By Frank Barker
Assistant Education Coordinator
The year is now 2014. We know
because the calendar told us, we watched a ball drop, sang a Robert Burns poem,
we kissed a loved one or two, sipped a bubbly beverage, and woke up with a
headache just in time to watch the Rose Parade.
In 1752, things were a little more
complicated for England and her colonies than just hanging a new calendar on
the wall. That was the year of the big switch from the Julian calendar to the
Gregorian calendar.
Those of us in the 21st
century United States complain twice a year when we have to turn our clocks
backwards and forwards for Daylight Saving Time; have to think every four years
about a longer February; and, of course assume the world and all its computers
will self-destruct every time a new millennium comes around.
Imagine you lived with George Mason
and his new bride Ann in 1751. Like everyone else in the British colonies you
celebrated New Year’s Day on March 25 or Lady Day (the traditional name of the
Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin). Then, a mere nine months
later, 1752 began on a new New Year’s Day, January 1. To make matters worse, when
you went to bed on Wednesday, September 2, 1752, you woke up the very next day on
Thursday, September 14, 1752. Eleven days of your life just disappeared! And we
complain about losing an hour of sleep when we set the clocks back.
The proposal to change the calendar
was made by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. His reasoning was sound; adjustments had
to be made because the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun just weren’t exactly cooperating
with Julius Caesar’s Julian calendar which had been in place since 46 A.D. Time
needed an adjustment so Easter could be consistently and accurately scheduled.
The Julian calendar year was 11
minutes and 14 seconds longer than the actual trip around the sun. Over
centuries, this inaccuracy caused days to drift away from the actual seasons
when they were suppose to occur. The vernal equinox, critical for scheduling
the Feast of Easter, had shifted from March 21 to March 11. If something wasn’t
done, soon stores would be hanging Christmas decorations before Halloween. Oh,
wait, never mind.
Gregory’s papal bull to reform the calendar
was quickly accepted by most Catholic countries in Europe. Italy, Spain, France
and Poland converted to the Gregorian calendar in 1582, but in Protestant
countries like England, new calendar reform was mistrusted, fearing it was a
plot to get those countries back into the Catholic fold.
The British Empire was satisfied
with the Julian calendar until Parliament passed the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750.
After waiting for over 160 years, the British could say the change was
practical and not religious. According to Parliament:
Whereas the legal supputation of the year of our Lord in
England, according to which the year beginneth on the twenty-fifth day of
March, hath been found by experience to be attended with divers inconveniences,
not only as it differs from the usage of neighbouring nations, but also from
the legal method of computation in Scotland, and from the common usage
throughout the whole kingdom, and thereby frequent mistakes are occasioned in
the dates of deeds and other writings, and disputes arise therefrom….
By the time Parliament had hammered
out all the details of eliminating days, moving New Year’s Day, calculating
leap years, allowing for movable and immovable feasts, festivals, taxes,
courts, holy days, pasture use, rent payments, and all other details, the Act
ran over 3,000 words with 18 charts and tables to help clarify the information,
including one that made it easy to know the date of Easter Sunday right through
2199 (it’s April 14, in case you need to know).
The Virginia Gazette summed up the
legislation much more succinctly in its June 20, 1751, issue with but 111
words.
We are assured, that the alteration of the Style of the Year
will take place the first of next January, and that that will be the first day
of the year 1752; that eleven days will be taken out of that year at Michaelmas
following; that all State Holydays will be observed on the same day of the month
they are at present, that Payments will be made according to the Number of
Days, counting from their Date. The Table of Moveable Feasts is made by Doctor
Bradley [the king’s astronomer]. We are to reckon by the Gregorian Style, and
all Quarterly Payments are to be made at the four great feasts as usual.
Changing the date when the new year
begins and eliminating 11 days from the year can cause confusion for historians
and researchers, as well as for the people who were living through it. O.S.,
meaning Old Style and N.S., New Style are often used to compute birthdates and
to date events and documents.
 |
| Notice in the VA Gazette as to the change in date of the New Year |
George Washington, for example, was
born on February 11, 1731, O.S. Because he was born before New Year’s Day in
March, after the 1752 calendar change, his birthday became February 22, 1732,
N.S., the date that his birthday is traditionally celebrated. Thomas Jefferson,
who carefully gave instructions about which of his many accomplishments to
carve on his tombstone, had his birth date inscribed as April 2, 1743 O.S.
So 1752 was the shortest year in
history, at least in England and her colonies, with a mere 355 days. An
historical event of note in that year was on June 15, when Benjamin Franklin
used a kite, a key, and a thunderstorm to prove that lightning was electricity.
It’s good that he didn’t try to discover electricity during those missing days
in September, or you would be reading this in the dark.
Sources
“Calendar (New Style) Act 1750.” Calendar (New Style) Act 1750.
N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Dec. 2013.
<http://www.legislation.gov.uk/apgb/Geo2/24/23/introduction>.
Poole, Dr. Robert. “Time's Alteration: Calendar Reform in
Early Modern England (Google EBook).” Google Books. UCL Press.
1998. Web. 17 Dec. 2013. <http://books.google.com/books?id=cXCgakgPHBYC>.
Stanton, Lucia. “Old Style (O.S.).” Thomas Jeffersons
Monticello Blog RSS.., June 1995. Web. 20 Dec. 2013.
<http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/old-style-os>.
“The Scots Magazine, Volume 13, 1751 (Google EBook).” Google
Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Dec. 2013.
<http://books.google.com/books?id=GN85AQAAMAAJ>.
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