Engraved illustration by Robert Seymour of a pantomime performance in Thomas Hervey’s The book of Christmas, published in 1836 (s GT4895.H2). Pantomime is a musical comedy stage show which has become popular in Britain…
Illustration of English fashion for the month of December in 1832, from The Royal Lady’s Magazine and Archives of the Court of St. James’s (rper AP4.R6L2 Volume IV). In the dedication to the Queen, the proprietors and…
Photograph of Professor and Mrs Dickie skiing on Jacob’s ladder [North Haugh], St Andrews in 1950 (GMC-19-75-2). Edgar Primrose Dickie was Professor of Divinity at St Andrews University from 1935-1967. He served in…
Christmas Rose or Helleborus niger from the first volume of Curtis’s botanical magazine, 1787 (rper QK1.C8M2 Volume 1). Despite its name, the Christmas Rose is not really a Rose but is rather from the buttercup family…
This year Echoes from the Vault will be posting an image of winter or Christmas from our collections every day from the 1st to 25th December. We hope you enjoy our Special Collections themed advent calendar! For the…
Full of old memories she yet shall be Nurse of heroic men for whom the debt To that dim past is unacknowledged yet, Till Time shall set their names in history. From St Andrews by W L Courtney Just as 2016 has been a…
With various Christmas dinners looming, I was wondering what students might have been eating for their Christmas dinners in times past, if they were not lucky enough to be going home. From the foundation of the…
This year’s Special Collections Christmas party was slightly different to the usual festive celebration, as we continued to follow our Historical How-To theme. We brought along the decorations we have been making over…
Christmas was not much a family festivity until Queen Victoria posed with her children around a laden fir tree, a tradition Prince Albert had brought with him from Germany. The Victorians took this to heart and very…