Descendant is determined to give great-great-great-great grandad true recognition
What do the National Archives, Royal Society Of Arts, V&A, Royal Albert Hall, the Great Exhibition, postage stamps, the blue plaque scheme and the whole of South Kensington have in common – it’s the inventor of the Christmas card Sir Henry Cole.
For, without the Victorian educator and campaigner, these well-loved and respected institutions would not exist, and his descendant Alice MacDonnell is determined to ensure her great-great-great-great grandfather receives the recognition he truly deserves.
At a presentation yesterday, 5 December, at the RSA’s London base, Alice explained how she recently rediscovered the Brompton Cemetery grave of the man after whom the greeting card industry’s highly-prized Henries awards are named, and who was a great friend of Prince Albert.
“If there’s one thing that people know about Henry Cole, usually it’s the Christmas card, which is great, and it’s a yearly thing which brings up his name,” Alice said, pointing to the display by The Steps venue at the RSA which includes an original 1843 Christmas card, kindly loaned by PG’s editor Jakki Brown from her personal collection, and there’s a facsimile set of cards for sale too based on the image of her card.
Sir Henry and his wife Marian had eight children including son Alan, who is Alice’s three-times great grandfather and, admitting that her quest stemmed from realising she knew very little about her famous ancestor, she added: “I knew the ever-famous Christmas card, I knew that he had created the first Christmas card and that he had a connection with the V&A.”
She set out to buy a copy of the only biography of the man – The Great Exhibitor: The Life And Work Of Sir Henry Cole by Elizabeth Bonython and Anthony Burton – at the Victoria & Albert Museum only to discover none of the shop staff had heard of him even though he not only founded the institution, but he was also the first director for more than 20 years, and one section of the building is called the Henry Cole Wing.
Going on to explain yesterday’s event’s title From A Mummified Rat To The Creation Of South Kensington, Alice said it starts with Sir Henry’s initial work with the Department For Public Records where he found the aforementioned rat corpse in the depths of the building and “its stomach was full of the nation’s documents, all of our important things that were being stored for our history were basically in such appalling conditions that this rat had made his house there”.
He took the rat into parliament to show the conditions, which led to the department being revamped into the National Archives, where Sir Henry’s story is now celebrated with toy rats for sale, and there’s a 3D printed version available for youngsters to handle.
At the RSA, he’s known as the second founder having been highly influential at the then Society Of Arts when Prince Albert was president and there is now a Sir Henry Cole room in the building, he helped establish the Great Exhibition of 1851 with Queen Victoria’s consort and they worked together to develop the South Kensington area of London known as Albertopolis where Sir Henry later designed the Albert Hall in his memory.
He also campaigned with Rowland Hill for the reform of the postal service, bringing in the ground-breaking idea of stamps which the sender paid for to replace the old system where the recipient had to cough up to get their letters – and Alice is currently working on new evidence that suggests Sir Henry may have designed the Penny Black, the world’s first postage stamp, which helped with the distribution of the Christmas card he invented three years later in 1843.
Also known as a champion of women’s rights, it’s thanks to Alice’s ancestor that Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron’s work came to public attention as part of the first photography exhibition at the V&A in 1852, he started the Royal Female School Of Art, and his wife Marian laid the first brick at the Albert Hall, following Queen Victoria laying the first stone.
As part of her determination to raise the profile of Sir Henry, back in the summer Alice took part in a conversation with historians Janina Ramirez, Sir Christopher Frayling, Anton Howes and Dan Cruickshank at the RSA discussing his remarkable legacy and contribution to British innovation, design and manufactures, which can be seen in the video below.
And she’s also held a talk at Brompton Cemetery Chapel, where she is working with the RSA to have Sir Henry’s quite humble grave restored with the hope that a mosaic memorial could be installed in tribute to the one at the V&A made by his female relatives, and where he started the museum’s first school of mosaics – the London School Of Mosaics included this as part of its diploma course.
Following on from Jim’s Spectacular Christmas, the book released in 2022 written by actress and screenwriter Emma Thomson, illustrated by Axel Scheffler, about Sir Henry’s real-life dog Jim and his adventures at the V&A, Alice has made her ancestor’s story even more accessible to children by developing a workshop that she teaches as part of her educational programmes at schools in London, and would love to work on a documentary to showcase all his achievements.
She concluded: “I can’t imagine the amount of words I’ve come across describing him. Some of them don’t really sum him up at all, like organiser, but his own blue plaque – he was also very instrumental in the blue plaque creation – sums up quite succinctly what he was in everything he did. He was a campaigner and he was an educator. But again, it still doesn’t really give clout to how much he achieved!”
