Calling Cards & the Custom of Calling

Throughout the Victorian era, into the Edwardian period, and through the 1920s into the 1930s, the custom of calling on other people and the associated etiquette of using calling cards was the hallmark of a polished individual. Although the practice quickly fell by the wayside in the early ‘30s, knowledge of the rules involved was still observed for dealing with the older generations and those moving in Royal circles.

It was considered polite to call upon one’s friends and neighbours on a fairly regular basis. When one moved into a new district or neighbourhood, it was considered correct to wait until the new neighbours chose to call upon one before making such a move oneself. Not allowing them to have the first move was considered a sign of being forward, or pushy.

Such calls were always made in the afternoons, after 3.00pm, and well-mannered folk ensured that, if they were staying at home to receive visitors, they would set aside this time especially for this purpose. If the person being called upon was an invalid or infirm, then an earlier visit was permissible, with the understanding that a refusal might occur if they were not up to it.

An essential piece of equipment required for making calls was the visiting card. In the Victorian era these were known by the French term ‘cartes de visite’, but by the ‘30s they were simply referred to as ‘cards’, or ‘visiting cards’, and the practice of making calls was sometimes informally known as ‘slinging pasteboard’, especially by the younger generation.

In the late Victorian period, cartes de visite were sometimes adorned with a photograph (or an image produced by some similar process). This served the double-purpose of making the caller instantly recognisable to the called-upon, as well as demonstrating that the card’s owner was up-to-date with the current technologies. By the 1920s however, these flashy types of cards had largely passed beyond the pale and a plain card was by far the preferred item.

A visiting card should be plain white pasteboard and should have square corners. In size it should be 3.25 inches long and 2.25 inches wide. The correct manner of printing upon these cards was to have them ‘engraved’ resulting in a raised finish which could be felt with the fingertip. Business cards - those used by tradespeople - were never so printed, the words being flush with the surface of the card, and such a printed item informed the one receiving it that one’s intentions were purely ‘commercial’.

The card-bearer’s name should be clearly printed across the middle of one side of the card; one’s address would always appear in the lower left-hand corner. It was considered highly improper for one to include their telephone number on their card: such information would be written upon the card if required.

Women were required to very clearly indicate their marital status on their cards. If unmarried, their cards would use the title ‘Miss’ along with their surname; their first name would only appear if they had sisters and were not the oldest of the girl children (eg., “Miss Humperdinck”, “Miss Amelia Humperdinck”, “Miss Beatrice Humperdinck”, etc.). A married woman’s cards always followed the wording of their husband’s card with the appended title ‘Mrs’ (eg., “Mrs Algernon Wilberforce”, “Mrs A. H. Wilberforce”, or “Mrs Algernon H. Wilberforce”). An unmarried woman who still lived at home with her parents often had her name printed below that of her mother on her mother’s cards and they would both use these, crossing out the name of anyone not present during the call.

Cards were essential for letting people know who had called upon them in their absence, giving them an opportunity to make arrangements to meet later on. The rules for how, why and when one left their calling card were a tangled little system that took some getting used to but, once understood, came effortlessly.

For men and women, calling upon a business premises, it was usual to hand over a visiting card to the servant or receptionist in order to identify oneself to the proprietor. Note that these are the only proper conditions under which a woman may give her card to another man. This is an instance where the card is given despite the one being called upon being in attendance.

If a man called upon an acquaintance only to find them not at home, he simply left his card with the servant answering the door and went on his way. This procedure is also standard practice for an unmarried woman; however, if she were calling upon the premises of a single man, in a capacity not connected to business, she would not leave her card under any circumstances. Should the object of the call be an invalid, or infirm, the caller would simply write the words “To Inquire” at the top of the card before leaving it with the servant: this indicated that the caller was seeking to inquire as to the status of the called-upon’s wellbeing.

For the married woman, the process becomes a lot more complex. A married woman calling upon another married couple only to find them not at home, would leave two of her husband’s cards and one of her own: the absent pair would then both be in receipt of her husband’s cards but, again, since it is not seemly for a woman to give her card to another man outside of business transactions, the woman’s card would be retained only by the wife. If the married woman was calling upon an absent single woman, or widow, she would leave not only her card, but one of her husband’s also.

If the married woman called upon another couple and the woman in that relationship was present but not the husband, she would not leave her own card (the hostess being available) but she would leave one of her husband’s cards as she left.

Finally, if the married woman called upon the house of a bachelor living with his mother or sister in residence, she would treat the situation as if the household were run by a married couple: she would leave one of her cards for the senior female resident and two of her husband’s. Likewise, the people in such a domestic arrangement would leave calling cards as if they were a married couple.

Cards would be handed to the servant answering the door at the time of the call. These would be left on a tray beside the door, or just inside the entrance, and this would be checked by the owners of the residence upon their return. It was not the role of the servant to draw their masters’ attention to the pile of pasteboard on the tray, as they had better things to be getting on with, rather than organising their employers’ social calendar. A woman leaving cards on behalf of her husband after visiting with another married woman would, in lieu of handing these cards to her hostess, simply drop the necessary cards onto the tray as she left at the end of the call.

If invited to a dinner party or some such similar gathering, it was considered polite to drop off your calling card at the hostess’s residence, regardless of whether the invitation was accepted or not; this was considered a polite way of thanking the hostess for their thinking of you by opening up the possibility of their calling upon you. By the mid 1930s, this practice had largely fallen by the wayside.

Being in receipt of another person’s calling card placed an onus upon the receiver. It was polite to return a call within ten days of the call having been made, or a fortnight (14 days) at the very outside.

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Nowadays, in an age of shameless individuality, sexual equality, answering machines and message banks, we do without the quaint to-ing and fro-ing of ‘pasteboard slinging’, but for those gaming within these milieux, it was the way that the world back then worked and it may well repay one’s efforts to recreate the period correctly to incorporate these traditions in the action. Not to mention the useful plot-orientated aspects of the calling card system: are those the missing words of the ritual chant scrawled on the back of your associate’s calling card? Why does this ladies’ card claim as her husband the name of someone you know to be a long-term bachelor? And what revelations could a discreet rummage through the card tray inside the door of the potential villain of your tale reveal? There are endless possibilities...