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Calendar
change of 1752
It must have been noticed by Voltaire on coming to England in 1726,
and by the young artist Joshua Reynolds when travelling to Europe in 1749. British and Continental calendars are out of
step.
Useful to know this if you are an Englishman planning a
continental trip. Say, for example, you
want to spend Christmas in Paris in 1750.
(A handy year to go: Britain and France, for once, are not at war). Leave England two days before Christmas and
you find, when you get to France, that you've missed it! Indeed, you find it is already January 1751
– doubly disconcerting, since 1750 still has three months to run in Britain.
This discrepancy must be particularly irritating to the
aristocracy, the people who can afford a leisure trip of this kind. Their favourite continental venues include
Venice, Naples and the resort of Spa (now in Belgium), forerunners of the
"grand tour" of Europe which will come to be regarded as an essential
part of their education.
And these are the people who govern the land. The elders sit in the House of Lords, their
offspring in the Commons. They have
both opportunity and motive for ridding themselves of the anomaly.
The year they select is 1752, which is shortened in two
ways. It starts, as have previous
years, the day after Lady Day: 26 March.
It runs the usual course until 2nd September, then jumps to
the 14th.
Michaelmas Day, 25 September, therefore arrives early. It is pay day for Navy Office employees: in
1752 their pay for the Michaelmas quarter covers 80 days instead of the usual
91. Henry Legge, Treasurer of the Navy
on £2000 per annum, receives £439.17s.9d rather than £500. Adam Jellicoe, a
clerk of eight years' service on £40 per annum, gets £8.15s.11d instead of £10.
A further innovation: the next year, 1753, starts on 1st
January, as do subsequent years. So
1752 is short of three months as well as eleven days.
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The alteration created
considerable difficulties over such matters as debts, contracts or other
formal agreements which either fell due during the 'lost' days or spanned the
changeover. A symptom of the
confusion and difficulties caused was revealed when the newspapers had to
provide complex tables showing how to calculate wages, taking the change into
account, and to explain laboriously the legal position in relation to services
fixed by the calendar. That the date
on which the year began was changed from 25 March to 1 January also served to
upset the timing of many annual payments, as well as complicating hirings,
rents and apprenticeships. From John Stevenson, Popular disturbances
in England 1700-1832 (Longman 1992). |
Most of the populace have no prospect of a European
holiday. They take a dim view of the
change. Not only do they have to get
used to a new calendar. As Stevenson
observes, many of their intimate arrangements are called into question.
Birthdays, for instance.
If you were born between New Year and Lady Day, you won't have one to
celebrate in 1752. But which day will
you celebrate in 1753? Say you were
born on 1st April: will you continue to celebrate on the same date,
or should you add eleven days? The
recollections of Henry Cort's children never seem to include his birthday: is
this because the lost eleven days have caused such confusion that he has given
up celebrating?
More seriously, if you are serving a four-year apprenticeship,
on which day does it end? Or maybe you
have agreed a lease, or entered a partnership, for a fixed term. Any number of legal agreements are due to
terminate on a particular date. Or
eleven days later, if a year is to run its normal course of 365 days.
The Government chooses the eleven-day option. Year's end changes from 25 March to 5th
April, for tax purposes at least.
Something else that endures.
If you see a date quoted before 1753, can you tell which
calendar it is based on?
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Cornwall, Frederick. This gentleman, cousin to captain James
Cornwall, whose extreme gallantry we have already had occasion to record, was
lieutenant on the Marlborough, of ninety guns, at the memorable encounter
with the French and Spanish fleets off Toulon. That ship was, as may well be remembered, reduced to a mere
wreck, and her brave commander slain.
Mr. Frederick Cornwall bore his share in defending this devoted vessel
with the most active intrepidity, till he was disabled from further exertions
by the unhappy loss of his right arm, after having before received several
contusions and injuries which were not, at such an exigency, of sufficient
consequence to impede his further exertions.
As a very proper reward for this spirited conduct, and recompense for
the sufferings he underwent in consequence of it, he was immediately promoted
to succeed his deceased relative in command of the Marlborough, his
commission for that purpose bearing date February the 11th,
1744, being the very day on which the action took
place. His wounds, as may naturally
be conceived, prevented him from executing the necessary duties of so
consequential a command, and the requisite attention to his recovery and
future health, demanded his temporary retirement from a service in which he
had acquired, at such a personal expence, so much honour. From Charnock, Biographia Navalis
(1797) Vol V pp 288-9. |
One thing you can assume: no correction has been applied for the
eleven-day loss in 1752. When it comes
to which year, however, you cannot always be sure for dates between 1st
January and 25 March.
The unambiguous expression 1743/4 indicates a contemporary (old
British) date of 1743 and a retrospective (Gregorian) one of 1744. Even before 1753, some chroniclers were
writing dates this way: Pepys did occasionally in his diary. More often they quote only the contemporary
date.
Accounts written after 1752 often quote retrospective
dates. Thus Charnock's account, published
in 1797, dates the death of the Marlborough's captain as 11 February
1744; whereas the ship's paybook records it as 11 February 1743. To be unambiguous, call it 11 February
1743/4.
The IGI quotes contemporary dates. If you were baptised in the month that James
Cornewall died, the IGI will record your baptism as February 1743.
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