The Long and the Short of It by Graeme Donald

Author:Graeme Donald [Graeme, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782436232
Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books

THE MISSING DAYS

Few in the UK were pleased by the imposition of what was deemed a popish calendar, and it became one of the debating points between the Whigs and Tories in the 1754 election. William Hogarth’s An Election Entertainment (1755) shows a gathering of drunken Whigs and camp-followers in a tavern with a stolen Tory banner lying on the floor in the foreground, inscribed with a demand for the return of the eleven days.

Although there were no actual riots, confusion mounted with the approach of the tax day of 25 March 1753. Prior to the British adoption of the Gregorian calendar the year began, as did the old Roman or Julian year, in March, with a festival commencing on 25 March, Lady Day, leading up to its octave on 1 April – a perfectly sensible seasonal opening of the new year. Because of the abandonment of eleven days the banking and business fraternity demanded that their day of reckoning with the taxman be likewise shunted forward to 5 April, which explains why the UK tax year still turns on that date today.

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