"Gathering Ferns" by Helen Allingham, 1871.
Our Victorian friends didn’t have access to television or the internet, but they found plenty of ways to "spend" their free time. Here are a few of the hobbies that were popular during the Victorian era. Be forewarned, some might seem a little strange to us today.
Fern collecting became all the rage in the 19th century. It was even given an official name: pteridomania. This hobby took off in 1829 when Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward, a British botanist, famously started cultivating ferns in glass cases (what we refer to as terrariums). The idea caught on and Victorians (particularly Victorian women) began searching for ferns to grow in their own homes.
Felines in formal wear in Walter Potter’s tableau “
The Kittens’ Wedding.”
(Photo courtesy Joanna Ebenstein, New York Times.)
(Photo courtesy Joanna Ebenstein, New York Times.)
Taxidermy, especially the art of positioning “stuffed” animals in typically human scenario was very popular. Walter Potter and Hermann Ploucquet became famous for their efforts to make scenes come to life. Some memorable pieces from the era depicted ice-skating hedgehogs, a classroom full of rabbits, and a wedding attended by kittens dressed in highly detailed regalia. “The Kittens’ Wedding,” an elaborate tableau by the Victorian taxidermist Walter Potter, was on exhibit at the Morbid Anatomy Museum in 2016.
"The Seaweed Raker" by James Clarke Hook, 1889.
Victorians were also obsessed with seaweed scrapbooking. After collecting the specimens, they would paste the strands onto sheets of paper. The designs were intended to be aesthetic with the seaweed usually arranged to spell out words or form images.
"Crystal Ball" by Thomas Kennington, 1890.
Crystal gazing saw a revival in the late 19th century. In his 1896 book "Crystal Gazing and Clairvoyance," John Melville provided the instructions for using a crystal for spiritual purposes: “
The crystal or mirror should frequently be magnetized by passes made with the right hand. The magnetism, with which the surface of the mirror or crystal becomes charged, collects there from the eyes of the gazer, and from the universal ether, the Brain being as it were switched onto the universe, the crystal being the medium."