In September 1752, England’s calendar shifted from the Julian to the Gregorian system. Due to discrepancies in the calculation of each, it proved necessary to omit 11 days from the calendar and Parliament decreed that September 2 1752 would be followed by 14 September 1752. Although reports of riots are probably apocryphal, the change had other major effects, such as resulting in the end of the tax year being moved to 5 April and the start of the year being moved from 25 March to 1 January.
Locally, a notable result of the calendar change was the short-term notoriety of one Harlowe Merriton. Previously unknown, he appeared in Greigbury at the start of May 1752 and made himself known by the making several speeches on the nature of the upcoming calendar change. According to the subsequent reports, the subject of the speeches was the Unholy nature of the alteration to the calendar. He called into question the Popish nature of the basis of the incoming Gregorian calendar. He made spurious assertions that the Catholic church was imposing the change to undermine the English church. Later speeches also made use of fears regarding lost earnings and implications for the charging of rents.
Although the group appears to have been treated with derision by most of the populace, come September, Merriton had gathered about him a number of adherents who had taken up residence at Walk Hall, a large house on the then outskirts of the Greigbury. The house was abandoned at the time, the former residents (the Harefield family) having left some years before following their financial downfall.
The most notable thing about Merriton’s group them is that on the night of September 2 1752, all eighteen of them committed suicide. Correspondence found in the days afterward reveals that the group had come to belief that the 11-day change to the calendar represented an actual deletion of 11 real days. Apparently, they believed this period represented a holy event when those worthy would be taken by God. The alteration to the calendar was a plot by Satanists to deny those individuals this chance at redemption.
Now barely a footnote in history, Harlowe Merriton was a mystery in his day as well as ours. No record of him prior to arriving in Greigbury exists. No relation or friend came forward after his death. A man out of time.