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Podcast: Today In History with The Retrospectors
Episode: The First Bank Holiday
Description: Whit Monday became the first of the new ‘Bank Holidays’ on 29th May, 1871, as millions of Britons got an officially-sanctioned paid day off.
The brainchild of eccentric polymath (and former banker) Sir John Lubbock, the Bank Holidays Act of 1871 created four official days off, cleverly packaged as innocuous financial regulation so as to sneak through Parliament without incurring moral panic. So admired was the innovation that the holidays became informally known as “Saint Lubbock’s Days”.
But, in a way, Lubbock had only revived the spirit of the medieval calendar, which had plenty of saint days and co...