Discover who really introduced the Christmas tree to the UK. We’ll let you into a secret. It’s not who you think it is
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Whether it’s dominating a town square or tucked away in the privacy of your own home, Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without a fir tree sprinkled in baubles and fairy lights. Prince Albert, the German consort of Queen Victoria, is widely credited with introducing the Christmas tree tradition to the UK in 1840. But, it was actually an earlier German royal, Queen Charlotte, who, in 1800, put a little sparkle into our Christmas period.
Even then, Queen Charlotte, the German wife of King George III, can hardly claim to be the inventor of the Christmas tree. That honour goes to Martin Luther, the German religious reformer who, in 1536, was walking through a forest near his home on a dark, clear night. Looking up, he was mesmerised by the stars glittering among the branches of the fir trees. This inspired him to chop down a small fir tree, set up in his house and decorate it with lit candles (we dare not think about the fire risk!). Being a highly religious man, this act wasn’t done merely to make the room the tree was in look pretty, but was instead to remind his children of God in the star-lit heavens.
Between the 1500s and the start of the 19th Century, Christmas trees in a myriad of forms spread in popularity throughout Germany. The type of tree used would depend on what was available locally. The single branch from a large yew tree was popular in many areas (incidentally, despite Christmas being a happy time, yew trees have long been associated with death and doom). It didn’t take long until the tradition evolved so that as well as simply decorating a tree, small gifts would be attached to the branches of the tree.
In 1761, a young Charlotte left her birthplace of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and travelled to England to marry King George III. As well as piles of jewels, crowns and all the other paraphernalia that house-moving royalty probably take with them, Queen Charlotte also brought with her the Christmas tradition of decorating a yew tree branch.
Back in Germany, the tradition was to put this yew branch in a small parlour room, but on arrival in England, Queen Charlotte upped the stakes a little by placing the decorated yew branch in pride of place in one of the grandest rooms at Windsor Castle.
For many years she made do with this, but then, during the fateful Christmas of 1800, the royal couple held a party for the children of all the most important families around Windsor. To add a little wow factor, the queen decided that instead of decorating a single yew branch, she’d have an entire tree brought into the drawing room of Queen’s Lodge, which was then richly decorated and festooned in sweets and small presents for the children.
That party was the spark that led to Christmas trees becoming as ubiquitous as they are today. Within just a few years, upper-class families across Britain started putting up Christmas trees. By the time Queen Charlotte died in 1818, the tradition was well-established among the upper classes but still rare among everyone else.
And now, finally, we reach Prince Albert’s contribution. In 1840, he married the recently crowned Queen Victoria and, for their first Christmas together, he had several spruce trees decorated and put in pride of place in the royal household. Five years later influential periodicals such as the Illustrated London News started to publish annual stories that described the royal Christmas tree in great detail and, before you could say ‘ho ho ho’ almost every household in the UK was putting up their own version of the royal Christmas tree.
And so, in truth, it’s not Prince Albert we should thank for this Christmas tradition, but Queen Charlotte – as well as the 19th-century equivalent of the paparazzi press.
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