where does the phrase bank holiday come from
Bank holiday Until 1834, the Bank of England observed about 33 saints' days and religious festivals as holidays, but in that year this was reduced to four: 1 May (May Day), 1 November (All Saints' Day), Good Friday and Christmas Day. In 1871, the first legislation relating to bank holidays was passed when Liberal politician and banker Sir John Lubbock introduced the Bank Holidays Act 1871, which specified the days in the table below.[3] Under the Act, no person was compelled to make any payment or to do any act upon a bank holiday which he would not be compelled to do or make on Christmas Day or Good Friday, and the making of a payment or the doing of an act on the following day was equivalent to doing it on the holiday.[4] People were so grateful that some called the first Bank Holidays St Lubbock's Days for a while.[5] Scotland was treated separately because of its separate traditions: for example, New Year is a more important holiday there.[citation needed]
Emergency Banking Act According to William L. Silber: "The Emergency Banking Act of 1933, passed by Congress on March 9, 1933, three days after FDR declared a nationwide bank holiday, combined with the Federal Reserve's commitment to supply unlimited amounts of currency to reopened banks, created 100 percent deposit insurance. Much to everyone's relief, when the institutions reopened for business on March 13, 1933, depositors stood in line to return their stashed cash to neighborhood banks. Within two weeks, Americans had redeposited more than half of the currency that they had squirreled away before the bank suspension. The stock market registered its approval as well. On March 15, 1933, the first day of stock trading after the extended closure of Wall Street, the New York Stock Exchange recorded the largest one-day percentage price increase ever with the Dow Jones Industrial Average gaining 8.26 points to close at 62.10; a gain of 15.34%. With the benefit of hindsight, the nationwide Bank Holiday and the Emergency Banking Act of March, 1933, ended the bank runs that had plagued the Great Depression."[2]