About Sunday 1 January 1659/60

Bill Greenwell on 19 Feb 2013  •  Link

Some confusion here. Lady Day was and is March 25th. When the calendar changed in 1752 the tax year was changed after objections that taxes would be levied on too short a year. The authorities had removed eleven days (starting with Sept 3 1752), and therefore 'reimbursed' the taxpayers by adding eleven days - and an apologetic extra, twelfth one. Hence our tax year starts on April 6th.

So we have a church year that follows the conception of Jesus (March 25th) through to his birth, nine months later (Dec 25th), a calendar year, and a tax year.

A cursory look at church registers shows that, for the churches at least, reckoning the beginning of a year was always from March 25th until 1753. For quite some time the year was shown as 'n.s.', that is, 'new style'.