The commercialisation of Christmas is a phenomenon that tends to be associated with modern times and a retail-oriented culture and it’s fair to say that, year on year, Christmas appears to come a little earlier to the high street.
As Beverley gears up for another Festival of Christmas event, staff at East Riding archives and local studies service have been looking back at Christmases past and one of their most surprising finds is that the barrage of festive advertising received at this time of year was even taking place in Victorian times, over a hundred years ago.
The front page of the Beverley Guardian & East Riding Advertiser for December 23 1882 illustrates how commercial Christmas was back then, with a full spread of adverts appealing to the Christmas shopper.
A wide choice of retail experiences were available to the consumer, from Snow & Son’s Annual Christmas Show, offering Japanese and all kinds of useful and fancy articles, to ‘a splendid assortment of ladies mob caps for Christmas’ at The Misses E & A Harrison in Toll Gavel.
The East Riding Tea Warehouse can also be found on the page, advertising its Great Christmas Show, which offered a variety of seasonal products including the ‘How To Be Merry Cosaques’, cosaque being the old name for Christmas crackers, and ‘The Christmas Mixture of Teas’. Even George Hobson tried to sell off his ‘ripe old cheddar cheese’ as a Christmas treat.
Sam Bartle, collections officer, said: “The Victorians gave us many of the traditions of Christmas that we now see today. With these Christmas advertisements from 1882, we’re seeing the commercialisation of Christmas at its very beginning.”
A small display showcasing the advertisements can be viewed in Gallery One at the Treasure House, Champney Road, Beverley.
