There were, records tell us, many more bitingly cold winters in Britain in Victorian and Edwardian times than today – or at least the winter weather was more widespread and longer lasting, and our recent predecessors seem to have been more willing to get outside and enjoy it. In the days before central heating the British were made of hardier stock!
Traditional winter pastimes such as sledging, skating and curling were popular, but Britain never had enough snow to guarantee good skiing – except in remote areas of Scotland. For skiing holidays, the affluent Victorians and Edwardians travelled to France, Italy and Switzerland, where the snow was guaranteed to be plentiful.
Skating clubs, however, existed in London (‘for the practice of figure skating’, noted Charles Dickens Jnr in 1888) as early as 1830, in Archer’s Hall, Regents Park and at No 1 Devonport Street, Hyde Park, with annual membership subscriptions of two guineas for men and one guinea for ladies.
The postcard market reflected that love of winter. Postcard views of streets and parks under heavy snow were offered for sale in many towns during winter – a further underlining of the importance of the Edwardian postcard market.
On a winter holiday in France in 1905, children enjoy the pleasures of sledging.
On holiday in 1880, this gentleman hardly seems dressed for sledging, nor does he seem particularly happy about the prospect!
Is this what a well-dressed child might have worn when venturing outdoors in the winter of 1865? This carte-devisite has been printed as a New Year greetings card, by scratching the lettering on to the glass plate negative, and by painting the snowflakes on to the glass with black or red ink. The winter background is a painted studio background.
Learning to ski in 1910, from a Valentine & Company tinted postcard printed in Britain but posted from an address in Canada.
In the winter of 1908–9, Derwentwater became the biggest skating rink in the Lake District. Although this severe freeze was not especially unusual, an enterprising local photographer published postcards of the scene and offered them for sale within days! Local newspapers in the closing decades of the nineteenth century and throughout the Edwardian era regularly recorded the lake freezing over and skaters taking to the ice in huge numbers. Images like these, from only a century ago, are a powerful reminder of climate change. Canon Harwicke Rawnsley, a Lakeland clergyman, pioneer conservationist and prolific poet wrote a poem in celebration of the winter entertainment on the frozen lake. His ‘Skating on Derwentwater’ was published in 1908. Rawnsley was a vociferous opponent of the railways intruding into his beloved Lake District, and was a co-founder of the National Trust in 1895 along with Sir Robert Hunter and Octavia Hill.