Past Talks
Victorian Christmas
Date: 20th November 2023
Speaker: Tim Healey
A Victorian Christmas – Tim Healey 20th November 2023
Taking us back to the seventeenth century, Tim Healey reminded us that the Puritans were hostile to merry-making and dancing, and that this attitude persisted up to the early nineteenth century. In fact, it was not until 1834 that workers were granted a holiday on Christmas Day and Boxing Day was not added to the holiday period until 1871. Presents were sparse and traditionally given on New Year’s Day.
Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol in 1843, influenced by Bracebridge Hall (Washington Irving), which described Christmas celebrations. Dickens and Victorian inventions and science shaped the Victorian Christmas.
Giving to the poor at Christmas became a tradition, although the Puritans disliked beggars pleading for alms: this often happened on St Thomas’s Day, originally celebrated on 21st December.
The telling of ghost stories also became part of the tradition. Dickens depicted the spirit of Christmas as a pagan figure.
The first commercially available Christmas card was commissioned by Sir Henry Cole and designed by John C Horsley in London in 1843. Sir Henry had helped to introduce the penny post three years earlier and this probably encouraged people to take up the idea of exchanging cards. Those available would have been cheaply manufactured multi-coloured prints generally depicting church bells, Father Christmas and robins in the snow.
Father Christmas emerged in the seventeenth century, but was not welcomed by all. In the nineteenth century, the stories of Santa Claus, which formed part of the folk law of Dutch settlers in the USA, started to merge with our image of Father Christmas.
Scrap sheets of Christmas cut-outs became popular and in 1847 the Christmas cracker was invented by Tom Smith of Clerkenwell, based on the idea of the French bob-bon. By the 1890s, two thousand people were involved in their production.
Henry VIII first consumed turkey for his Christmas dinner, but, among the general public, goose was more common. Poor householders would join a goose club and have their bird roasted at the local bakers.
Plum porridge was eaten in the Middle Ages, but became a pudding containing meat and fruit, which was boiled in a pot and anointed with brandy.
Canned foods were patented in 1810, which enabled mincemeat to be preserved. This was meat-free by 1901.
In the Middle Ages, Christmas carols were sung by monks, while church congregations sung secular songs. This was frowned on by the Puritans. The situation changed in the mid-nineteenth century when popular carols were sold on broadsheets and William Sandys published Christmas Carols Ancient & Modern (1833). The First Noel, I Saw Three Ships and Hark the Herald Angels Sing were sung in church and in the home around the piano. Secular ballads included The Mistletoe Bow, which was associated with Minster Lovell Hall. Christmas Carols Old and New was published in 1871.
Waits bands were the official town musicians who sounded the hours and provided ceremonial music for special occasions. However, they were considered to be a waste of public money and were abolished in the 1830s, although, as they were missed, some informal bands continued. The Victorians replaced the waits with carol singers, who were choir trained.
The first recorded Christmas tree in the UK was set up in 1800 by Queen Charlotte, the German wife of King George III. Prince Albert is often wrongly credited with introducing Christmas trees to Britain during Queen Victoria’s reign, but it was probably his influence that encouraged middle-class family to adopt the practice. Trees were lit with candles produced by Price’s Patent Candle Company. Edward H. Johnson put the very first string of electric Christmas tree lights together in 1882.
Christmas dances and pantomime became very popular. The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane could hold three thousand people and was famous for its pantomimes in the 1880s and 1890s.
The plight of the poor at Christmas was highlighted in Luke Fildes 1874 painting Applicants for Admission to a Casual Ward, which shows a grim scene of people queuing outside a police station for a ticket to admit them to the casual ward of the workhouse for the night. Christmas Day in the Workhouse is a poem by George Robert Sims, first published 1877. It is a criticism of the harsh conditions in English and Welsh workhouses under the 1834 Poor Law.
The concept of a white Christmas was mooted by Charles Dickens inspired by a particularly cold decade during his childhood. Sledging and ice skating were favourite winter pastimes.
Department stores and toy shops catered for the well-to-do Christmas shopper.
By the late Victorian period all the elements of a modern Christmas were in place.