doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Lady-Day?

Anybody know what this refers to? 2O March 1847, "Morning Post"

Never mind. Wikipedia:

In the Western liturgical year, Lady Day is the common name in some English-speaking and Scandinavian countries of the Feast of the Annunciation, celebrated on 25 March to commemorate the annunciation of the archangel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary that she would bear Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

But I have a feeling that there was something more about the calendar. Have to look this up.

Business rents fell due, and leases ran to Quarter Days.

Lady Day (25th March), Midsummer Day (24th June), Michaelmas (29th September) and Christmas.

I remember when an Articled Clerk being told that a convenient way of getting the first three days right is that March has 5 letters, June 4, and September 9. It was assumed that you knew when Christmas happened.

I thought I recalled more about Lady-Day:
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Give-us-our-eleven-days/

The UK switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in September 1752 to align with most of Europe. The Julian calendar was 11 days behind the Gregorian calendar, so to account for this, September 2, 1752 was followed by September 14, 1752. The official start of the year used to be Lady Day (25th March), but the loss of eleven days in 1752 pushed this back to 5th April. Another skipped day in 1800 pushed it back again to 6th April.

There supposedly were riots in UK over the lost 11 days...with demonstrators demanding the 11 days be somehow returned to them and speculating that it would lower life expectancy.

This apparently applied to the American colonies as well: In England, Wales, Ireland and Britain's American colonies, there were two calendar changes, both in 1752. The first adjusted the start of a new year from 25 March (Lady Day, the Feast of the Annunciation) to 1 January, a change which Scotland had made in 1600.

And:

England's calendar change included three major components. The Julian Calendar was replaced by the Gregorian Calendar, changing the formula for calculating leap years. The beginning of the legal new year was moved from March 25 to January 1. Finally, 11 days were dropped from the month of September 1752.

The changeover involved a series of steps:

December 31, 1750 was followed by January 1, 1750 (under the "Old Style" calendar, December was the 10th month and January the 11th)
March 24, 1750 was followed by March 25, 1751 (March 25 was the first day of the "Old Style" year)
December 31, 1751 was followed by January 1, 1752 (the switch from March 25 to January 1 as the first day of the year)
September 2, 1752 was followed by September 14, 1752 (drop of 11 days to conform to the Gregorian calendar)

Well, I learn something new every day...

-- Since Quebec and Canada were still French in 1752, assume they already were using the Gregorian Calendar from the time of its adoption 1589 (Quebec founded in 1608);
-- Same for New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Mobile, all settled in the very early 1700's
-- Also under the Spanish, Florida, the western part of the USA including Texas and California as well and all of Latin America.