In this festive blog post, learn about the Victorian origins of some of our favourite things about Christmas; sending cards, decorating with lights, and pulling Christmas crackers!
During the festive season, we have more in common with the Victorians than you may have previously thought. Many Christmas traditions we see in Britain have their roots in Victorian times; exchanging Christmas cards, decorating trees, eating plum puddings and enjoying Christmas crackers.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were very influential, and established Christmas traditions in households across the country. Before the 19th century, Christmas celebrations tended to be rowdy, filled with drinking and dancing, but by the start of Queen Victoria's reign in 1837, the holiday was seldom celebrated. This would change again, however, and by the end of the Victorian era Christmas had grown to be the biggest annual celebration in the British calendar… But how did this come to be?
A famous engraving of Victoria and Albert helped kickstart this interest in Christmas, depicting the couple with their children, by a glowing evergreen Christmas Tree. The introduction of the tree was thanks to Prince Albert, who was inspired by his own German heritage. This drawing was published in London Illustrated News in 1848 and promptly captured the hearts of many families in Britain.
The couple are pictured standing round a beautifully decorated tree, and later the market opened up for colourful tree decorations, made out of materials that could reflect surrounding candlelight giving a shimmery appearance. This later evolved into the introduction of Christmas lights, which was invented by Edward H. Johnson in 1882. Johnson, who was Thomas Edison’s friend and work partner, created 80 red, white and blue light bulbs and arranged them around his own Christmas tree.
Christmas tree at Windsor Castle, London Illustrated News, 1848.
As for Christmas cards, the first ever Christmas card, designed by John Callcott Horsley, was sent by Sir Henry Cole, the V&A’s founding director, in 1843. However, it was not until the 1870s that the use of Christmas cards really caught on.
The introduction of the halfpenny stamp in 1870 allowed Victorians to send cards much more affordably, and it became a cheap and cheerful activity most could participate in. Publishers began producing more and more, and popular images were reused and reprinted as Christmas cards, even if they weren’t particularly festive.
While the Victorians did send Christmas cards that resemble the ones we see today, there were still some produced that had a rather unusual tone to them…
Why is a hen sitting on a fence like a penny?
Because her head is on one side and her tail on the other.
The Victorians had an amusing interest in anthropomorphic creatures on their Christmas cards, occasionally accompanied by a cheesy joke. For them, Christmas did not necessarily have to be Christian, but instead could be a time for good humour.
Some of their cards were very bizarre by our current standards, featuring dancing insects, rats on lobsters, devils, and dead birds. In our own collection at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum Trust, we have a card that feels totally incongruous with Christmas, depicting a joke about why a hen is like a penny. Not too dissimilar to the Christmas cracker jokes that we get now, I suppose!
Apart from terrible Christmas jokes, we also have the Victorians to thank for the inception of our beloved Christmas crackers and plum puddings.
Christmas crackers began as individual sweets made by Tom Smith in 1840, with jokes and quotes inside on bits of paper, inspired by Chinese fortune cookies. And plum pudding, now more commonly known as 'Christmas pudding', was the result of preserving foodstuffs to last until winter.
Plums and other fruits were dried and mixed with ale, brandy or cider and slowly boiled and mixed until solid. The pudding would appear on cards and become a symbol of the holiday. Every Victorian, rich or poor, found themselves enjoying the pudding to finish their Christmas meal.
So, during this festive period, when you next unwrap that cartoon card with talking animals, or sigh at a Christmas cracker joke with a tenuous punchline, you have the Victorians to thank!
This post was written by Ellie Denton, who has been volunteering within the Collections team at IGMT since July. She has recently completed a Masters in Curating Art at Newcastle University.
