The Temperance Society campaign was so successful that it took three years before another Christmas card was produced. The organization decided to mount a campaign to censor and suppress the selling of Christmas cards. They especially disliked the fact that the picture showed children toasting with a glass of wine along with the adults. The Temperance Society objected to the artist associating Christmas with drinking alcohol. However, this did not happen because the Temperance Society campaigned against the publication of this card. It was thought that sending of Christmas cards would quickly become a British tradition. it is believed only 1,000 of these hand-coloured lithographs were printed and sold for a shilling apiece (around 30 survived and collectors are willing to pay about £8,000 for them). The first commercially printed Christmas card was designed by the printer and illustrator John Callcott Horsley in 1843. This was a much stronger position as it not only included a pledge to abstain from all alcohol for life but also a promise not to provide it to others. However, by the 1840s temperance societies began advocating teetotalism. Other groups of working men followed the example of Livesey and his friends and by 1835 the British Association for the Promotion of Temperance was formed.Īt first temperance usually involved a promise not to drink spirits and members continued to consume wine and beer. In 1832 Joseph Livesey and seven Preston workingmen signed a pledge that they would never again drink alcohol.