I just read my zillionth British book that refers to a ‘Bank Holiday.’ From contextual clues, it seems everything and everybody pretty much shuts down and has a day off, and this happens several times a year.
My question is, why? Most American holidays commemorate something religious (Christmas) or of patriotic significance (Fourth of July) or are in honor of people we esteem (MLK Day, Mother’s Day.) Why are banks so important to Englishmen they get multiple holidays named for them?
Or…do I have it backwards? Is the holiday really for another reason, and ‘Bank Holiday’ should be considered a short hand for ‘any holiday important enough that even the banks close’?
The reason they’re called ‘Bank Holidays’ is because the legislation governing them only covered banks.
Holidays were originally a matter of local custom. Parliament only became involved in such matters because people in the nineteenth century began to argue that it would be more convenient if the banks standardized their holidays. A law was therefore passed specifically regulating banks’ holidays. The dates chosen were mostly ones which were common Christian festivals anyway, such as Christmas, Boxing Day and Good Friday. Other businesses have since found it convenient to follow the same set of dates.
The British have never gone in for the idea of nationalistic public holidays. That’s one of the advantages of living in a country which can take its history for granted. The one that comes closest to having been adopted for political reasons is the May Bank Holiday which is supposed to commemorate May Day but which need not fall on May Day itself. It is not some immemorial custom, having been introduced (by a Labour government) only in 1978. The other public holidays tend either to be religious dates and/or times when the weather might be good (but usually isn’t) and yet which don’t clash with the main summer holiday (vacation) season.
The bank holidays in England are:
New Year’s Day
Good Friday
Easter Monday
Early May Bank Holiday (Monday)
Spring Bank Holiday (Monday)
Summer Bank Holiday (Monday)
Christmas Day
Boxing Day
If any of the non-Monday holidays falls on a weekend, then the holiday occurs on the immediately following Monday.
The Easter and Christmas holidays are now pretty much the only time that the old Sunday Trading(type) of brutal restrictions apply.
In the USA, Mothers’ Day isn’t a real holiday. It always falls on Sunday. Heck, it’s a counter-holiday, in that I imagine it’s quite busy in the restaurant industry! This year, Mothers’ Day is Sunday, 11-May.
In Mexico, Mothers’ Day is a real Holiday. It’s always 10-May. If it falls on a weekday, it’s a day off for anyone not in the service industry. I’m sure it’s true in some other countries, too, but I’m not married to anyone from those other places.
Also, it is “Mother’s Day” as in my own mother; “Mothers Day” as in day of mothers (non-possesive); or “Mothers’ Day” as in day of all mothers?
In Ireland, Good Friday is a bank holiday, but an elective holiday for companies other than banks (they usually award it as a bonus day, or a bonus half-day). Whereas Easter Monday is a bank holiday of the normal, public, kind.
The reason they are called “Bank Holidays” is that the legislation regarding these particular holidays permits banks to take a day off. It’s that simple.
For every other working day of the year banks are obliged to provide a service. Bank holidays are the only exceptions to that rule. Thus, a bank holiday is a day upon which banks may take a holiday.
Yeah. And the August B.H. is at a different part of the month from the UK, too. There are also ones in October and June - does the UK have them?
Also unlike the UK, the pubs are closed on Good Friday and Christmas Day which results, counterproductively, in an inordinate amount of panic-buying and getting very drunk (not to mention crucifixion parties).
So it looks like my second guess was closer to the truth: the holidays aren’t really in honor of the banks. Whew! I had this picture of Englishmen gathering at the gates of banks to ply the tellers with flowers and boxes of candy…
Some arcane bizarro laws picked up along the years specifying what can and can’t be sold on the Sabbath. I can’t remember what the exact details are, but I recall there was a bunch of illogical restrictions, such as you could sell a porno mag on a Sunday, but you can’t sell the Bible. You could sell a bottle of whisky, but not baby formula. Etc. I think there was some kind of reform a decade or so ago, allowing pubs to serve all day, and stores to remain open - most of these institutions had hours restricted by law, or they weren’t allowed to open at all.
I think some people here have a false impression. The only part the banks get an official holiday from is that they are permitted to delay processing of cheques etc for that day. Whether they open their doors for business on that, or any other, day is entirely up to them.
Evidence of this is in the recent change of Scottish banks’ opening times to match their English counterparts, where previously they had the different Bank Holidays. The official “Bank Holidays” of Scotland haven’t changed and still differ from England’s (and indeed still differ from region to region within Scotland, but that’s a different story), but many banks now close on the English bank holidays instead.
It was never the intention of the original Bank Holiday legislation to make these days public holidays in England & Wales, but business soon found it convenient to take the same days off and they eventually became effectively public. Your employer, however, is under no obligation to give you these days any more than the banks are obliged to give their employees the day off.
Naturally, with the increase in global banking and 24 hour computerised banking, the Bank Holiday becomes more of an irrelevancy every year. The banks are fooling no-one if they think we believe that no bank employees work on these days and everything shuts down for the day.
The Sunday Trading laws was also a England & Wales only thing. I remember moving to England and venturing out one Sunday to be amazed that literally everything was shut. Not just some of the shops, but the whole city centre. It was, like, medieval.
Sorry Baltie, El día de las madres is definitely not an official holiday here. Banks are open, the kids are in school and government employees are supposed to be working.
I’ll really have to grill my wife about this, then (she’s from Guanjuato state). She’s insistent that their mothers’ day is much better than our mothers’ day precisely because no one goes to school or works and the city pretty much shuts down. I never asked about the banks, though.
Well, now I’m wondering what else she’d lied to me about (my wife, that is). it turns out that she admits it’s not an official holiday, but it’s an important holiday. In saving face she claims that the kids at school “hacen fiesta” which I take to mean have a party all day. I’d think that’s what the mothers’d do. Well, it’s on Saturday this year, so I guess its moot.
