Public holidays in the United Kingdom

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Good Friday and Christmas Day are common law holidays, having been customary holidays since time immemorial.[3]

Until 1834, the Bank of England observed about 33 saints' days and religious festivals as holidays, but in that year this was reduced to four: 1 May (May Day), 1 November (All Saints' Day), Good Friday and Christmas Day.

The first official bank holidays were named in the Bank Holidays Act 1871, introduced by Liberal politician and banker Sir John Lubbock. [3] Under the Act, no person was compelled to make any payment or to do any act upon a bank holiday which he would not be compelled to do or make on Christmas Day or Good Friday, and the making of a payment or the doing of an act on the following day was equivalent to doing it on the holiday.[4] People were so grateful that some called the first bank holidays St Lubbock's Days for a while.[5]

The Act did not include Good Friday and Christmas Day as bank holidays in England, Wales, or Ireland because they were already recognised as common law holidays.[3]

In 1903, the Bank Holiday (Ireland) Act added 17 March, Saint Patrick's Day, as a bank holiday for Ireland only.[6] New Year's Day did not become a bank holiday in England until 1 January 1974. Boxing Day did not become a bank holiday in Scotland until 1974.

Starting in 1965, experimentally, the August bank holiday weekend was observed at the end of August "to give a lead in extending British holidays over a longer summer period".[7] Each year's date was announced in Parliament on an ad hoc basis, to the despair of the calendar and diary publishing trade.[8] The rule seems to have been to select the weekend of the last Saturday in August, so that in 1968[9] and 1969[10] Bank Holiday Monday actually fell in September.

A century after the 1871 Act, the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971, which currently regulates bank holidays in the UK, was passed.[11] The majority of the current bank holidays were specified in the 1971 Act: however New Year's Day and May Day were not introduced throughout the whole of the UK until 1974 and 1978 respectively.[12] The date of the August bank holiday was changed from the first Monday in August to the last Monday in August, and the Whitsun bank holiday (Whit Monday) was replaced by the Late Spring Bank Holiday, fixed as the last Monday in May.[13] From 1978, the final Monday of May in Scotland (a statutory holiday in the rest of the UK) and the first Monday in May in the rest of the UK (a statutory holiday in Scotland) have been proclaimed as bank holidays.[14]

In January 2007, the St Andrew's Day Bank Holiday (Scotland) Act 2007 was given royal assent, making 30 November (or the next Monday if a weekend) a bank holiday in Scotland.[15]

In general, increasingly, are calls for extra public holidays on the patron saints' days in England (for St. George's Day), and Wales (for St. David's Day). This would equal Northern Ireland which has St Patrick's Day as a holiday. An online petition to the Prime Minister as to Wales received 11,000 signatures. There are advocates in Cornwall for a public holiday on St Piran's Day.

In 2009, it was reported that St Piran's Day (patron saint of the county of Cornwall) on 5 March is already given as an unofficial day off to many government and other workers in the county, and there are renewed calls for the government to recognise this as an official bank holiday there.[16][17] It is suggested that a move from the May bank holiday to a St Piran's Day bank holiday in Cornwall would benefit the Cornish economy by £20–35 million.[18]

The number of holidays in the UK is relatively small compared to many other European countries. However, direct comparison is inaccurate since the 'substitute day' scheme of deferment does not apply in most European countries, where holidays that coincide with a weekend (29% of fixed-date holidays) are 'lost'. In fact, the average number of non-weekend holidays in such countries is only marginally higher (and in some cases lower) than the UK. Worth mentioning is that public holidays in Europe which fall on Thursday or Tuesday typically become "puente" or "bridge" four-day or even six-day extended holiday weekends as people tend to use one or two days from their holiday entitlement to take off Monday and/or Friday.

After the election of the coalition government in May 2010, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport launched a pre-consultation in 2011 which included the suggestion of moving the May Day Bank Holiday to October, to be a "UK Day" or "Trafalgar Day" (21 October) or to St David's Day and St George's Day.[19]

Bank holidays are established in several ways:

• by statute (statutory holidays) – Holidays specifically listed in the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971.[20]
• by royal proclamation – Under the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971, bank holidays are proclaimed each year by the legal device of a royal proclamation.
• by convention (common law holidays) - Holidays established in common law (not applicable in Scotland, which does not practise common law)

Royal proclamation is also used to move bank holidays that would otherwise fall on a weekend and to create extra one-off bank holidays for special occasions.[21] The Act does not provide for a bank holiday to be suppressed by royal proclamation without appointing another day in its place.[22] In this way, public holidays are not 'lost' in years when they coincide with weekends. These deferred bank holiday days are termed a 'bank holiday in lieu' of the typical anniversary date. In the legislation they are known as 'substitute days'. The movement of the St Andrew's Day Scottish holiday to the nearest Monday when 30 November is a weekend day is statutory and does not require a proclamation.[23] Bank holidays falling on a weekend are always moved to a later date, not an earlier one.[24][25][26]

Unlike the US, where public holidays falling on a Saturday are sometimes observed on the preceding Friday, UK bank holidays are always moved to a later date, not an earlier one.[24][25][26]

• During the sterling crisis of 1968, Prime Minister Harold Wilson convened a meeting of the privy council in the early hours of 14 March to declare 15 March a bank holiday. This allowed the UK government to close the London gold market to stem the losses being suffered by the British pound.[45] It was this meeting that triggered the resignation of Foreign Secretary George Brown.
• 14 November 1973 was made a special bank holiday to celebrate the wedding of Princess Anne and Mark Phillips.[46]
• 7 June 1977 was made a special bank holiday as part of the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II.[47]
• The wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer on 29 July 1981 resulted in an extra bank holiday.[48]
• 31 December 1999 was a one-off bank holiday as part of the Millennium celebrations.[49]
• In 2002, there was a special holiday on Monday, 3 June, to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II. The Spring Bank Holiday was moved from 27 May to 4 June to make it a four-day weekend.[50]
• There was a special holiday on Friday, 29 April 2011 to celebrate the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton.
• In 2012, there was a special holiday on Tuesday, 5 June, to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II. Therefore, to make it a four-day weekend, the Spring Bank Holiday that would usually have occurred at the end of May was delayed until Monday, 4 June 2012.[51]

• List of holidays by country
• Public and bank holidays in Scotland
• Public holidays in Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
• Public holidays in the Isle of Man
• UK labour law
• Public holidays in the Pitcairn Islands

• Bank Holidays and British Summer Time
• Scotland Bank Holidays - Scottish Government