3-034-558 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Statute Holiday: Margate Jetty, 1871. 'The first statute holiday of the first Monday in August, under the Bank Holidays Act, was very generally observed...The name of Sir John Lubbock and the first Monday in August will henceforth he associated with pleasant recollections in the minds of the clerks of the bankers, brokers, merchants, and traders of the City...The holiday having been wisely fixed for Monday, a large number of those for whose benefit the measure was more especially passed were able to leave town on Saturday afternoon, and thus to secure two clear days in the country. But still many thousands thronged to the railway stations in the morning. Three and four times the usual number of excursion trains left London Bridge and Ludgate-hill for Margate, Ramsgate, and Dover...Not a tipsy or ill-conducted person could be seen. The day had been glorious, and the sum of happiness and social and domestic enjoyment evidently conferred by this first Bank holiday in August testifies to the wisdom of the Legislature...[Our illustration] shows the crowded state of Margate Jetty on this gleesome occasion, as one boat-load of excursionists quickly followed another, taking the town pleasantly by storm'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.