Christmas in Brentwood in at the end of the 19th century

What did Christmas look like in Brentwood around 1900?

In 1900 Brentwood High Street was not too dissimilar from the High Street we see today - there were clothes shops, pubs, cafes, and more besides. Lovell's, one of the popular shops on the High Street, was advertising their clothes as perfect presents for Christmas. W. Marsh, another clothes store, were doing the same and had a special Christmas display set up for the occasion. Charles Willis' "Brentwood Repository" - a department store on the High Street - had a show room set up at Christmas to display Christmas and New Years presents and cards. By 1911 there was a competition run between shops in Brentwood and Warley for the best dressed Christmas display. However, for several days around Christmas the shopkeepers of Brentwood regularly made an agreement together to keep all shops closed, the exact days being announced each year in the newspaper.

On King's Road there was a permanent ice rink, and during Christmas this was open four days a week for ice skating. Admission was 1 shilling and under twelves were sixpence - you could also rent skates for sixpence per person.

At the pubs there were a few different competitions - after Christmas (on 27th December in 1876) the Victoria Arms held an annual pigeon racing competition - keeping pigeons was a more common hobby during the 19th century than it is today.

The churches were a more important part of life for many Brentwood residents at this time, so many churches advertised Christmas services in the newspapers - including St Thomas's (four services on Christmas Day), St Helen's, and the congregational church. St Thomas's by 1889 had an annual "Christmas Tree Tea" for children attending Sunday school there, where they would bring in entertainment and give the children a gift each from under the church's christmas tree - the tradition seems to have been started by Miss Joliffe, who ran the Sunday school. This was still going on as recently as 1936.

At different institutions and hospitals in Brentwood, Christmas dinners were organised. The Christmas dinner for the patients at the cottage hospital on Shenfield Common was described as being "an old-fashioned Christmas dinner of turkey, plum pudding, and mince pies", and the wards were decorated with holly and other evergreen branches. The county mental asylum and Warley barracks were among other places to organise Christmas dinners for people staying there.

Another event of the Christmas period were the Slate Club dinners. Almost every pub in Brentwood as well as several churches and other groups had a Slate Club by 1900. These were members of the local comunity who came together and raised money for charitable causes and to cover the sick pay of anyone in their community at a time when employers didn't. At Christmas the Slate Clubs would each have a dinner for their members paid for by leftover funds, and any remaining funds would be given to each member of the club as a gift to thank them for helping their community for another year.