The Juvenile Almanac
February 8, 2021
Now that we can look forward to life beyond lockdown, I thought this might be a good moment to present this almanac from the eighteen-twenties, published by Hodgson & Co, 10 Newgate St. I am grateful to Sian Rees for drawing my attention to these wonderful images.
Images courtesy University of California Libraries
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Just lovely (and interesting that their crocus arrived in March, whilst we have some already, in February).
A lovely start to a snowy morning – thankyou GA
I had the same thoughts as Wendy – ie these are charming, but I was surprised that snowdrops aren’t mentioned until April! There have been daffodils outside our local church since the end of January this year – I just hope they survive the Beast from the East…
It may sound corny but in reading this I found a tune running through my head, the hymn Lo! He comes with Clouds Ascending by Charles Wesley and it helps the reading along.
See The Englishs Hymnal Hymn No 7
Hymns Ancient & Modern No 51
Such lovely drawings! It all looks so idyllic doesn’t it, although I know that life was hard in those days. Love your website.
Enchanting!
How delightful this is and I, like others, was very surprised to see snowdrops mentioned in April. I wonder if this arrived in Olive’s Christmas stocking, and how I wish I could discover who she was but I can’t be sure of the rest of her name. Do we know the date of this almanac as the delightful drawings would suggest it is very early, perhaps circa 1800?
Interesting too to see the spelling of Guy FAUX and to see how he was dressed, and the boy with his hoop. I had forgotten about hoops, my mother had one which she said she had bowled to school which I remember well but I never learnt to bowl it. I doubt if any schoolchild would know what a hoop was now let alone realise how far children walked to attend school even up until the 1940s.
Thank you GA for another fascinating post I shall watch out for more almanacs like this now and what a charming way for children to learn the months of the year, the signs of the zodiac, how many days each months had and what each season brought for those in the country in such an appealing way. Olive was obviously a very lucky little girl.
In those days, people still knew what was important and what mattered. – Beautiful graphics!
Love & Peace
ACHIM
What a lovely journey through the months and seasons. It really cheered me up on a day full of grey skies, rain and heavy sleet.
I look forward to seeing the crocus and violets. At the moment, I am living under a blanket of deep snow.
To Pauline Taylor: Looks like her name was Olive Wingate Dennis….very interesting to me as my maiden name is Wingate!