In Eilke v. Rice (1955) 45 Cal.2d 66, a case involving a promissory note, the Supreme Court extensively reviewed the history of section 360, which has its origins in the English Statute of Frauds Amendment Act, commonly known as Lord Tenterden's Act, (1828) 9 Geo. IV, ch. 14, 1. (Eilke v. Rice, supra, 45 Cal.2d at pp. 71-72.) In Eilke, the Supreme Court described Lord Tenterden's Act as follows: "'In actions of debt or upon the case grounded upon any simple contract no acknowledgment or promise by words only shall be deemed sufficient evidence of a new or continuing contract, whereby to take any case out of the operation (of the statute of limitation) . . ., or to deprive any party of the benefit thereof, unless such acknowledgment or promise shall be made or contained by or in some writing to be signed by the party chargeable thereby . . . .' " (Id. at p. 70.) Eilke stated: "The purpose of Lord Tenterden's Act was . . . 'not . . . to make any alteration in the legal construction to be put upon acknowledgements or promises made by defendants, but merely to require a different mode of proof; substituting the certain evidence of a writing signed by the party chargeable, instead of the insecure and precarious testimony to be derived from the memory of witnesses.' This reasoning was apparently considered inapplicable to the acknowledgment of a debt by part payment, for the first section of Lord Tenterden's Act provided that '. . . nothing herein contained shall alter or take away, or lessen the effect of any payment of any principal or interest made by any person whatsoever.' (9 Geo. IV, ch. 14, 1.) Despite this proviso, the statute was first construed to exclude parol evidence of part payment. (Willis v. Newham (1830) 3 Younge & Jer. 518), but the proviso, saving part payment from the operation of the act, was eventually recognized and Willis, v. Newham, supra, was overruled. (Cleve v. Jones (1851) 6 Exch. 573.) This was also the state of the law in American jurisdictions when section 360 of the Code of Civil Procedure was adopted. (See Williams v. Gridley, 9 Metc. (Mass.) 482; Read v. Hurd, 7 Wend. 408 (N.Y.); Sibley v. Lumbert, 30 Me. 253; Hapgood v. Southgate, 21 Vt. 584.) " (Eilke v. Rice, supra, 46 Cal.2d at pp. 70-71.) Eilke noted, however, that California originally adopted Lord Tenterden's Act almost verbatim. But when originally adopted, section 360 failed to include the proviso saving part payment transactions. This caused California courts to construe former section 360 to apply to part payments. As noted previously, section 360, as originally adopted stated, "'No acknowledgment or promise is sufficient evidence of a new or continuing contract, by which to take the case out of the operation of this title, unless the same is contained in some writing, signed by the party to be charged thereby.'" (Elke v. Rice, supra, 45 Cal.2d at p. 70; Stats. 1850, ch. 4, 31, p. 346.) The Supreme Court described the effect of the pre-1947 provisions of section 360 as follows: "Section 360 required not only a writing to prove the act of acknowledgment or part payment but also that the writing directly evidence the new promise or admit or refer to the debt and the payment from which a new promise may be inferred. In these respects the California rule was totally at variance with the great majority of decisions in other jurisdictions where part payment transactions were excluded from the category of acknowledgments requiring a writing." (Eilke v. Rice, supra, 45 Cal.2d at p. 72.)