When the court of Charles II of England adopted the custom, first noted as an English usage in 1672, it was called a levée. In the 18th century, as the fashionable dinner hour was incrementally moved later into the afternoon, the morning reception of the British monarch, attended only by gentlemen, was shifted back towards noon. The practice of holding court levées was continued by the British Monarchy until 1939. These took the form of a formal reception at St James's Palace at which officials, diplomats, and military officers of all three armed services, were presented individually to the sovereign. Full dress uniform or court dress was worn by all participants, who formed a queue in the Throne Room before stepping forward when their names and ranks were called. Each then bowed to the king who was seated on a dais with male members of his family, officials of the Royal Household and senior officers behind him. Levees in the British Empire and Commonwealth Levée ceremonies were held by regal representatives of the British Empire, such as the Viceroy of India, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, governors general and state/provincial governors/lieutenant governors. The ceremonial event continues to be held in a number of Commonwealth countries. The New Year's levee is still held on New Year's Day in Canada, by the Governor General of Canada, the lieutenant governors, the Canadian Armed Forces, and various municipalities across the country. United States By the 1760s, the custom was being copied by the colonial governors in British America, but was abandoned in the United States following the American Revolutionary War. Beginning in 1789, President George Washington and First Lady Martha Washington held weekly public gatherings and receptions at the presidential mansion that were called levees. Designed to give the public access to the president and to project a dignified public image of the presidency, they were continued by John and Abigail Adams, but not by Thomas Jefferson. English writer Harriet Martineau, after witnessing a White House levee during the second term of Andrew Jackson's presidency, remarked on how egalitarian the levee was in every respect but one:I saw one ambassador after another enter with his suite; the Judges of the Supreme Court; the majority of the members of both Houses of Congress; and intermingled with these, the plainest farmers, storekeepers, and mechanics, with their primitive wives and simple daughters. Some looked merry; some looked