13 September (11 days in total) were actually removed (and did not exist). The calendar went from 2nd September 1752 to 14th September 1752 within a period of 24 hours.
Section 2 of The 1750 Act also (in some strange way) dealt with the concept of leap years. The wording suggested that the years 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, 2300 would contain 365 days; and the years 2000, 2400, 2800 and every 400th year would contain 366 days (although it also confirmed that each 4th year would continue to be 366 days in length).
….If you are still here in the year 2100 which would inevitably be a leap year, let us know if it is 365 days or 366…..
Section 3 placed Easter to be the first Sunday after the first full moon, after the 21st March (but if the full moon happened on Sunday, then Easter would be the Sunday after!)
As always, any questions or support with the above please email us at: philip@whitecollarlegalandadmin.com or phone 0151 230 8931.