Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/42

 30

NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. v. JAN. 13, im

LORD MAYOR'S DAY. (10 th S. iv. 448.)

How Lord Mayor's Day came to be changed from 29 October to 9 November has been discussed on more than one occasion in 'N. & Q. ' ; but the facts do not appear to have been at any time completely stated. The question is somewhat involved, and depends on three Acts of Parliament : the Calendar (New Style) Act, 1750 (24 Geo. II. c. 23); the Michaelmas Term Act, 1750 (24 George II. c. 48) ; and the Calendar Act, 1751 (25 Geo. II. c. 30). These are the titles given by the Short Titles Act, 1896, but it should be noted that the Acts were in fact passed a year later than the titles indicate. Apparently the draftsman saved himself trouble by attributing every Act to the calendar year in which the regnal year commenced. The result is especially ludicrous in the case of the last-mentioned Act, which itself refers to the year 1752 in no fewer than four places as " this present year," or ** this year."

By the first of these Acts the famous tember, 1752, became 14 September ; but this would not of itself have shifted Lord Mayor's Day, since it was enacted that
 * ' eleven days " were dropped, and 3 Sep-

"all meetings and assemblies of any bodies politic or corporate, either for the election of any officers or members thereof, or for any such officers enter- ing upon the execution of their respective offices, or for any. other purpose whatsoever, which.... are to be holden and kept on any fixed or certain day of any month,"

29 October, but also " admitted and sworn " at the Guildhall on 28 October.* This fact was overlooked in framing the Michaelmas Term Act; and obviously great inconvenience might have been caused by the interval of twelve days which must have elapsed between the two ceremonies if the Legislature had not intervened. In 1752, therefore, was passed the third of the above-mentioned Acts, to remedy this and other defects in the two previous statutes. That Act recites the fact of the proceedings on 28 and 29 October, the provision above quoted as to meetings of bodies corporate, t and the enactment that the Lord Mayor is to be " presented and sworn " on 9 November ; and enacts that he shall be " admitted and sworn " on 8 Novem- ber. Thus the two ceremonies necessary to the Lord Mayor's assumption of office (but not the date of his election) were moved forward by eleven days, though this cannot be said to have been the result, except in- directly, of the change of style.

F. W. READ.

An interesting note in Mr. Wheatley's monumental edition of Pepys's ' Diary ' fully explains the change in this date. The diarist had recorded on 29 October, 1660, "I up early it being my Lord Mayor's Day," and the following is the note :

The change of Lord Mayor's Day from the 29th of October to the 9th of November was not made by the Act for reforming the calendar (24 Geo. II. c. 23), but by another Act of the same session (c. 48), entitled 'An Act for the Abbrevia- tion of Michaelmas Term,' by which it was enacted, 'that from and after the said feast of St. Michael, which shall be in the year 1752, the said solemnity of presenting and swearing the mayor of the city of Lc ' .........

Condon, after every annual election to the said office, in the manner and form heretofore used on the 29th day of October, shall be kept and observed on the ninth day of November in every

shall continue to be held on the same nominal days as at the passing of the Act.

rpt - * -C/. i uuooivcvi V/LJ. 1/j.iu J.J.AIJIL.I >-*".y ^* .*.* v *"~- - * j

ine change to 9 .[November was, however, ye ar, unless the same shall f;ill on a Sunday, and made by the second statute mentioned, in that case on the day following.'" H. B. Wheat- passed shortly after the first. It was deemed ley's ' Pepys,' i. 251n.

expedient to keep Michaelmas Term approxi- It is of interest to add that, owing to

mately to the same period of the year, not- this change, all English mayors are affected,

withstanding the change of style, and it was though such was not contemplated, for they

therefore enacted that it should henceforth | are now chosen, under the Municipal Cor- begin on 3 November. But this would have made Lord Mayor's Day out of term, so that again was shifted to 9 November.

This account is v substantially the same as

the explanation given by NEMO at 7 th S. iv. i O g [September. 49, as noted by MR. LYNN at 9 th S. v. 344; but " f This recital is sufficient to show that MR. LYNN

no reference, I believe, has hitherto been is mistaken in thinking that the reason why Lord made to the ceremony at the Guildhall on Mayor's Day required a special enactment to change

the day previous to Lord Mayor's Day, which I ifc was because it; -" P art ? ok of ^- e ? ature ^ a sa ^F e( ?

ceeding is responsible for the statement (10 th S. iv. 448) that the Lord Mayor was formerly chosen on 28 October. The day of election was and is
 * Probably some confusion with the latter pro-

has also been the subject of statutory enact- ment. The Lord Mayor was not only " pre- sented and sworn " at Westminster on

festival in its dating" (see 9 th S. v. 344). That 29 October is called " the morrow of the Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude" does not make it any the fixed or certain day."