Valentine's Day in the archives

Tuesday 15 Feb 2011 @ 13:06
National Archives

The Archive Awareness Campaign has uncovered some of the Valentine's treasures held in our local archives.

Passion through the post

A series of Valentine's Day cards, from as early as the 18th century, has been made available in an online exhibition. As part of the Archive Awareness Campaign, an ongoing celebration of archives and their treasures, The British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) is marking 'lovers' day' by bringing several of these images to light.

The display includes the earliest Valentine's card in the postal service collection, which dates from around 1790 and is known as a Rebus or a 'puzzle purse'. A single large sheet of paper folded to a smaller size, the puzzle is to unfold it in the right way to see the small illustrations and read the verses handwritten on the folds.

Angela Owusu, Archive Awareness Campaign Officer at The National Archives, said: 'The Valentine's practices of our forefathers will serve as a reminder of what can be expressed with a sheet of paper, a little imagination, and a lot of words.'

View the online exhibition.

Letters of love at Glamorgan Archives

A browse through cards and letters held at Glamorgan Archives reveals how the course of true love ran far from smoothly for our Victorian ancestors.

Highlighted as part of the Archive Awareness Campaign, letters written up to 200 years ago chronicle tales of passionate affairs and unrequited love in 19th century Britain.

The Edmondes Collection in particular contains a rich collection of letters which shed light on courtship and romance in Victorian high society. An account written in 1886 describes how the elderly Lord Dormar, who became Mrs Edmondes' fourth husband, proposed to his intended. He was described as being 'so old and stiff' that after he had fallen on his knees to propose, Mrs Edmondes was 'obliged to ring for the footman to help him up'.

Find out more about what The Glamorgan Archives holds.

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