Britain Employs the Gregorian Calendar
The adoption of the Gregorian calendar by Great Britain on September 14, 1752, marked a significant shift in timekeeping practices, moving away from the Julian calendar that had been in use for centuries. This change came after a long-standing resistance rooted in Protestant opposition to a calendar reform initiated by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. The Gregorian calendar, which is now the most widely used calendar globally, introduced a more accurate system that corrects the annual drift experienced with the Julian calendar by implementing leap year rules.
The transition involved skipping 11 days, with September 2, 1752, being immediately followed by September 14, a change that prompted public unrest as some believed they were losing days from their lives. The reform was part of a broader context of religious rivalry, particularly between Catholic and Protestant nations, which had delayed its acceptance in England. Prior to its adoption, England celebrated the new year in March, a practice that continued until the Gregorian calendar was officially accepted. The shift not only aligned Britain with the rest of Europe but also reflected the gradual reconciliation of religious divisions in the region.
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Britain Employs the Gregorian Calendar
Britain Employs the Gregorian Calendar
Effective on September 14, 1752, Great Britain and its colonial possessions began following the Gregorian calendar. In doing so, the English Protestants abandoned their centuries-long resistance to using a calendar developed by the Roman Catholic Church.
As discussed more fully in Appendix A in this book, calendar reform was effected by Pope Gregory XIII on February 24, 1582, by means of an official papal proclamation. The new Gregorian calendar, replacing the ancient Julian calendar devised by Julius Caesar, is the calendar virtually every country in the world uses today for at least some purposes. It provides for a system of leap years, but with three leap years being suppressed every 400 years to balance out the 11-minute, 14-second surplus per year caused by the Julian reckoning of the year at 365 ¼ days. In an effort to preserve the “Nicene” Easter rule, the Gregorian calendar reformers decided to restore the vernal equinox to March 21, its calendar date at the time of the Council of Nicaea. To accomplish this, Pope Gregory XIII ordered that 10 days be omitted from the calendar in 1582. Thursday, October 4 was to be followed directly by Friday, October 15 in that year. The reformers also began the new year on January 1.
Unfortunately, the new and demonstrably superior Gregorian calendar still had to win acceptance in a Europe that was bitterly divided by the Protestant Reformation. It was accepted almost immediately in Catholic countries, and henceforth the Julian calendar became known as the Old Style calendar and the Gregorian calendar as the New Style calendar. Spain, Portugal, and most Italian states put the reform into effect as specified, turning the day after October 4, 1582, into October 15. France instituted the reform two months later by following December 9 directly with December 20. The Catholic provinces of the Netherlands and Switzerland followed shortly thereafter, as did the Holy Roman Empire, Poland, and Hungary. However, many Protestant countries resisted because of their hostility toward Catholicism, as did Eastern Orthodox churches. Thereafter the calendar change continued to be a cause of ill feeling and even violence in lands with religiously mixed populations.
Queen Elizabeth I of England was not inclined to accept Pope Gregory XIII's new calendar, and thus England kept the Julian calendar for nearly two more centuries and also continued the ancient practice of observing the new year in March. The Gregorian calendar was finally adopted by an act of Parliament in 1751 (Statute 24 George II, cap. 23), and took effect throughout Great Britain and its colonies, including those in the Americas. This act provided that December 31, 1751, would be followed by January 1, 1752 (not 1751), and thus the dates from January 1 through March 24 never existed in the year 1751. By this time, the Gregorian reform required the suppression of 11 days of the Julian calendar. Therefore, the above act of Parliament also provided that September 2 be followed directly by September 14 in 1752, which is when Britain can be said to have officially begun to use the Gregorian calendar. Some riots erupted in London and elsewhere against this transition, in part because there were people who actually believed they were losing 11 days of their lives, but the disturbances were quickly suppressed.