As 19th century Britain boomed in the Industrial Revolution, the traditional festival of Valentine’s Day was ripe for a makeover. Victorian entrepreneurs were always quick to spot business opportunities, and what was better than a card or two to smooth the path to the altar in a country which was awakening to the idea of romantic love?

Why celebrate St Valentine?
The origins of St Valentine’s day, which is celebrated on 14 February, are obscure. The ancient Roman fertility festival of Lupercalia took place in February. As the Christian faith established itself and the influence of the Roman Empire waned, a martyred Christian named Valentine was declared a saint. Church leaders decreed that he would be commemorated in February, the time of his execution.

A romantic persona developed around the saint, who was reputed to have fallen in love with his jailer’s blind daughter. In the 14th century, the poet Geoffrey Chaucer wrote of Valentine’s Day as a long-held tradition. The first surviving valentine’s greeting was written in the early 15th century by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife, from the Tower of London, where he was a prisoner. By the 18th century, Valentine’s Day was a festival. In some neighbourhoods, strips of paper bearing the names of local unmarried young men and women were put into hats and then drawn out in the manner of a lottery to pair couples for the day’s celebration.

Valentine cards
In the early decades of the 19th century, Valentine’s Day gradually evolved from a public holiday into a private affirmation of affection. This was driven by social change and technological development. Printing by automation established itself, enabling identical paper wares to be produced in bulk at a low cost per item.

Most towns had an entrepreneur who owned a printing press and these businessmen were keen to recoup their outlay.

One way was to create new products such as greetings cards. As printing grew ever more sophisticated, cards with coloured images and elaborate decorations became available at a price people who were not on the breadline could afford. The pre-paid postal service introduced in 1840 gave lovers a cheap method of reliable delivery for a greetings card, a boon when the growth of towns as centres of employment meant that sweethearts could be living miles apart on Valentine’s Day as one or both tried to earn a living and save up for a marital home.

Vinegar valentines
The pictures on early valentine’s cards included romantic images of cupids, altars, bleeding hearts and village churches, but the range was supplemented by the monster in an envelope. These were cards which mocked the recipient, with grotesque images which were cruel or profane and verses which spoke of dislike and wished misfortune on the recipient. The black missives were known at the time as vinegar valentines. It is hard to know exactly how widespread the use of these cruel cards was, as the unfortunate recipients were unlikely to store them for years in a box of sentimental treasures.

Alongside malignant valentine cards, obscene material also flourished. Some respectable stationers were reported to include in their window displays the sort of photographs they would shrink from showing to their families, while dirty, dingy shops in the poor part of many cities openly peddled filth. Aggrieved newspaper journalists and letter writers proposed varied remedies, from the authorities treating the sale of such material as an indictable offence, to the boycotting of offending shops by decent-minded people.

Valentine gifts
Vicious messages were not confined to cards. Gifts could also come with a sting. In 1873, the postal sorting office at Derby discovered a herring with a label round its neck, possibly by smell, while a dead brown and white mouse fell out of a badly-wrapped parcel. Perhaps the most sinister object identified by the post handlers was a doll with its head cut off and sent to a worker who did not belong to a trade union. The accompanying message was a warning that he would share the same fate unless he stopped working and joined an ongoing industrial dispute. The postmaster had the discretion not to deliver this type of material, but it seems likely that many nasty items would have been undetected.

How popular were they?
From the outset, the commercial production of valentine cards which mocked misers, shrews, bald men and redheads among others ran in parallel with the commercial production of other printed greetings cards. Visual lampoons of public figures by artists such as James Gillray and George Cruickshank already had a long history and a good following. As the printed card industry developed, many of the writers, artists and engravers who produced satirical prints and pamphlets were probably freelance workers, who also created images and composed verses for greetings card distributors. This may have resulted in the blurring of the boundaries of taste and decency by the artists, who knew that there was a lucrative market for a nasty greetings card. The effect on the unfortunate recipient of a malignant message would not have been considered, or would have been thought of as part of the joke.

In 1870, the number of valentine cards sent in London and the suburbs exceeded 1.5 million. Vinegar valentines were only a small element of this, but several thousand may have been sent. Throughout Queen Victoria’s reign, newspapers from Falmouth to Fife regularly deplored the socially corrosive effect of obscene, vulgar or vicious valentines. They were also referred to in a variety of newspaper reports without any explanation, indicating that readers would have known precisely what was being discussed.

From 1861 until the death of King Edward VII, half a century later, at least one person a year appears to have been hauled before the magistrates for an assault he or she had committed in the belief that the victim had sent a vicious valentine to them, or to a member of their family. There were also several instances of an aggrieved recipient going to court to ask what action could be taken against the suspected sender, only to be told none unless they could prove beyond doubt who had sent it.

It was part of the culture that valentines were sent anonymously, of course. As a result, people often struggled to identify who had sent insulting material. The few alleged perpetrators who were called to account, vehemently denied that they were to blame. In some cases, the denial appears genuine, indicating that the recipient had mistaken the sender.

Newspaper reports represent only the tip of the iceberg of the hurt or offence which was generated by these cards. Most people would simply have burnt them and wondered who disliked them so much.

Who sent them?
Some newspapers in 1862 contained an anecdote about an unnamed young man who sent two Valentine cards, written in a disguised hand, by the same post. One, to his sweetheart, was full of romantic imagery. The other was to her father and its picture was a caricature of an ass. The accompanying verse elaborated on the similarity. The scene was reported to be played out in many homes throughout the country.

Women are reported to have been as keen as men to use vinegar valentines. Some were sent because the recipient had spurned the sender’s advances, or because the relationship between a couple had fallen apart. A breach of promise defendant appears to have sent a card to himself, but pretended that it had come from his fiancée, in an attempt to destroy her claim for damages.

A discarded lover may have sent a card to a person’s new sweetheart, but the majority of cards had little to do with romance. Most seem to have been sent gratuitously to an unpopular person in a gesture that would now be regarded as bullying. Insinuating cards were a helpful tool for embittered anonymous letter writers, and there were probably scores of pranksters who used one to ferment further trouble between warring local residents.

Decline of valentine’s cards
By 1890, the sending of valentine’s cards had peaked. Late Victorians viewed the lover’s festival as a vulgar occasion which was marked only by people of low refinement. Sales of cards were reported to be in decline, though this may have been a practical consequence of the widespread use of Christmas cards and new year cards, sent just a few weeks before 14 February. Briefly bucking the trend, the odious valentine, with its attempts at humour, was reported to have flourished into the early 20th century before finally disappearing from the stationer’s shelves. Middle-class Victorians might have criticised Valentine’s Day in public, but there is no reason to think that they did not buy an offensive card or two on the quiet.

The 20th century
Valentine’s cards were revived again in 1927 and soon re-established their place in the commercial calendar. Jocular modern images jostled with romantic ones on the new cards, but the viciousness which was a hallmark of Victorian times was largely absent. Values had been changed by a brutal war, and the few attempts to market nasty cards met with little success. Occasionally, a valentine’s fight was mentioned in the press, but the card causing the trouble appears to have been home produced rather than purchased.

So, if reading this has made you aware of any perceived imperfections of looks or character, just remember, it could be worse. Those vicious Victorians may well have had a card about it, and the name on it might have been yours.