A glimpse of Christmas past
December 10, 2009 No Comments
It's not just Scrooge who can visit Christmas past...
It’s not just Scrooge who has the opportunity to visit Christmas past, Glamorgan Archives has many items that help tell the story of how generations before us celebrated Christmas.
Items include a Whitchurch Boys School 1891 school log book which documents how children were presented with an orange at the end of the Christmas term. The orange would have been seen as a real treat and was a tradition that was replicated in most schools at the time. Pupils of Whitchurch Girl’s school however didn’t have it as easy and in the school log for 1871 it notes that pupils had missed school because they were helping their mothers clean for Christmas!
The Roath Parish magazine from 1886 paints a more extravagant picture of Christmas festivities, describing a Sunday School party they write that “the tree itself was worthy of the occasion, and at least from one point of view, was so covered with toys, dolls and ornaments that its branches were completely hidden, and looked like a gigantic heap of presents.”
Articles in the Penarth parish publication show that festive food was just as important to our ancestors as it is to us today. A copy from1900 stored in the Glamorgan Archives gives recipe ideas for the perfect Christmas fare, including mince pies and chocolate toffee, along with a hearty recipe for plum pudding which requires a pound of potatoes, suet, carrots and of course the currants and raisins we use in Christmas puddings today,
The Archives also has a comprehensive collection of Christmas cards from the past. Christmas cards grew popular in the Victorian era and many of the Christmas cards of that time featured animals, including cats, dogs, pigs, and even monkeys. There are also cards depicting troops during the First World Ward.
Christmas is a busy time for Glamorgan Archives with many people researching their family tree to give as Christmas presents to loved ones and this year Christmas is even busier for the team who are currently in the process of moving to their new building in Leckwith. The new record office will open in the spring of 2010 and will see for the first time all of Glamorgan’s records being stored in the one location.
The new state of the art building is designed to ensure historical documents are kept in the best conditions and has been constructed to create stability in temperature and humidity
Executive Member for Finance and Service Delivery, Cllr Mark Stephens, said: “The Glamorgan Archives holds many treasures of the past, and the new building in Leckwith will make it even easier for people to view documents and to research items of interest.”
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