With the festive season just around the corner many
children will be eagerly anticipating what games and gadgets they’ll receive in
their 21st century stockings. Have you ever wondered what kind of toys our Victorian ancestors would have been
thrilled to receive on Christmas morning?
Victorians required their youngsters
to be educated as they played, enabling them to develop skills beneficial in
adulthood. Building blocks encouraged construction challenges and bricks with
the addition of letters or numbers advanced a child’s spelling and numeracy. Push-along
toy animals were designed to teach little ones to walk whilst rocking horses were
considered useful in preparing boys for the riding skills needed in later life.
Even Sunday playtime was restricted to those toys with biblical connections
such as the Noah’s Ark.
Card games provided both education
and social interaction and were regularly taught to children by their parents
or nannies. Dedicated
playing cards for children were prevalent by the mid 19th century
when they were decorated with colourful pictures and educational symbols. Happy
Familes, Old Maid and Snap! were themed with
illustrations including circus acts, jungle animals and nursery rhymes opening
up a child’s world with these visual images.
The skill involved in playing the game of Marbles proved particularly
popular. Dating back to cave dwelling early man, marbles in the form of small
pebbles or clay balls were first found in the tombs and pyramids of the Ancient
Egyptians and on Native American burial grounds. Taking their name from the materials
from which they were once made, marbles have also been crafted from metal,
glass, ceramics and agates. During the
Victorian era, glass blown marbles took on a
more elaborate appearance. From self coloured speckled balls to those
incorporating a colourful twist, the array of examples was endless resulting in
a whole host of names - including keepsies, aggies, taws, and bombsies -given to their variation in sizes and their role within
the game.
The pleasure of creating
mini theatres or staging puppet performances has proved to be an enduring form
of entertainment throughout the centuries. Puppet
theatre performed on makeshift stages was enjoyed as far back as the Ancient
Greeks but, in Britain,
it was not until the introduction of Punch and Judy that their popularity
really took hold. Eventually, independent craftsmen and factory manufacturers created smaller versions to be played with by children at home. Do you remember entertaining your parents and siblings with your own grand theatre productions?
From toy soldiers to teddies, dolls to dominoes, the list of toys and games played by our ancestors is endless and provides a great way of exploring an era completely different from the one our techno kids of today are experiencing.
If you’ve inherited an heirloom
from your ancestor’s childhood, find out more about this item by visiting one
of Britain’s
numerous Museums’ of Childhood. Ask other relatives if they own early childhood
toys and consider looking back though old family diaries where descriptions of
games may well have been mentioned especially in entries made around the
Christmas period.
Open everyday from 10am to 17.45pm, admission to the V&A’s Museum of Childhood is free. Even a simple visit
to their website will have you fascinated with its detailed histories of wax
dolls and explanations of the occupational characters used to illustrate the
Happy Families card games.
