Easter Act 1928


The Easter Act 1928 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed and enacted in 1928 concerning the date for Easter that has never come into force. The effect would be to establish Easter Sunday as the Sunday following the second Saturday in April, resulting in Easter Sunday being between 9 April and 15 April.
The purpose of the Act is to empower the Home Secretary and the Home Office, to set in the United Kingdom, to set a separate date for Easter for secular British state purposes, and to determine when such a date would fall, rather than following the established Christian date for Easter as a Christian moveable feast.
The Act requires the agreement of both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, before the Prime Minister of the day may direct the Home Secretary to request the King or the Queen of the day to approve and issue a Commencement Order in Council, on condition that “before making such draft order, regard shall be had to any opinion officially expressed by any Church or other Christian body”.
Although the subject has been raised occasionally in Parliament in the decades since, the Act has never been brought into force.