For example, Section VI, echoing a rule in Gregory's reform, provides that the date on which rents and other debts are due must be deferred by 11 days.

The introduction to the Act states succinctly the rationale for a change to the start of the year in England (and Wales) to 1 January: the March date had been found to have many inconveniences.

[18] It is not wholly clear why 25 March came to be settled on as the beginning of the legal year instead, though it saw use in Aquitaine during the 10th century and Normandy by the 11th (shortly before the Norman Conquest).

The 11th century also saw dedications to the Virgin Mary go from being rare in England to the most frequent, signifying the increasing importance of Lady Day in the liturgical year.

[28] The Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 removed this difficulty by changing the start of the year to 1 January for England and Wales and the colonies.

More precisely, newer measurements had found that a 'tropical year' (an orbit of the Earth around the Sun) was taking some twelve minutes less than the 365 days and 6 hours that had been assumed for the Julian Calendar.

[34] They had reason to be cautious: the Government of Elizabeth I had first attempted to reform the calendar in 1583/1584, but the Anglican hierarchy of the day rejected the proposal because of its Popish origins.

[5] The algorithm, set out in the Book of Common Prayer as required by the Act, includes calculation of the Golden Number and the Sunday Letter needed for the Anglican method.

The Annex includes the definition: "Easter-day (on which the rest depend) is always the first Sunday after the Full Moon, which happens upon, or next after the Twenty-first Day of March.

[38] In his The Book of Almanacs (1851) Augustus De Morgan (Professor of Mathematics at University College London), commented on the definition of Easter in the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750.

[53] The Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 applied to those countries and dominions in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America that belonged or were subject to the crown of Great Britain.

[66] James Bryan Whitfield, a former Florida Supreme Court judge, together with others, produced a comprehensive list of the relevant measures in 1941.

Australian States eventually repealed British statutes but re-enacted those which remained relevant, such as the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750.

However, this is very likely a myth, based on just two primary sources—The World, a satirical journal of Lord Chesterfield, and An Election Entertainment, a painting by the satirist William Hogarth.

"[44] When the son of the Earl of Macclesfield (who had been influential in passing the Act) stood for Parliament in Oxfordshire as a Whig in 1754, dissatisfaction with the calendar reform was one of a number of issues raised by his Tory opponents.

In his book Hogarth, His Life, Art and Times (1993), Ronald Paulson says of the picture that "the Oxfordshire people ... are specifically rioting, as historically the London crowd did, to preserve the 'Eleven Days' the government stole from them in September 1752 by changing the calendar".

[85] Three Market Days unto the Farmer's lost, Yet three per Cent, is added to his Cost: The Landlord calls for Rent before 'tis due, King's Tax, and Windows, Poor, and Parson too; With Numbers more, our Grandsiers never knew.

How shall the Wretch, then glean his Harvest in, His Cash expended e're he does begin;... Or how the Miser cram his Bags with Pelf, If that he don't receive it first himself?

[88] The Earl of Macclesfield, in his speech to the House of Lords during the passage of the Bill, said a proportionate reduction in payments had been considered as an alternative solution.

[89] Despite this, the Treasury later considered legislating to override the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 provisions by applying proportionate reductions to government payments of interest, salaries and wages, but the idea was abandoned.

Robert Poole writes that the Treasury, "decided that a tidy move to new-style quarter day payments might gradually be achieved at the point where old leases expired and new ones began.

Tables of abatements ... for the eleven missing days were included in the official information about the changeover and widely published in the press, almanacs and pocket books".

[89] The True Briton newspaper of 20 September 1752 reported that the reduction in servant's wages (according to the official guide) was 7d for each pound but that another source had calculated the rate as 7+1⁄4d.

[90][y] As already observed, the authors of the act were careful to minimise the impact on religious sensitivities by expressing the revision in terms consistent with the traditions of the established Church of England, given the experience of previous attempts.

"[91] So the Act explicitly exempted fairs and marts from the calendar reform; "that is, they were to change their nominal date to retain the same place in the season, thus in effect observing the Old Style".

The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle, 23 January 1753, reported that a "vast concourse of people" in Somerset gathered at the (Christmas-flowering) Glastonbury thorn on 24 December 1752 (New Style) to test the authenticity of the new date.

[93] William Dawson (1902) writes a Reverend Francis Blackburne opened his church on Friday, 5 January 1753 – (O.S., 25 December 1752) – to a congregation which filled the building.

"The people were sorely disappointed, however, when the rector did not use the service designated for Christmas Day but instead, like a crusading clergyman of the twentieth century, preached a sermon on the virtue of obeying the Calendar Act.

[94] Section IV resolved the date for electing the Mayor of the City of London and also revised an unrelated Act (24 Geo.

These are listed in a Table headed "Certain Solemn Days for which particular [church] Services are appointed" and are: 5 November (the Gunpowder Plot); 30 January (Execution of Charles I); and 29 May (The Restoration).