Christmas 1789. 15 little girls, a matron and possibly a cook-cum-housemaid. A house in Somers Town, once described as a fine property but now possibly starting to be a little bit shabby round the edges. Here we have the very first Christmas in the School’s history.
In January 1789, 15 girls began at the Royal Cumberland Freemasons’ School and it is important to remember (for those of us brought up with three school terms interspersed with holidays) that once they began at the School, they did not leave until they were 15 years of age. They were, in effect, fostered by the Charity that supported them and, in recognition of the great benefit they were receiving, there was no time off for good behaviour. Their parents –often a single surviving parent, mostly mothers – were allowed to visit once a week on Thursday afternoons between 2pm and 4pm. And, unless the families were very local, that might involve a considerable journey which effectively rendered any visit unlikely if not impossible. So Christmas was at school in this year and for many years to come.
On Nov 25th 1789, in a letter to the Gentlemen of the Committee, the Matron (Charlotte Learmonth) outlined the requirements for five more girls who were shortly to be admitted to the School.
The Matron also requested 15 new aprons for the original pupils but, to show she was not a spendthrift, added that the old ones would be turned into night caps. Interestingly, there was a request for 14 pairs of pattens – not 15. Perhaps one of the girls had been more careful than the others? Or maybe, reversing the coin, one of them was being punished by having to make do with an old pair. Pattens is not a spelling error. It is a kind of overshoe designed to protect shoes more suitable for indoor wear from the muck and grime encountered outside when the girls took their daily constitutional. Quite what the School pattens were like is unknown. The drawing below shows a kind of patten but whether this resembles the School ones, your guess is as good as mine.
The School house in Somers Place East would have had fireplaces to heat it but quite possibly not excessively so. The weather at Christmas 1789 is described as ‘fair’ although this may have been in comparison with some stormy days earlier in the week.
40○ F for those who use new money is just over 4○ C which is not especially warm. However, the 1789 temperature had dropped by 7○F since the day before so probably felt a lot colder.
The girls may not have been exactly warm and toasty but they were being taken care of and, as the bill of mortality for the same period shows, an awful lot of children of their age were not.
This shows that 77 young people died in the month of December although, rather like the current ‘bills of mortality’ – the Covid deaths total – we do not know the actual causes of death. The Covid totals are those who died within 28 days of a positive test result but do not indicate if Covid is the cause of death. Poor saps may have got run over by a bus on their way home but they would still appear on the total. Any recording of deaths in this manner is a very blunt instrument.
Exactly how the girls’ Christmas was spent we have not the foggiest because it was never written down. By the middle of the following century, when Dickens was penning his Carol, Christmas was regarded as a relatively minor festival, so maybe Christmas 1789 was ‘hey ho, just another day’. There are references – not for Christmas it should be pointed out – to the girls being given a treat of plumb [sic] pudding on occasions of celebration but not as a Christmas treat. That this is now strongly associated with Christmas might also be Dickens’ fault.
‘… Mrs Cratchit entered … with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of brandy …’
Let us turn to another Christmas but ‘Fear Not’ as an angel is supposed to have assured some shepherds, this post will not be an interminable trot through the 233 December 25ths in the School’s existence. Some Christmases have been looked at with other posts and by the later C19th, there were actually Christmas holidays! If for no other reason, because there are zilch records of what Christmas was like at the School, it’s a guessing game anyway.
By 1795, the School had left Somers Town and moved to St George’s Fields, Southwark. Christmas 1795 saw the School in the recently built school house where everything was shiny and new. As they had been there since June, possibly the dust had settled a bit and maybe the last of the builders had left. Because this was a purpose built school, we do at least have an idea of what the interior was like.
The ground floor was dominated by the large school room with an ‘eating room’ to one side and a kitchen, of equal proportions, on the other. Although not specifically identified as such, there appears to a fireplace to one side of the school room which probably didn’t radiate a great deal of heat more than a foot away from it. By comparison, the Matron’s room has two fireplaces with a further one in her bedroom on the floor above. Ditto the Committee room although, as that room would not be in use all the time, quite possibly the fires were not lit until needed.
In contrast to both the Matron’s and the Assistant’s bedroom, the girls’ dormitory had a singular absence of fireplaces. Whether there was any projected heat emanating from the back of the staff fireplaces is a moot point. If there were, these would no doubt have been the premier locations in winter with possibly not a little indecorous and unladylike jostling for position!
Unfortunately for the girls, the following comment was made about the winter of 1795:
Very severe frost in London on the 25th: -21degC in Marylebone, -19degC in Mayfair. Thames frozen … December in particular … was amongst the five coldest such-named months in that record (since 1659) … and Christmas Day was intensely cold, with the Thames frozen. https://www.pascalbonenfant.com/18c/geography/weather.html
This period of British history is often referred to as a mini Ice Age so perhaps the girls were more inured to it than we would be. Nevertheless, the agony of chilblains is something the modern generations rarely experience and for which they should be immensely thankful.
By 1852, the shininess well and truly worn off the St George’s Fields schoolhouse, the School had moved to Clapham, an ever bigger purpose-built school which still very quickly filled up with pupils. The year 1852 was rather a wet year with December accommodating two severe storms. There does not, however, appear to have been any damage to the new buildings whereas, in 1822, the old Schoolhouse had borne the brunt of a wind described as a hurricane.
By this stage, school holidays were in place so most pupils were absent from school over Christmas. Not all though, as those who could not go home for various reasons stayed at the School. https://rmsghistoryextra.wordpress.com/2015/12/22/christmas-entertainment looks at some of the entertainment they experienced. And no doubt crowed about when their schoolfellows returned as, quite possibly, they had not been entertained anything like as royally!
Nowadays pupils are most unlikely to stay behind during school holidays except under the most extreme conditions. All boarding pupils are required to have a ‘guardian’ in place who will take responsibility for pupils if they are unable to return to their parents. Covid was one of those exceptions as some girls were unable to fly home and boarding staff did sterling duty – as they have always done – by offering a positive experience for those pupils forced to stay on at a difficult time.
But any unlikely Christmas stopover is equally unlikely to involve snow despite all the cards we send.
The above image is the sort of Victorian Christmas street scene unlikely to have been witnessed most of the time but nevertheless a staple of Christmas card designers.
“… as Arthur Gaunt writes in 1954 ‘The idea that snow falls in the United Kingdom at Christmas probably arises in no small measure from the writings of Charles Dickens.’” https://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2020/12/10/truth-behind-white-christmas-dream/
It is recorded that, for the first 8 years of Dickens’ life, it snowed at Christmas so no doubt he had that notion in his head as he penned his novels and the idea has stuck despite all the information to the contrary. So there’s only one thing to be said about it, isn’t there?
Bah, humbug!
RMSG History Extra 