<Tr> <Td> Boxing Day / St Stephen's Day </Td> <Td> Christmas Day </Td> </Tr> <P> The Act did not include Good Friday and Christmas Day as bank holidays in England, Wales, or Ireland because they were already recognised as common law holidays: they had been customary holidays since time immemorial . </P> <P> In 1903, the Bank Holiday (Ireland) Act added 17 March, Saint Patrick's Day, as a bank holiday for Ireland only . New Year's Day did not become a bank holiday in England until 1 January 1974 . </P> <P> Commencing in 1965, experimentally, the August Bank Holiday weekend was observed at the end of August "to give a lead in extending British holidays over a longer summer period". Each year's date was announced in Parliament on an ad - hoc basis, to the despair of the calendar and diary publishing trade . The rule seems to have been to select the weekend of the last Saturday in August, so that in 1968 and 1969 Bank Holiday Monday actually fell in September . </P>

When was new year's day made a bank holiday