Whitsun is the British name for Pentecost, the Christian feast marking the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles fifty days after Easter. For centuries it was one of the great holidays of the British year. Almost nobody now marks it, and a good many people have never heard the word.
The name
From White Sunday, for the white robes worn by those being baptised at the feast — Whitsun was, with Easter, one of the traditional baptism dates. The Monday and Tuesday following were Whit Monday and Whit Tuesday.
What it used to be
Whitsun week was, for much of British history, a bigger popular holiday than Christmas in some regions. It fell in late spring with good weather and long evenings, and it carried a great deal of custom:
- Whit Walks — church and Sunday school processions through the streets, with banners, brass bands and children in new white clothes.
- Whit Ales and church ales — parish fundraising festivals with a great deal of drinking.
- Fairs, wakes and club days in villages and mill towns.
- Morris dancing — the Cotswold Morris tradition is closely tied to Whitsun.
- Cheese rolling at Cooper’s Hill, which is still held on the Spring Bank Holiday that replaced it.
- In industrial Lancashire, it was the customary week for the mills to close and for families to take their annual holiday.
The abolition
Because Whitsun is calculated from Easter, it moved every year, which was inconvenient for schools and industry. In 1971 the government replaced Whit Monday as a bank holiday with a fixed Spring Bank Holiday on the last Monday in May.
The two usually fall near each other, and to most people the change was invisible — but it severed the holiday from its meaning. British people now take a day off in late May that has no name, no story and no customs attached to it, where before they had all three.
What survives
The Whit Walks continue in parts of the North West — Manchester, Oldham, Saddleworth, Rochdale — where they were historically enormous and involved whole communities. They are much smaller now but still held, and in some towns they remain the biggest event of the local year.
Some rural customs kept their Whitsun date: cheese rolling, various fairs, and a scattering of well dressings and club walks.
Whit in the language
The word survives in a few fixed uses — Whit week, Whitsuntide, and school “Whit holidays” in parts of the North, where the late-May half term is still called that by older people regardless of what the calendar says.
It is a small example of something that happens repeatedly in British life: a custom outliving its meaning, then the meaning outliving the custom, and finally only the word being left.