FIRST CHRISTMAS CARD

Hokitika Guardian, 16 February 1931, Page 5

FIRST CHRISTMAS CARD

The custom of sending Christmas cards to friends and relations is no. yet a hundred years old. In the December of 1844, a certain Mr A\. C. T. Dobson, R.A. } sent a sketc.. “symbolising the spirit of Christmas’ to a friend, and, no doubt finding tinwell received, the following year sen. lithographed copies of another sketch to all his acquaintances. But it wa--no till the Christmas of 1846 that Christmas cards were first sold publicly in this country. Air J. C. Hor»l:y, R.A., at the suggestion -of Sir Henry Cole, designed and had printed at Summer ley’s “Home Treasury” Office in Old Bond Street a Christmas card, of which a thousand copies were sold. Iri Air T. G. Crippen’s “Christmas and Christmas Lore” there is t> reproduction of this card. It is an oblong about six inches by four, with spaces for the sender’s anti recipient’s names and three pictures enclosed in a rustic bower and trailing ivy leaves. To left and right are representations of a good man and hi wife feeding and clothing the poor: in the centre a family group is shown sitting round a table and drinking a health. All the three generations o the family are holding up wine-glasses and looking out of the picture at tlw. recipient of the card. It is his health they are drinking, and their toast imprinted below.—“A Merry Christnnv and a Happy New. Year to you.”