The man who didn’t invent Christmas

As the festivities begin, Mr Londoner explores the yuletide legacy of Charles Dickens.

London has attracted writers, poets and lyricists since the dawn of time. They include the bawdy works of Geoffrey Chaucer and the wit and timeless originality of William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson. Thanks to the writings of John Stowe, and the diaries of John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys, we have invaluable insights into the rhythm of life in the capital in the 16th and 17th centuries. And who could forget the dreamy 1967 lyrics to Waterloo Sunset by The Kinks? 

Pickwick by Joseph Clayton Clarke, who used the pseudonym “Kyd” 1889 

But London’s biographer is without doubt Charles Dickens. Charles Huffam Dickens rose to celebrity following the 1836 publication of The Pickwick Papers. Delivered as a serial, the novel was a publishing phenomenon. The story features Mr Pickwick’s streetwise cockney manservant, Sam Weller, who rapidly became a cultural icon. Dickens’s famous characters in his subsequent novels include the spectral Miss Havisham in Great Expectations (1861). Miss Havisham holds the record, by the way, as the first character in literature to die of spontaneous human combustion. 

Transformation

Even scarier perhaps is the escaped convict Abel Magwitch. He’s another key player in the same story – about a young man from a lowly background who, funded by a mysterious benefactor, undergoes a transformation by reinventing himself as a gentleman. 

Speaking of re-invention, it’s the reformed miser and misanthrope Ebenezer Scrooge in a A Christmas Carol (1843), who is perhaps Dickens’s most famous  character. This supernatural story is full of vivid descriptions of the Victorian Christmas, as experienced by all sectors of society. It remains a perennially popular read and the book has never gone out of print.

We all love Dickens of course. He’s been dubbed the man who invented Christmas. But in truth British festive customs – decorated trees and elaborately wrapped gifts – owe their arrival more to German Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Albert married Queen Victoria in 1840 and imported many of the festive traditions from the country of his birth into his newly adopted homeland.

The commercial Christmas card was produced by inventor Henry Cole – and first sent in 1843. Coles’s grandmother was one of the earliest recipients. Her card re-appeared at auction in 2001, selling for over £20,000 – a world record for the sale of a Christmas card. 

Henry Cole was a Fellow of  The Society of Arts, a Victorian mover-and-shaker and the catalyst behind the 1851 Great Exhibition. He was also the founder of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). The V&A is home to the national collection of cards for all occasions. With over 30,000 mainly hand-made examples, over half this unusual collection celebrates Christmas. 

Bermondsey’s industrial spaces are now home to cool apartments and creative businesses. Copyright @meetmrlondoner

The big screen

Despite the influence of Prince Albert, Henry Cole and others, for many Brits, it’s Charles Dickens’s enduring version of Christmas that simply IS Christmas. But how many of us have actually read his works? Great Expectations was a staple some of us studied at school. However, many people are better acquainted with the Dickensian genre through the big screen.  

Ebenezer Scrooge has been brought to life by eminent actors Alistair Sim, George C Scott and Sir Michael Caine. And let’s not forget Gonzo in the role of Charles Dickens himself, alongside other members of The Muppets. The Muppets Christmas Carol (1992) is a pretty faithful recreation of the much-loved yuletide story. It’s actually through this and other screen adaptations that many of my guests have come to know the author’s works. 

Whether it’s the film or the book, the essential message of A Christmas Carol is one that endures. Some see it as an essentially Christian story of redemption. Others regard it as a critique on Victorian capitalism. It’s said that the novella’s publication hit home. Some of the more enlightened Victorian industrialists in Britain and America took heed and began to care a little more for their staff, especially during the festive season.

This was just what the author had in mind. Dickens was a tireless social campaigner. He developed his first-hand insights into working-class life after his stint, aged just 12 years-old, in a Charing Cross boot blacking factory. The young Charles’s life had taken an unexpected turn for the worse after his naval clerk father, John, was imprisoned for debt in the notorious Marshalsea Prison. One of its towering stone walls survives to this day. We can inspect it just off Borough High Street, in Southwark.

The George and Vulture. Copyright @meetmrlondoner

Ancient alleys

The City of London – the Square Mile – is the perfect place to start a Dickensian tour during the festive season. Here, just off Cornhill, we can step back in time, meandering through ancient alleys near St Michael’s Church. This takes us on the very route home Scrooge walks on Christmas Eve, hours before that fateful visit, on the strike of midnight of, the first of three spirits who will change his life forever. If that’s all too much, we can repair to the comfy wood-panelled interior of The George and Vulture, one of Dickens’s favourite hang-outs. It features in The Pickwick Papers and looks much the same as it did in Victorian times. 

For a more left-field take on the Dickensian story, I often lead guests over the river to Southwark and Bermondsey. This was home to the smelly industries – tanneries; leatherworks; hat-making; wool and food production. Many of these trades, especially hat-making, used toxic chemicals like mercury as part of the production process. The effect on workers’ long-term health was devastating. There’s a reason we have a Mad Hatter in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. 

What’s in a name? Bermondsey’s Leathermarket Gardens. Copyright @meetmrlondoner

As Britain’s industrial revolution progressed at break-neck speed, Dickens would have had these very industries in his sights during his campaigns for social welfare. Today this lesser-known corner of London has been gentrified. But its history lies not far below the surface. Some of those former leather factories still stand. But today they’re home to creative industries, cool warehouse apartments and some of London’s best places an eat and drink. And the coffee shops are excellent.

 

About the Author

Mr Londoner is writer, broadcaster and former Museum of London director, Antony Robbins. This Christmas his unusual walking tours, away from the tourist trail, spotlight the hidden, the secret and the lost. Insta @meetmrlondoner also on YouTube and here