Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Christmas, Gerard
CHRISTMAS, GERARD, or Garrett Christmas, as he signs himself (d. 1634), enjoyed a high reputation as a carver and statuary in the reign of James I. His origin is uncertain, but there would appear to be a connection between him and a family of the same name at Colchester. According to Vertue he designed Aldersgate, and carved on the northern side of it an equestrian figure of James I in bas-relief. Vertue interprets the letters C Æ, carved in a frieze on the richly ornamented portal of Northumberland House, as denoting that Christmas was the architect or carver of the front of the house. This opinion is followed by Walpole and Pennant, and it is not improbable, since the house was built by Bemara Jansen during Christmas's lifetime. He seems to have been an ingenious and versatile artist, and designed and executed the artificial figures and other properties for many of the pageants which attended the entry of a new lord mayor of London on his official duties. These pageants consisted then not merely of a procession, as at the present time, but also of a kind of dramatic entertainment, for which the leading playwrights of the day were employed to write the poetry. We find Christmas associated with Thomas Middleton [q. v.] in the production of the solemnity of ‘The Triumphs of Love and Antiquity’ at the mayoralty of Sir William Cockayne in 1619, ‘The Sunne in Aries’ at the mayoralty of Sir Edward Barkham in 1621, and ‘The Triumphs of Honor and Virtue’ at the mayoralty of Sir Peter Proby in 1622; with Thomas Dekker [q. v.] in ‘London's Tempe, or the Field of Happiness,’ at the mayoralty of Sir James Cambell [q. v.] in 1629; and with Thomas Heywood [q. v.] in ‘Londini artium et scientiarum Scaturigo’ at the mayoralty of Sir Nicholas Raynton in 1632. In the last-named there is a panegyric on Christmas for bringing pageants and figures to such great perfection. The accounts for Sir James Cambell's pageant are still preserved among the records of the Ironmongers' Company, and from them we learn that the plot contained a ‘sea-lyon’ and two ‘sea-horses’ for the water, an ‘estridge,’ a ‘Lemnion's forge,’ &c., that the company desired the first four objects to be set up in the hall after the solemnity for their own use, but that Christmas insisted on retaining the ‘sea-lyon’ and the ‘estridge,’ which with 180l. formed the payment for his services. In 1626 Christmas executed a monument in Chilton church, Suffolk, for Sir Robert Crane, bart., in memory of that gentleman (who did not die till 1643) and his two wives. The original contract for this is preserved in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The tomb of George Abbot [q. v.], archbishop of Canterbury, at Guildford, was also designed by him, but, as it was not erected till 1635, must have been completed by his sons. About 1614 Christmas was appointed by the lord high admiral, the Earl of Nottingham, carver to the royal navy and the lords of the admiralty; this post, which the prevailing style of ship decoration made very lucrative, he held till his death, and on 24 March 1634 he petitioned the king that his two sons, John and Mathias, whom he had brought up to his art, might be jointly admitted to succeed him, as he was then ‘aged, sick, and with a charge of ten children.’ On 19 April 1634 the said John and Mathias Christmas were admitted to that post in place of their late father. His will is dated 1633; in it he leaves legacies to his wife Rachel, his sons John and Mathias, and other children, part of his property being lands in Kent bought of his brother-in-law, John Honywood. His wife may perhaps be identified with Rachel, daughter of Arthur Honywood and Elizabeth Spencere, and granddaughter of Robert Honywood of Charinge in Kent and Mary Atwater. As stated above, Christmas was succeeded in his post and profession by his sons John and Mathias Christmas, and a contemporary states that ‘as they succeed him in his place so they have striv'd to exceed him in his art.’ They were the master-carvers of the royal ship, the Sovereign of the Seas, built for Charles I at Woolwich in 1637 by Peter Pett [q. v.] For the carving of this ship every man of the profession was impressed. In 1635 they were associated with Thomas Heywood in the solemnity of ‘Londini Sinus Salutis’ at the mayoralty of Sir Christopher Cletherow, and in 1638 in ‘Londini Porta Pietatis’ at the mayoralty of Sir Maurice Abbot. They executed a monument in Ruislip church, Middlesex, to Ralph Hawtrey and his wife, and a monument in Ampton church, Suffolk, to Sir Henry Calthorpe and his wife.
[Redgrave's Dict. of English Artists; Walpole's Anecdotes of Painting, ed. Wornum and Dallaway; Gough's Topography, i. 579; Lysons's Parishes in Middlesex; Pennant's London; Appleton's Memorials of the Cranes of Chilton; Nichols's Progresses of James I, vol. iii.; Nicholls's Account of the Ironmongers' Company; Nichols's Topographer and Genealogist, vol. i.; Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. 1634, 1637; Heywood's Description of His Majesty's Ship, &c. &c.; Peter Cunningham in the Builder, 16 May 1863; Fairholt's Lord Mayor's Pageants (Percy Society, 1844).]