National Art Library November 18 2002 - January 12 2003
Many of the customs that we have come to associate with a traditional Christmas were revived or even started during the reign of Queen Victoria. From Christmas cards to decorated trees, the royal family and their friends were influential in creating a traditional Christmas as we now know it. Along with Charles Dickens’s many Christmas stories, these practices have become embedded into popular culture. This display looks at the Victorian Christmas through books, images and objects in the National Art Library and the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood collections.
Whether Christmas brings out the ‘Bah! Humbug!’ in you or you find yourself smiling at strangers on the Tube and wishing everyone a ‘Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year’, both responses can be traced back to the re-packaging that Christmas underwent in the middle of the 19th century.
During the 1840s England was undergoing massive social change. Cities suffered from increasing urbanisation which in many cases led to poverty, overcrowding, insanitary conditions and disease. In order to try and protect themselves the Victorian middle class built up a society with strict moral codes and an emphasis on hard work and achievement. The family was seen as the most acceptable social unit and social occasions, such as Christmas, that bought the family together, provided a familiar setting in changing times.
Some of the most powerful advocates of Christmas were Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert. They were both personally interested in the Christmas celebrations and, having a large family, they were inclined to view Christmas as a special annual event.
Details of the royal family’s Christmases were widely reported in the press at the time and their position as the style icons of the time meant their practices were copied by the growing middle classes.
