Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian Britain (75 page)

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This dose of ‘Empire’ was a visible eruption of the more generally invisible internationalism that went to make up a British Christmas: Germany had supplied the trees, the USA had exported both Santa Claus and mass advertising; the Dutch had provided the origin of Santa Claus’s name, and also their shoes to hold presents (even though somehow, in the transmission, the shoes had turned into stockings). By the end of the century the traditional Christmas, that luxurious moment of homegrown tradition, was produced by manufacturers, delivered by railways, advertised by newspapers and magazines. Christmas books, Christmas travel, Christmas pantomimes, Christmas concerts, Christmas exhibitions: Prince Albert’s ‘products of all quarters of the globe’, from which ‘we have only to choose which is the best and cheapest for our purposes’, had now been reshaped, reordered, repackaged and delivered to create an image not of the industrial age, but of the age of domesticity.

*
Lord Amberley was at the heart of the British Establishment, although of heterodox views. He was the son of the prime minister Lord John Russell, and the father of the philosopher Bertrand Russell.


Knecht [‘Servant’] Ruprecht was, in the German Christmas tradition, one of St Nicholas’s helpers - sometimes a demon who punished bad children, sometimes just a more general attendant.

*
Which surely helped to spread the notion even further: the story sold 15,000 copies in its first year, and it went on selling throughout the century. Even those who did not necessarily read would have known of it: forty years after it was first published, nine stage versions appeared in London alone in one single year.
15

*
Calling him just this does his reputation a great disservice. Davies Gilbert (1767-1839) was an extraordinary character, a facilitator and administrator who influenced much behind the scenes. Born to a clergyman in Cornwall, Gilbert took a degree in mathematics and astronomy at Oxford, offering encouragement to a young scientist from Cornwall named Humphry Davy. His mathematical skills were used to look at the efficiency of the compound steam engine, the design of the rotary engine, and even Richard Trevithick’s high-pressure steam engine. Thomas Telford’s design for the Menai suspension bridge was adapted after Gilbert published his calculations on the relationship between the maximum tension in the chains and the depth of curvature of the suspension; his methods of calculating strength remained the norm for suspension bridges for the next hundred years.
16

*
Even at this date, there was not a carol in sight. Planché chose songs that were ‘principally old national melodies or ballads, and snatches from operas equally familiar to the general ear’, including ‘Se vuol ballare’ from
The Marriage of Figaro
and ‘Va, pensiero, sull’ ali dorate’ from
Nabucco
; the traditional songs ‘Begone Dull Care’ and ‘Cheer, Boys, Cheer’; and a ‘Gavotte de Vestris’, which was most probably, given Planché’s working relationship with her, a song from a show in which Mme Vestris was currently appearing.

*
As with the workhouse parties, these celebrations were generally held in January of the following year.

*
Sam Weller was looking at a middling kind of card. The price could be as little as
1
/
2
d.
, or as much as 5
s.
38

*
In the 1880s picture postcards were first produced and if the pictures were seasonal these too became ‘Christmas cards’.

Appendix 1
Currency

Pounds, shillings and pence were the divisions of the currency. One shilling was made up of 12 pence; one pound of 20 shillings, i.e. 240 pence. Pounds were represented by the £ symbol, shillings as ‘
s.
’, and pence as ‘
d.
’ (from the Latin
denarius
). ‘One pound, one shilling and one penny’ was written as £1.1.1. or £1 1s. 1
d.
‘One shilling and sixpence’, referred to in speech as ‘One and six’, was written 1/6 or 1s. 6
d.

A guinea was a coin to the value of £1 1
s
(The coin was not circulated after 1813, although the term remained and tended to be reserved for luxury goods.) A sovereign was a 20-shilling coin, a half-sovereign a 10-shilling coin. A crown was 5 shillings, half a crown 2
s.
6
d.
, and the remaining coins were a florin (2 shillings), sixpence, a groat (4 pence), a threepenny bit (pronounced ‘thrup’ny bit’), twopence (pronounced tuppence), a penny, a halfpenny (pronounced hayp’ny), a farthing (
1
/
4
of a penny) and a half a farthing (
1
/
8
of penny).

There were many slang names for various sums of money: a pound was (and is) a ‘quid’, while a shilling was a ‘bob’, sixpence a ‘tanner’, and a £5 note a ‘finnif’ or ‘finnuf’. These were the most common, although there were many other terms, including the confusing ‘half a dollar’ for 2
s.
6
d.
(A ‘dollar’ for 5
s.
seems to have been rather less common.)

Relative values have altered so substantially that attempts to convert nineteenth-century prices into contemporary ones are usually futile. As I am usually discussing the costs of everyday articles, some sense of the value of goods should be apprehended. However, if a more precise attempt to convert is wanted, the website http://www.ex.ac.uk/_RDavies/arian/current/howmuch.html is useful.

Appendix 2
Department stores (and other large shops) and their opening dates

KEY

* Survives today

† Survived into the second half of the twentieth century
Italics
Not a department store

 
1776
Flint and Clark; in 1813 became Clark and Debenham, later Debenhams*
1790
Dickins and Smith; in 1835 became Dickins, Son and Stevens, later Dickins and Jones (closed 2006)†
1812
Swan and Edgar†
1813
Benjamin Harvey, later Harvey Nichols*
1817
Shoolbred’s
1821
Manchester Bazaar, from 1836 Kendal, Milne*
1826
Pullars of Perth
1830
Jolly’s of Bath*
1832
Lilly and Skinner
*
1833
Peter Robinson

1837
Marshall and Wilson; in 1848 became Marshall and Snelgrove† Bainbridge’s of Newcastle*
1839
The Scotch House
(closed
c.
2004)†
1840
Heal’s
*
1842
Maple’s

1849
Harrod’s*
1851
Bax and Co., later Emary and Co., now Aquascutum*
1856
Burberry’s of Basingstoke, later Thomas Burberry and Co.* Lewis’s of Liverpool*
1858
Gorringe’s†
1862
Derry and Toms†
1863
Whiteley’s*
1864
John Lewis, Oxford Street*
1866
Civil Service Supply Association†
1867
Bentall’s, Kingston upon Thames* Handley’s of Southsea
1870
Barker’s† (closed 2006)
1871
Peter Jones*
1871
Army and Navy Cooperative†
1873
Pontings†
1875
Liberty and Co.
*
The Irish Linen Co.
*
1877
Bon Marché, Brixton
1879
D. H. Evans†
1882
Fenwick’s
, Newcastle*
1883
Penberthy’s

Jaeger
*
1887
Bobby’s, Margate
1894
Bourne and Hollingsworth†
1897
Calman Links
*
1909
Selfridge’s*
 
Appendix 3
Holidays ‘kept at the Exchequer, Stamp-Office, Excise-Office, Custom-House, Bank, East-India, and South-Sea House’

From [Thomas Mortimer],
’Pholanthropos’, Every Man His Own Broker Or, A Guide to Exchange-Alley.
(London, S. Hopper at Caesar’s Head, 1761; rev. ed. 1801)

 
1761
1801
January
1 (New Year)
1
6 (Epiphany)
6
18
25* (St Paul)
25
30 (King Charles the Martyr)
30
February
2 (Purification of the Virgin Mary)
2
3 (Shrove Tuesday)
4 (Ash Wednesday)
14 (St Valentine)
24 (St Mathias)
24
March
1 (St David)
20 (Good Friday)
23 (Easter Monday)
24 (Easter Tuesday)
25 (Lady Day)
25
April
23 (St George)
25 (St Mark)
25
26 (Duke of Cumberland’s Birthday)
30 (Ascension Day)
May
1 (Sts Philip and Jacob)
1
11 (Whit Monday)
12 (Whit Tuesday)
13 (Whit Wednesday)
17
29* (Restoration of Charles II)
29
June
4* (George III’s birthday)
4
10 (Princess Amelia’s birthday)
11 (St Barnabas) 11
24 (St John)
24
29 (Sts Peter and Paul) 29
July
15 (St Swithin)
25 (St James)
25
August
1 (Lammas Day)
12
24 (St Bartholomew)
24
September
2* (Commemoration of the Great Fire of London)
2
14 (Holy Rood)
21 (St Matthew)
21
22
29 (St Michael)
29
October
18 (St Luke)
18
25
26 (George III proclaimed king)
26
28 (Sts Simon and Jude)
28
November
1 (All Saints’ Day)
1
2 (All Souls’ Day)
4 (William III’s birthday)
4
5 (Guy Fawkes Day)
5
9* (Lord Mayor’s Show)
9
28 (Accession of Elizabeth I)
30 (Prince of Wales’s birthday)
30
December
21 (St Thomas)
21
25
25
26
26
27 (St John)
27
28 (Innocents)
28
Total
51 days a year
37 days a year
 

* Holidays with an asterisk are, if they fall on a Sunday, observed the following day.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS AND EPHEMERA

A number of collections of printed ephemera have been particularly useful: Bodleian Library:

The John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera

The Fillingham Collection (on pleasure gardens) British Library:

Playbills: London III: Miscellaneous Institutions, Societies and Other Bodies - 12 vols. 351-363; PB-MIC C13137 PLAYBILL 377 0-3; RAM 792.95; Daniel Lysons Collectanea, C.103.k.1112 and C.103.c.16; Sarah Banks Collection: L.R.301.h.2-11 and 937.g.96

The Pantheon: 840. m.30

Marylebone Gardens, 840.m.29

Ranelagh, L. R. 282.b.7; and 840.m.28

Vauxhall Gardens: Cup. 401.k.7

Garrick’s Stratford Jubilee: [Daniel George], c.61.e.2

Guildhall Library: Scrapbook of cuttings on Vauxhall Gardens, C.27

PARLIAMENTARY REPORTS

[House of Commons],
Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Earl of Elgin’s Collection of Sculptures Marbles &c.
(London, Murray, 1816)

1825: Committee on Petition of Trustees of the British Museum Relative to the Rich Collection, 1825; vol. 107

1836: Report from the Select Committee on the Arts, and their Connection with Manufacturers

1849: Accounts of Income and Expenditures of the British Museum, vol. 30

1850: Accounts of Income and Expenditures of the British Museum, vol. 33

1850: Royal Commission to Inquire into the Constitution and Government of the British Museum, vol. 34.1

1852-3: Select Committee on the National Gallery, 1852-3, vol. 35

1860: Report of the Select Committee on Public Institutions, vol. 16

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