Britain adopts the Gregorian calendar By an Act of Parliament in 1750, Great Britain and its colonies officially adopted the Gregorian calendar. This Act officially came into effect in 1752. The adoption of the calendar changed the formula for calculating leap years and moved the start of the legal new year to 1 January. Thus, over night, all Julian calendars, which began the legal new year on 25 March and were used throughout the Protestant world, became 11 days out of sync and hopelessly inaccurate. The painting The Humours of an Election I: An Election Entertainment (1754–1755) by William Hogarth (at the John Soane’s Museum, Museum number P53) depicts a Whig banquet. It includes the famous ‘Give us our Eleven Days’ slogan used to protest against the adoption of the Gregorian calendar. The slogan is written on a black campaign banner in the lower right, on the floor, under a foot. The painting parodies the 1754 Oxfordshire county election, in which the calendar change was one of many issues brought up by the Tories. Further Reading Uglow, J. 2002. William Hogarth: A life and a world. Milton Keynes: Faber and Faber. Image Credit William Hogarth, The Humours of an Election I: An Election Entertainment 1754–55. SM P53. ©Sir John Soane's Museum, London. Photo: Art UK https://collections.soane.org/object-p53
