Did the 1971 Act move the holiday to the last Monday in August?

No. The move was a government decision announced on 4 March 1964 and run as an experiment from 1965; the Act of 1971 simply gave permanence to a change that had been running for seven years.

Is the August bank holiday the same day across the UK?

No. GOV.UK gives Scotland's first-Monday holiday the same name, Summer bank holiday, and across its published 2019 to 2028 list the two never fall on the same day.

When is the Summer bank holiday in England and Wales?

It is the last Monday in August, so the date moves from year to year. In 2026 it falls on 31 August.

Summer Bank Holiday (England and Wales)

Next celebratedMonday, August 30, 2027

England and Wales keep the last Monday in August as a bank holiday because a 1964 government decision moved it there from the first Monday to ease holiday congestion, and a 1971 statute made that permanent.

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Last updated September 6, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATELast Monday in August

OBSERVED INUnited Kingdom

CATEGORYFederal

ORIGIN

Enacted Law

FOUNDING ENTITY

The Parliament of the United Kingdom

FIRST OBSERVED

1871

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

An 1871 Act created the day; a 1971 Act settled its date.

The Bank Holidays Act 1871, carried through the Commons by Sir John Lubbock and given Royal Assent on 25 May 1871, made the first Monday in August a bank holiday in England. The date moved to the last Monday as a government experiment announced on 4 March 1964 and run in 1965 and 1966, and the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 made that date permanent.

View the 1971 Act Schedulevia The National Archives

INTRO

The statute gives it five words and no name

Open the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 and look for the Summer Bank Holiday. The name is not in it. The word summer appears nowhere in the Act, and neither does spring, while bank holiday appears 22 times.

Schedule 1 does list the day. It gives England and Wales five entries, and exactly one of them, Easter Monday, is a name. The rest are dates, and the one the country takes off in late August is written out in five words: The last Monday in August.

Getting the country onto that Monday took a hundred years, a congestion experiment and two Acts of Parliament.

ORIGINS

Summer Bank Holiday (England and Wales) history

INTRODUCTION

Sir John Lubbock carried the Bank Holidays Bill through the Commons, and on 25 May 1871 it received Royal Assent. Its Schedule handed England and Ireland four bank holidays. The August one fell on the first Monday, not the last.

The holiday found its crowds quickly. The Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian's London letter in 1873 reported the Crystal Palace "particularly crowded" on the day, with Sims Reeves announced to sing three of his most popular songs.

The first Monday is not the Monday England and Wales keep now. When the date finally moved, almost a century later, Parliament was not the body that moved it.

CHAPTER 01

Two lists from the very first Act

The same Schedule gave Scotland its own separate list, and that split has shaped British bank holiday law ever since. Both countries were handed the first Monday in August.

Scottish members said the split had been sprung on them. The Bill came back from the Lords late on a Friday night, its amendments considered "forthwith". On 22 May 1871 Mr M'Laren told the Commons that the Lords had appointed new holidays for Scotland "of which the people of Scotland had had no notice whatever".

CHAPTER 02

A holiday moved to clear the roads

The shift to the last Monday was a traffic measure. On 4 March 1964 Edward Heath said in the Commons that a later August Bank Holiday could help extend the holiday season and avoid "congestion for holiday-makers at peak holiday times".

The Government did not legislate. It simply decided that the August Bank Holiday for 1965 and 1966 should fall on the last Monday.

CHAPTER 03

Seven years of experiment

The trial did not stop after two years. Lord Drumalbyn told the Lords in 1971 that the previous administration had carried on changing the May and August dates.

By December 1971 the Government's case was that the arrangement had settled. The change to the last Mondays had been "found to be generally acceptable in England and Wales", Drumalbyn said, and the time had come to fix the dates permanently.

CHAPTER 04

The Act that replaced the Act

The Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 received Royal Assent on 16 December 1971. Its long title describes it as new provision in place of the Bank Holidays Act 1871. It did not move the holiday: it wrote down a date that had already been in force for seven years.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Bank Holidays Act receives assent

Its Schedule gave England and Ireland four bank holidays, among them the first Monday in August.

Heath announces a later Monday

On 4 March the Commons was told the August Bank Holiday would fall on the last Monday in 1965 and 1966.

The experiment runs

The holiday fell on 30 August rather than the 2 August the first Monday would have given, 28 days later.

The dates are fixed permanently

A new Act, replacing the 1871 statute, wrote the last Monday in August into Schedule 1.

A proclamation with no August date

A royal proclamation published in The Gazette on 31 May appointed 1 January and 5 May 2025 as bank holidays, and named no day in August.

GOOD TO KNOW

Surprising facts about Summer Bank Holiday (England and Wales)

The official name lost 8,135 to 14

Searching the National Library of Wales's Welsh Newspapers Online across 1804 to 1919, August Bank Holiday returns 8,135 articles and Summer Bank Holiday returns 14. In the Hansard search the same contest runs 329 spoken contributions to 7.

The Sovereign appoints two of them by hand

New Year's Day and the early May bank holiday are not in Schedule 1's England and Wales list. They exist because the Sovereign appoints them one year at a time under section 1(3), a power the August holiday does not need.

Christmas Day is not on the list

Neither is Good Friday. Both are bank holidays all the same, common law days that Schedule 1 never lists for England and Wales: before 1871 they were the only two days, Sundays apart, that English common law recognised as days on which the banks did not do business. Section 1(4) then measures every other bank holiday against them, since nobody is compellable to make a payment or do an act on one that they would not be compellable to make or do on Christmas Day or Good Friday.

A newspaper credited the nickname to another newspaper

Welsh papers on 9 and 10 August 1872 reported that the Daily Telegraph was calling the previous Monday St. Lubbock's Day, in honour of Sir John Lubbock, who procured the passing of the bill. The same archive holds 70 articles using the nickname between 1872 and 1913, 52 of them in August.

The Government refused to add any more in 1971

Lord Drumalbyn listed the days that had been suggested: Christmas Eve, New Year's Day, May 1, the Queen's Birthday, Europe Day and United Nations Day. The Government's answer was that additional public holidays are not a suitable subject for legislation, and two of the six arrived anyway within seven years.

BY THE NUMBERS

Summer Bank Holiday (England and Wales) by the Numbers

1871: First August bank holiday enacted
1965: First year on the last Monday
28 days: Shift in the 1965 holiday's date
4 of 8: England and Wales bank holidays in Schedule 1
21 or 28: Days after Scotland's Summer bank holiday

the great object of giving holidays to bankers' and merchants' clerks

Sir John LubbockMember of Parliament, in the Commons, 27 April 1871

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why Summer Bank Holiday (England and Wales) Matters

RIGHTS

The right is 5.6 weeks of leave, and an employer may count this Monday inside it.

GOV.UK is explicit that bank or public holidays do not have to be given as paid leave. The statutory entitlement is 5.6 weeks, at least 28 days for a five-day week, and an employer may count the bank holidays inside it.

CALENDAR

It opens the year's longest gap, nearly every year

In the same 1964 exchange, Mr Wade asked the Government about an autumn or Michaelmas Bank Holiday to break what he called the longest period without a Bank Holiday break. Across GOV.UK's published 2019 to 2028 list, that run starts here and ends at Christmas Day in nine of the ten years.

STREETS

The Adults Parade falls on this Monday

Notting Hill Carnival's organisers put the Adults Parade on Monday 30 August 2027, the day GOV.UK gives as that year's Summer bank holiday in England and Wales. The statute supplies the Monday, and the city supplies what happens on it.

GET INVOLVED

How to Observe Summer Bank Holiday (England and Wales)

Read the lines that actually make it law

Schedule 1 of the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971 is the operative text for England and Wales, and it runs to a handful of lines. The National Archives publishes the current version on legislation.gov.uk.

LOOK

Look up the official list for your nation

GOV.UK publishes bank holiday dates for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as three separate lists. The published file covers 2019 to 2028.

CHECK

Check your contract before you plan the Monday

Whether the day is paid, and whether it comes out of your annual leave, is set by your terms of employment. GOV.UK's guidance explains how bank holidays can sit inside the statutory entitlement.

WATCH

Watch the Adults Parade at Notting Hill Carnival

The organisers list Adults Day, the Adults Parade, as free to all. Their carnival information page carries the day by day schedule.

Search a Welsh newspaper archive for the nickname

The National Library of Wales runs Welsh Newspapers Online, a free search across its digitised titles. Look up St Lubbock's Day and read the 1872 reports yourself.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know Summer Bank Holiday (England?

1 / 6

Which Monday of August does Schedule 1 give England and Wales?

Answer

Yes. It is a statutory bank holiday under section 1(1) of the Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971, which gives effect to the Schedule where the last Monday in August sits, although GOV.UK is clear that a bank holiday is not automatically paid time off.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

19sources

19primary records

9independently dated

legislation.gov.uk (The National Archives)

Banking and Financial Dealings Act 1971, Schedule 1

The bank holiday lists for England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.