Page 6 - British Post Office Notices 1666 to 1799

- Below is the actual text of the Act of Parliament authorizing the change-over:

"May it therefore please your Majesty, that it may be enacted; and be it enacted
by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the
Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled,
and by the Authority of the same, That in and throughout all his Majesty's
Dominions and Countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, belonging or subject
to the Crown of Great Britain, the said Supputation, according to which the Year of
our Lord beginneth on the twenty-fifth Day of March, shall not be made use of from
and after the last Day of December one thousand seven hundred and fifty-one; and
that the first Day of January next following the said last Day of December shall be
reckoned, taken, deemed, and accounted to be the first Day of the Year of our Lord
one thousand seven hundred and fifty-two; and the first Day of January, which shall
happen next after the said first Day of January one thousand seven hundred and fifty-
- two, shall be reckoned, taken, deemed, and accounted to be the first Day of the Year
of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and fifty-three; and so on, from Time to
Time, the first Day of January in every Year, which shall happen in Time to come,
shall be reckoned, taken, deemed, and accounted to be the first Day of the Year; and
that each new Year shall accordingly commence, and begin to be reckoned, from the
first Day of every such Month of January next preceding the twenty-fifth Day of
March, on which such Year would, according to the present Supputation, have begun
or commenced: And that from and after the said first Day of January one thousand
seven hundred and fifty-two, the several Days of each Month shall go on, and be
reckoned and numbered in the same Order; and the Feast of Easter, and other
moveable Feasts thereon depending, shall be ascertained according to the same
Method, as they now are, until the second Day of September in the said Year one
thousand seven hundred and fifty-two inclusive; and that the natural Day next
immediately following the said second Day of September, shall be called, reckoned,
and accounted to be the fourteenth Day of September, omitting for that Time only
the eleven intermediate nominal Days of the common Calendar; and that the several
natural Days, which shall follow and succeed next after the said fourteenth Day of
September, shall be called, reckoned, and numbered forwards in numerical Order
from the said fourteenth Day of September, according to the Order and Succession of
Days now used in the present Calendar."

List of British Monarchs

For ease of reference, I include the dates of the reigns of the British Monarchs from 1666 to
1700:

Charles II 1660-1685 Anne 1702-1714
James II 1685-1688 George I 1714-1727
William m 1689-1702 George II 1727-1760
,.,.,- and George ill 1760-1820
MaryII 1689-1694

Acknowledgement

This series of books came into being thanks to the urging of many friends and stamp dealers who
knew of my interest in the subject and who were interested by a small book that I used to travel with
and which contained a summary of the British postal rates that I had build up over the years. Among
them I would like to mention James Grimwood-Taylor of Argyll Etkin Ltd, London who provided me
with encouragement as well as constructive criticisms, Denis Salt of Shrewsbury (England) for sending
me copies of Notices and Arthur White of Wakefield, MA USA for getting me interested in postal