Our Eleven Days

Still Waiting for Our Eleven Days
Have you ever wondered why the tax year starts on April 6th? The answer was posted on the internet the other day. The reason is primarily historical and has its origin in the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1752. During the 16th century is was calculated that the Julian calendar had lost nine days since its introduction in 46 BC.  Most of Europe changed to the new, more accurate, Gregorian calendar in 1582, but England continued with the old one until September 1752 by which time the error had increased to 11 days.  These 11 days were removed from the calendar altogether - September 2nd was then followed by September 14th which did not go down very well with the populace.  There was rioting in the street to demand the return of the missing days.  The government did not wish to lose 11 days tax revenue in that tax year, so the authorities tacked the missing days on at the end, which meant moving the beginning of the tax year from the 25 March, Lady Day, (which you will remember from a previous column was the year ending in the parish registers) to the 6 April.
Do you have a famous ancestor?  Well the first place to find out if he/she is in the top echelons of ancestry the place to look is in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.  Due to a recent agreement with the library service it is now possible to use the ODNB www.oxforddnb.com from your home computer.  The only requirement is that you have a library card.  Enter the number with LIN in front of it and you then have access to 55000 biographies.  The sort of thing you will find is LAMBERT, Daniel (1770–1809), the most corpulent man of his time in England, was the elder of two sons of a Daniel LAMBERT who had been huntsman to the earl of Stamford. He was born in Blue Boar Lane, Leicester, on 13 March 1770 and was apprenticed to Benjamin PATRICK of Messrs TAYLOR & Co., an engraving and die-sinking firm in Birmingham; but in 1788 he returned to live with his father, who was keeper of the bridewell in Leicester and Daniel  succeeded to his fathers  post in 1791. It was at this time that LAMBERT began to amass the bulk for which he was later to achieve fame. By 1793 he weighed 32 stone, despite his athletic enthusiasm for activities such as walking, swimming, and hunting. Moreover, he drank only water, and slept less than eight hours a day. He was at Cambridge in June 1809, and proceeded to Huntingdon and Stamford, where, according to a newspaper, he ‘attained the acme of mortal hugeness’. He died at the Waggon and Horses inn, 47 High Street, Stamford, on 21 June 1809. His coffin was built on two axles and four wheels and required 112 square feet of elm wood for its construction. His body was rolled down a gradual incline from the inn to the burial-ground of St Martin's, Stamford Baron.  At his death he was 5 feet 11 inches in height, and weighed 52¾ stone (336 kg).  If you can’t be bother to use the library access you can always buy your own copy and fill up 12 foot of shelving!  A snip at £6500.  The name LAMBERT was popularised during the 12th century and was likely to have been introduced from Flanders with the veneration of St Lambert.  Its most probable origin is from the Old German word Lambert meaning land bright
Bits and Bobs
April 29th 1808 - If John PALIAN of Helpringham still intends to persist in calling himself a Quaker, he is desired to produce the Minute of the Monthly Meeting by which he was admitted into the Society, as without such a Minute of Admission, no person who was not born in the Society, can become a Member of it. By producing, or failing to produce this proof of his assertion, it may be known whether or not he is in reality such ´A Lover of Truth´ as he professes himself to be. The advertiser repeats that John PALIAN never is, nor never was a Member of the Society of Quakers.