Tideswell Local History Club welcomed the coming season with a compelling talk about the above subject by Danny Wells. Extremely well researched and well communicated, this talk told us much that we had not realised before.
Christmas had been a very popular season in Tudor times when the gentry were encouraged to return home to their estates to give hospitality to their friends and charity to the poor. Haddon Hall had been legendary in this respect. By the late 18th century however, Christmas had become a very lacklustre affair – for 20 years the Times had gone to print without ever mentioning it and hardly any presents were given, even to the children. During the Industrial Revolution, people had moved into the new cities and had lost touch with the seasons and the old customs. It fell to the Victorians to re-energise it and make it more home and family focused. Previously, Queen Charlotte had received the first Christmas Tree, but later Albert made it central to the festivities. Victoria first enjoyed turkey in 1851, and also introduced was the “Speckled Cannonball” (Christmas Pudding) an English creation but naturally the French were scornful of it.
The church authorities hadn’t chosen December the 25th until as late as the 4th century, but that season had been celebrated way back to pagan times with the passing of the shortest day and it was the time when the Romans had celebrated Saturnalia. This was a feast where everything was turned upside down and where masters waited upon slaves. This may have led to our tradition of pantomime (which the Victorians loved immensely) where women are played by men and vice versa.
Originally, carols had been French dance tunes, but gradually, local village bands wrote and played very rousing songs that told the Christmas Story. These were cruelly suppressed by the High Church Movement in the 19th century but have been kept gloriously alive in the Hope Valley and the West Riding. At about this time, Charles Dickens managed to write A Christmas Carol inside 10 weeks – it wasn’t published until December 19th, but still managed to sell 1500 before the day itself.
Originally, Father Christmas (the spirit of the season) wore green and brown and received! gifts, in order to placate the hardships of winter. But incredibly, the publications which really pushed the modern image of Santa Claus were the Coca Cola adverts of early last century. Henry Cole was the man who first introduced Christmas cards into the festivities, but he was also a chap who was involved in producing the first postage stamps –smart move! It took 6 years of experimenting before Tom Smith produced a decent loud crack for his crackers and Chinese fortune cookies gave him the idea for the mottoes and novelties which we all enjoy today.
So much information! And there will be more information if you join us in the Institute at 8pm on January 12thwhen Cliff Lee will be telling us about “the Oilfields of Derbyshire”. I’ve heard this talk before- very intriguing stuff – we had the World’s first oil refinery, suffered the first refinery fatality and witnessed a chap making a fortune out of paraffin!
Brian Woodall