Finish writing your Christmas cards tonight to catch tomorrow’s post – the recommended last posting day before Christmas. This scrapbook of Christmas cards shows a surprising range of Victorian examples. The first commercially produced Christmas card was commissioned and sent by Henry Cole in 1843 thus starting a tradition that was well established by 1874 when the Reverend Edward William Winstanley began to compile his scrapbook.

Winstanley was a student at the University of Liverpool in the Faculty of Arts and graduated in 1893, but the scrapbook did not find its way to the University Library until 1958. The University Library Report for session 1957-58 records the gift of the Scrapbook of Christmas Cards under the heading gifts: 623 books from the library of the late prebendary E W Winstanley, a member of the University, received by the bequest of his cousin Miss D E K Gough of Malvern Wells.