The Victorians loved New Year celebrations and even Queen Victoria was a great fan of Hogmanay and “first-footing”.

The period was all about new beginnings and was filled with mysticism and superstition. The Victorians believed whatever they were doing on New Year’s Day, they would do for the rest of the year.

That meant they liked to have money in their pockets, to ensure their ongoing prosperity, new clothes to symbolise fresh beginnings, and they would also go out and socialise to ensure their continued good health.

Here are 7 new year celebrations popularised by the Victorians.

1. Blind Dates for new year celebrations

Wealthy Victorians would invite local eligible bachelors into their homes in an effort to pair them up with their unmarried daughters. Men would often get invitations from a number of households and spend a short while at each, getting to know the young women before moving on to the next engagement.

2. Phantom Balls

These were popular with middle class Victorians and indulged their fondness of mysticism and the occult. Guests dressed as ghosts, demons and evil spirits and often held seances, predicted each other’s futures and explored their destinies by reading their tea leaves.

3. The Threshold

The threshold of the home was particularly important for Victorians — it represented the crossing from the old year to the new. The front door was flung wide open on the strike of midnight and everyone inside would shout their greetings of welcome to the new year. The head of the house would throw a cake at the door to ensure a year of bounty.

4. First-footing

The first person to cross the threshold after midnight was believed to foretell the family’s fortune for the year. First-footers usually carried coal, but often gifted spices or whisky which were all seen as portents of continued prosperity. If your visitor was a dark haired man you could expect a year of good fortune, if he were blond it suggested there could be trouble ahead.

5. New Year’s celebration greetings cards

Just like at Christmas, New Year’s cards were sent to friends, neighbours and loved ones. Unlike the robins and religious depictions on Christmas cards, pigs and clovers often featured on New Year cards as they were considered to be lucky.

6. A bit of a ding dong

Despite the Victorians’ obsession with pagan traditions and the occult, bells were rung at midnight on New Years’ Eve to celebrate good’s victory over evil and to bring hope for peace and happiness in the year ahead.

7. Ashes to ashes

Most Victorian homes had a fire in each room and on New Year’s eve the ashes were swept from every hearth. This symbolised the sweeping away of the past year’s problems and welcomed the new year afresh.

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