Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, &c./Part 3/School Holidays in 1790
SCHOOL HOLIDAYS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
We frequently hear that, in the eighteenth century, old customs, festivals, and holidays were much more—much better, as some would say—observed than at present. In some articles of agreement, made in December 1790, between the trustees of the Liverpool Blue Coat Hospital and Mr James Meredith of Manchester, for the labour of two hundred children in "pin-making," for a term of eleven years, it was stipulated that the following holidays should be allowed the boys:—
Christmas, fourteen days, (for amusement).
Good Friday.
Easter, two afternoons, and from three o'clock the third day.
Whitsuntide, the same.
Shrove Tuesday.
Ash Wednesday.
Conversion of St Paul, 25th January.
King Charles' martyrdom, 30th January.
Purification, 2d February.
St Mathias, 24th February.
Annunciation (Ladyday), 25th March.
St Mark, 25th April.
St Philip and St James, 1st May.
Ascension-day (Holy Thursday).
Restoration of King Charles (Royal Oak-day), 29th May.
St Barnabas, 11th June.
St John the Baptist (Midsummer-day), 24th June.
St James (July 25), Liverpool summer fair.
St Bartholomew, 24th August.
St Matthew, 21st September.
St Michael (Michaelmas quarter-day), 29th September.
Liberty-day.
St Luke, 18th October.
King's inauguration.
St Simon and St Jude, 28th October.
All-Saints, 1st November.
Gunpowder Plot, 5th November.
Martinmas (Liverpool winter fair), November 11. St Andrew's-day, 30th November.
St Thomas (shortest day), 21st December.
In all, these vacancies make about six weeks holidays in the year—less than is now given in boarding and private schools, but very much more than working boys, apprenticed or otherwise, now enjoy. The most remarkable feature of the above list is, that, with the exception of the fortnight at Christmas, and three afternoons in the Easter week, and the like at Whitsuntide, all the holidays of the year are of single days (twenty-seven in all), averaging more than two in every month of the year. There were three in October and four in November. Now, for apprentices, there are, in addition to Sundays, only two days' holiday legally demandable, viz., Christmas Day and Good Friday. But the custom in Lancashire is to give, in large manufacturing establishments, the whole of the Whitsuntide week as a yearly holiday; and in shops and small establishments, the whole, or the afternoons, of three days; in many cases in the country, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday; but in Manchester and the neighbouring district, the three or four race-days, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday—Saturday being usually set apart for wives, sisters, and daughters from the country to go into Manchester and stare about them, whence it is derisively called "Gaping Saturday." In Blackburn, the annual holidays are Easter Week; in Burnley, the three days of the July fair.