First Christmas Card

The sending of Christmas greeting cards began in the Victorian era. Although engravers produced prints with religious themes in the European Middle Ages, the first commercial Christmas and New Year's card is believed to have been designed and printed in London, England in 1843. John Callcott Horsley (1817-1903), a British narrative painter and a Royal Academician, designed the very first Christmas and New Year's card at the request of his friend Sir Henry Cole (first director of the Victoria and Albert Museum). Cole suggested the idea of a specially designed form of greeting to send to friends at Christmas. In 1843 an edition of 1,000 of these Christmas cards were printed and placed on sale in London.

They were printed in lithography by Jobbins of Warwick Court, Holborn, London, and hand-colored by a professional "colourer" named Mason. The cards were published under Sir Henry Cole's nom de guerre, "Felix Summerly"—by his friend Joseph Cundall, of New Bond Street.

That was the beginning. But in spite of its ingenuity, the first Christmas card was not an instant success, even bringing about disapproval from the temperance league who feared the card would encourage drunkenness. The following year there were other picture-makers, and the Christmas card was launched on the tide of popular favor; but it was not until the idea had grown out of favor among artistic and literary circles that it was taken up by a business man, Goodall. Charles Goodall & Son, a British publisher of visiting cards was one of the first to mass produce Christmas cards and visiting cards. In 1866 Mr. Josiah Goodall commissioned Messrs. Marcus Ward & Co., of Belfast, to lithograph, for his firm, a set of four designs by C. H. Bennett, and in the following year another set by the same artist. These, together with Luke Limner's border design of holly, mistletoe, and robins, may be taken as the forerunners of today’s Christmas card.

Old-Fashioned Christmas Ideas