SEASON’S GREETINGS

The UK Greetings Card Association estimates that even in these days of Facebook, Zoom and email we send nearly a billion Christmas cards every year. In this socially-distanced year it’s even more important to keep in touch with friends. But when did this tradition begin?

The world's first Christmas card, 1843, designed by John Callcott Horsley for Henry Cole.

The first Christmas card was commissioned by Henry Cole in 1843. Cole was a friend of Prince Albert through his membership of the Royal Society - Prince Albert was Royal Patron and admired Cole greatly. Whenever energy and enterprise were required Albert is supposed to have said, ‘We must have steam, get Cole!’

They worked closely together on the Great Exhibition in 1851. It was a tremendous popular and commercial success with over six million visitors and the profit was used to improve education in the arts and sciences by creating ‘a schoolroom for everyone’. In 1857 the South Kensington Museum opened with Henry Cole as its first Director and admission was free. We know it as the Victoria & Albert Museum –the V&A - with a wing named after Cole, and admission is still free.

Cole also played a key role in the introduction of the Universal Penny Post, in which all post cost one penny per half-ounce to any town in Britain. This rapidly increased the volume of mail and encouraged the exchange of seasonal greetings cards. Cole is also sometimes credited with the design of the Penny Black which features the image of his friend Albert’s wife, Queen Victoria.

Penny Black stamp featuring Queen Victoria

Cole was a very busy and successful man and wanted to find a way to send greetings to his family, friends, and business associates without having to write individually to each. He commissioned his friend John Callcott Horsley, a member of the Royal Academy, to design a card. Cole’s diary entry for 17 December 1843 records, ‘in the evening Horsley came and brought his design for Christmas cards.’

This is his design, the first commercial Christmas card. It’s a triptych, a single sheet, the size of a post card, lithographed in black on white card by Mr J R Jobbins of Holborn, with the middle section coloured by hand by a Mr Mason.

Horsley’s design shows three generations of a family (possibly Cole’s) raising a toast. The two outer panels show acts of charity, feeding the hungry and clothing being given to the deserving poor. (‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens was also published in December 1843 so a sense of social conscience was clearly in the zeitgeist.) The middle panel caused controversy at the time as it clearly shows a child drinking wine. Temperance movements like the Band of Hope questioned the morality of the design – ‘No drunkard shall inherit the Earth.

At the top is space for the sender to write the recipient’s name and include their own at the base.

A limited edition of about a thousand were produced and those Cole didn’t use were sold for one shilling each – about £5 in today’s money. Fewer than 30 of these cards are known to still exist and today (9 December 2020) one sold at Christie’s for £13,750.

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Written by Lettering Arts Trust supporter Michael Dobney, Winklebag Press December 2020

ALL PICTURE CREDITS: WIKIPEDIA