FROM THE ARCHIVES:The daily London Letter from The Irish Times journalists in London took the opportunity on Easter Monday to mark the 25th anniversary of the Bank Holidays Act 1871 which created the first bank holidays on Easter Monday, Whit Monday, the first Monday in August and St Stephen's Day – and to explain the origin of the name.
This is the silver wedding of Bank holidays and as such should not be lightly passed over, considering the great boon and blessing it has proved.
Millions of persons who have so greatly benefited by the enactment need not be told of its advantages. [Liberal MP] Sir John Lubbock deserves a niche in the temple of fame for what he brought about, although in his unassuming letter he says the easy passage of the Bank Holiday Bill was partly the result of an accident, and continued: “On the old holidays bills of exchange are payable the day previously – ie Sundays Bills on Saturdays. We felt that it would be difficult to extend this to the new holidays, and after some consideration we determined to propose that they should be payable the day after instead of before.
“Hence we had to devise some special name for the new holidays, and we called them ‘Bank holidays’. If we had called our Bill the general holidays Bill or the national holiday Bill, I doubt not it would have been opposed, but the modest name of ‘Bank holiday’ attracted no attention, and. . . no opposition.
“It is often said that the Bill was intended for Bank clerks only. That is quite a mistake. It expressly enacts that ‘no person’ shall be compelled to do anything on a bank holiday which he could not be compelled to do on Christmas Day or Good Friday.”
If the matter could only be regulated by Act of Parliament what a different sort of time the holiday makers would be having just now. Bank holiday without fine weather is just like home without a mother. Good Friday was bearable, yesterday beastly, to-day abominable. What of tomorrow? Who can tell? The vast preparations so far have far exceeded the requirements, and blue ruin stares thousands of “universal providers” in the face.
All the same, Bank Holiday is too much of a scramble, too short, noisy, and head over heels to be recreative in its best sense. With a fine day the holiday may be made tolerable, but with bad weather it grows a mere scratch-time, with its consequences of everything being uncomfortable, irritating, and the usual concomitants.
To-day is simply miserable for those who had looked forward to real outdoor enjoyment.
Being anxious concerning the quantity of disreputability occasioned by a Good Friday bank holiday as set forth in the charge sheets of the Metropolitan Police Courts, I find that altogether there were thirty-nine night charges down for hearing at the Thames Police Court yesterday, that being about an average number. Of these one was for attempted suicide, three for assaults, two for gambling, four felonies, and the remainder on account of simple drunkenness and disorderly behaviour.