The sending of physical Christmas cards has been reported to be in decline in recent years, due to an increase in postage prices, concern for the environment and changing social habits with email and social media being favoured. Many people, however, still like to send and receive cards at Christmas, thus continuing a tradition first started in the 1840s.

The very first Christmas card appeared in 1843, designed by John Callcott Horsley for Henry Cole, an important figure who later played a key role in the 1851 Great Exhibition and in the establishment of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Cole had assisted Rowland Hill in the setting up of the Penny Post in 1840. Hill’s post office reform was a significant factor in the growth of the Christmas card industry as it made it cheaper than before to send post that was now paid for in advance (previously the burden of paying had been imposed on the recipient). Christmas cards really took off with the development of colour printing by George Baxter, and the makers of St Valentine’s Day cards, which were already commercialised, saw the potential of extending their range to Christmas cards.

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Selection of late 19th century cards in our collections

By Christmas 1877 the addition of millions of cards into the normal postal service was perhaps posing a problem as this correspondent to the Times complained:

“We have to face a new great “social evil.” At a quarter past 4 on this Christmas Day the postman is just delivering his morning letters at the house I am temporarily staying at. In other words, the legitimate correspondence of the country has been delayed seven hours in order that cartloads of children’s cards may be delivered … The whole population – men, women, and children – seems suddenly to have given itself up to the stationers and fancy shops and their endless variety of Christmas and New Year’s cards. People … bring up from the depths of their inner consciousness the names of people of whom they know little, and for whom they care less, … in order to swell out the total number they may despatch as forming a ground of boasting. On the other hand, the number, received by the individual and the family are re-counted with a zest and pride marvellous for its childishness … I maintain that it has now become a huge national play-thing.”

The standard work on the history of Christmas cards, written in 1954, still seems to be The history of the Christmas card (9400.c.1324) by George Buday, a Hungarian emigré to Britain whose 1950 application for British citizenship was refused. In 1956, at the time of the Hungarian Uprising, he suffered a nervous breakdown; he then sadly spent the rest of his life until his death in 1990 in a psychiatric hospital in Croydon (you can find out more in Their Safe Haven: Hungarian artists in Britain from the 1930s by Robert Waterhouse – 2019.9.1902 – or the related website).

Buday made the point that Christmas cards are good examples of ephemeral popular art. This is reiterated by Kenneth Ames in his 2011 survey of early 20^th century card imagery, American Christmas cards 1900-1960 (2011.9.4817):

“Christmas cards are not only communicative but also communal …Unlike most museum pieces Christmas cards are available throughout the larger society. There is little that is exclusive or inaccessible about them, economically or intellectually … Christmas cards may also be considered a democratic art. They are evidently desirable, obviously available, and – perhaps particularly important where art and vast amounts of money are so often thought inseparable – decidedly affordable.”

A slightly different take on the traditional Christmas card is to be found in Glad tidings of struggle and strife: a history of protest Christmas cards by Llew and Pam Smith (2013.9.1699) featuring cards from their personal collection of 250 cards built up over 40 years.

Katharine Dicks

Further reading

• Christmas cards for the collector by Arthur Blair (9000.b.1769)
• The story of the Christmas card by George Buday (9400.d.1474), a brief history from 1951 using illustrations from his own collection of old cards
• Compliments of the season by L.D. Ettlinger & R.G. Holloway (879.d.24.38)
• Greetings from Christmas past by Bevis Hillier (1983.9.30)
• Laver, James: “The first Christmas cards”, Strand Magazine, December 1938, pp. 234-241 (L996.c.25.96a)
• H.S. : “The story and origin of Christmas cards”, Illustrated London News, Christmas number, 1938 pp. 30-33 (online access)