Who broke Britain? Welcome to The i Paper’s opinion series in which experts and writers debate the issues that concern them about modern Britain.
• Martin Lewis: the money-saving expert… who accidentally cost Britons billions
• The American woman who ripped the heart out of Cadbury
• George Osborne: the prince of austerity who fuelled our raging housing crisis
In many ways, Sir John Lubbock should be greatly admired. This Victorian Liberal politician and scientist was born into the wealth of a banking family and devoted his life to improving the nation’s knowledge and happiness. “Most of us can make this world a palace or a prison,” Lubbock wrote. He did more than most to nudge it towards the former.
A neighbour and friend of Charles Darwin, Lubbock made valuable observations about insects (he kept a pet wasp for several months), was an archaeologist who coined the words Neolithic and Palaeolithic and served as vice president of the Royal Society. He also sought to widen literacy and helped to pass the Public Libraries Act in 1892. “A library is… a haven,” he wrote. “Rich and poor can enjoy it equally for here, at least, wealth gives no advantage.” He took this mission for education to other species and attempted to teach his poodle to read.
It may seem rotten to nominate this good man for a series on people who have broken Britain, especially as what gets him on the list was laudable at the time – and I don’t mean that poodles have now nabbed all the good books in the libraries. I nominate Lubbock for one reason only and that is because in order to get the Bob Cratchits of his time a few hours away from Ebenezer’s drudgery, he created bank holidays.
I know, what a bastard. But in his day they were needed. Until the early 19th century, 33 days could be taken off work for religious festivals. In 1834, the year Lubbock was born, this was cut to four: Good Friday, May Day, All Saints’ Day on 1 November and Christmas. Sundays remained a day of rest but most men had to work on Saturdays until the 1930s.
In 1871, Lubbock introduced legislation to create four extra holidays in England, Wales and Ireland (Easter Monday, Whit Monday, the first Monday in August and Boxing Day). In Scotland, they got a slightly different set of five, including New Year’s Day. On those days, banks would close and other businesses should follow suit. That first August bank holiday four times as many trains as usual left for the Kent coast and sandy-toed clerks were so grateful they gave Lubbock a cash gift, which he characteristically spent on creating two school scholarships.
From the start, people have tried to add more. In 1872, William Gladstone agreed that the City could have a bank holiday to celebrate the Prince of Wales recovering from typhoid. Ireland got St Patrick’s Day off from 1903, in 1926 the Battle of the Boyne was added as a day off for Northern Ireland, and in 1971 the Whit holiday was fixed as the last Monday in May and the August one moved to the end of the month. That year, the Labour MP Geoffrey de Freitas sought another one to mark Europe Day (5 May), while in 1964 Lord Mabane had just as unsuccessfully lobbied for one in October. There are now eight regular ones in England and Wales, while the Scots get nine and Northern Ireland ten.
Britain had extra bank holidays in 1981 for the royal wedding and in 1999 for the millennium. Others were granted for the Queen’s golden, diamond and platinum jubilees. Jeremy Corbyn promised four nationwide holidays to celebrate each of the patron saints if he won the 2017 election (can’t see St George being cheered in Glasgow). Scotland had grabbed St Andrew’s Day as a bank holiday for themselves in 2007.
The Liberal Democrats wanted a day off when England’s women footballers won Euro 2025. Sir Keir Starmer refused but was said to be tempted to give one if England’s men won this year’s World Cup (Scots got one just for making it to the tournament). If Thomas Tuchel’s men had delivered, Starmer would have given Andy Burnham a day of national lack of productivity to kick-start his premiership.
And that is part of my objection: the economic cost. Yes, there is some boost for hospitality and retail (whose staff don’t, of course, get a day off) but a survey in 2018 of 1,500 small businesses found that each bank holiday brought just £253 extra profit on average and so a third preferred to take the day off. An additional bank holiday costs the economy £2.4bn, according to a government impact assessment in 2022, with the months of the golden and diamond jubilees seeing a 2.2 per cent and 1.5 per cent fall in GDP.
Ah, but what about the health and happiness benefits? I am certainly not arguing that we should all surrender our leave, though the idea of getting a day off because a football team has done well is bizarre. But where is the benefit in everyone taking it on the same day? This year’s late May bank holiday saw 19 million motorists on the road, the most since 2016, with engineering work disrupting several rail routes. In 2005 the Friday before the August bank holiday weekend had 23 per cent higher traffic than the year’s average.
Where is the joy in sitting in that? And when you finally reach your destination, the beaches are packed, the restaurants are full and the queues for attractions are long. As for giving bank clerks a day off, how many banks are open these days? Isn’t it time that we were allowed to choose when we took all our holiday? A 2023 survey by Ovo found that 72 per cent of workers would prefer to be given extra discretionary leave to use when they want, such as for attending a wedding or a religious or cultural event.
Lubbock said that “wasted time is worse than no time at all”. What is a greater waste of time than sitting in a traffic jam or trawling B&Q with everyone else? Let’s ditch his expensive, wasteful national days off and take our leisure when we can get the most out of it. It may even give you time to teach the dog how to do the crossword.