Laura Seddon Greeting Card Collection is a collection of 19th to early 20th century British

greeting card A greeting card is a piece of card stock, usually with an illustration or photo, made of high quality paper featuring an expression of friendship or other sentiment. Although greeting cards are usually given on special occasions such as birthday ...

s, housed in the All Saints Library of

Manchester Metropolitan University Manchester Metropolitan University is located in the centre of Manchester, England. The university has over 40,000 students and over 4,000 members of staff. It is home to four faculties (Arts and Humanities, Business and Law, Health and Educat ...

, England. The collection contains 32,000 cards by various publishers, including Britain's first commercially-produced Christmas card. Laura Seddon donated her collection to the university in 1992.

Overview

The collection consists of a section of 32,000 Victorian and

Edwardian The Edwardian era or Edwardian period of British history spanned the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910 and is sometimes extended to the start of the First World War. The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 marked the end of the Victori ...

greeting cards by major publishers of the day. It includes cards printed by hand like those produced by Sockl and Nathan and also mass-produced cards (a subsequent production method) like those produced by

Marcus Ward & Co Marcus Ward and Co. was an Irish publishing company known for its illustrated books for children and adults, as well as its decorative greeting cards. It had its beginnings in 1802, with a partnership between John Ward, James Blow and Robert Gre ...

and

Raphael Tuck & Sons Raphael Tuck & Sons was a business started by Raphael Tuck and his wife in Bishopsgate in the City of London in October 1866,Picture Postcards and Their Publishers, by Anthony Byatt, page 288 selling pictures and greeting cards, and eventually se ...

. Some of the cards hold special significance, like Britain's first commercially produced

Christmas card A Christmas card is a greeting card sent as part of the traditional celebration of Christmas in order to convey between people a range of sentiments related to Christmastide and the holiday season. Christmas cards are usually exchanged during t ...

dating from 1843. The collection is catalogued in Laura Seddon's book ''A Gallery of Greetings''. Another section of the collection includes 450

Valentine's Day Valentine's Day, also called Saint Valentine's Day or the Feast of Saint Valentine, is celebrated annually on February 14. It originated as a Christian feast day honoring one or two early Christian martyrs named Saint Valentine and, throu ...

cards dating from the early nineteenth century, which Seddon also catalogued. The cards vary from loving to crude and show a different side to the Victorian values that might be expected. The cards include fake wedding certificates, cards that make references to

haliotis ''Haliotis'', common name abalone, is the only genus in the family Haliotidae. This genus once contained six subgenera. These subgenera have become alternate representations of ''Haliotis''. The genus consists of small to very large, edible, h ...

and others that suggest that the recipient may face being "left on the shelf".Valentine cards reveal Britain’s relationship history
Manchester Metropolitan University, retrieved 22 November 2013

History

Laura Seddon got the idea for this collection after attending a presentation by Sir Harry Page, a Manchester City Council treasurer, where she saw his collection which included 276 bound scrap-albums created between 1752 and 1935. Page's aim had been to avoid collections of press cuttings but to try to find writings, paintings, "the prints and scraps" which had been gathered together by "young ladies". He had gathered many of these but his collection had spread its focus but always retaining a discernment.Scraps on Albums
Birkbeck College, 2006, retrieved 22 November 2013 Page's meta-collection suggested to Seddon that she might create her own collection. She decided to focus on early greeting cards from both the Victorian and Edwardian periods. The card collection was curated by Laura Seddon over a period of twenty years initially using George Buday's book "History of the Christmas Card". The collection became so important that she was able to donate it to the Manchester Metropolitan University. Seddon became an Honorary Fellow of the University in 1992 in recognition of her donation and achievement. Together with the Sir Harry Page collection (which was purchased by this University), these makes up the two Victorian Ephemera collections of the MMU Special Collections.

References

{{Manchester Metropolitan University, state=autocollapse Greeting cards Collections of museums in the United Kingdom Manchester Metropolitan University