While continuing to attend and participate in the Upper House's proceedings, Lord Chesterfield turned down the dukedom offered him by George II, whose wrath had melted in the face of Chesterfield's diplomacy and rhetoric. In 1751, seconded by George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield, the president of the Royal Society, and the mathematician James Bradley, Chesterfield greatly distinguished himself in the debates on establishing a definitive calendar for Britain and the Commonwealth. With the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750, he successfully established the Gregorian calendar and a calendar year that began on 1 January for the British realm. Informally, the calendar act also is known as the "Chesterfield′s Act". He started gradually to withdraw from both politics and society because of his growing deafness.