The earliest Christmas card ever recorded was sent in 1611 to King James I of England. It was given by a German physicist named Michael Maier. However, Christmas cards did not become widely popular for another two hundred years. Queen Victoria was the first person to send an official Christmas card. Sir Henry Cole, a senior civil servant, commissioned the first commercial Christmas card in 1845. It had an initial print run of 1000 cards. Cole had helped to set up the Penny Post. This made sending letters affordable, and Cole wanted to encourage the public to use it. When Cole found himself running out of time to write all his Christmas correspondence, he commissioned a Christmas card to simplify his task.
Early Christmas Cards
The card was designed by the painter John Callcott Horsley. It was printed lithographically and then hand coloured by the professional colourer, Mason. The design showed a family enjoying Christmas. There were also two side panels depicting charity workers providing food and clothing for the poor. This showed the two sides of Christmas: celebrations and feasting, and neighbourly concern for others. After Cole had used the amount of cards he required, he then sold the rest for 1 shilling each. He called it ‘A Christmas Congratulations Card…to Perpetuate kind recollections between Dear Friends’.
A second Christmas card was designed three years later by William Maw Egley (1826-1916) in 1848. Early Christmas cards were decorated with embossed and pierced ‘paper lace’, already popularised by Valentine cards. There was a Victorian heyday for Christmas cards between 1860-1890, as a result of new printing processes, colour combinations, metallic inks, appliqué and die-cutting. The cards were expensive – ‘9 pence for two designs’ – and were aimed at the professional classes.
Christmas Cards for Everyone
Cheaper cards were imported from Germany, and the introduction of the Halfpenny Post in 1894 also increased sales. In 1879, a basket of twelve cards sold in tobacconists, drapers and toyshops for 1 penny. The popular post card format was the cheapest to buy and send, and collecting Christmas cards became a popular hobby.
The Christmas Robin
During this Victorian period, most of the familiar Christmas themes that we know were popularised: country churches, snowy landscapes, winter scenes and robins, holly, evergreens and Santa Claus. In the Victorian times, postmen wore bright red uniforms and became known as ‘Robins’. They even delivered Christmas cards on Christmas Day! That is why robins became such a popular motif on early Christmas cards – often shown perched on top of post boxes.
Read tomorrow’s news post for more Christmas card history, and see the Goldcrest Gallery range of Christmas cards here.