Christmas Cards
- 21st December 2017
Hopefully you’ve sent your Christmas cards by now?
The very first Christmas card was sent in 1843. Whilst we don’t have any that old in the archives we do have a number of cards from the late 19th and early 20th century. We thought we’d share a few with you, although some of them don’t seem very Christmassy in 2017!
Early Christmas cards were quite small. Whilst some were quite simple, others were colour photos. The National Trust deposited papers with us found at The Fleece Inn, Bretforton, after they took it over. Amongst these were quite a few late Victorian cards stored away by the families who lived there.
It’s always been the case that if you have an impressive house, you may want to use it on your Christmas cards. Francis Bradley-Birt lived at Birtsmorton Court, so he used a picture of it on his cards in 1927.
He also received a card which seems to have been sent from abroad.
Some cards seem rather strange to our modern eyes. This one is rather odd, and a couple of people have even said it looks creepy!
Then there are cards like this one that don’t seem Christmassy at all, apart from the ‘Seasons Greetings’. This was another of the cards found at the Fleece Inn, so maybe it was from another landlord and therefore appropriate to sender and receiver.
Thank you to our digitization team for photographing the cards.
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