Disclaimer: showing this article to young children might ruin Christmas.
In 1909 Sainsbury's killed Santa — at least they ran an ad which suggested he'd been in a nasty accident.
That December, the man in red was written into a plot involving an air crash, with Sainsbury's claiming to be flogging toys from the wreckage at their Lewisham branch. It makes 2025's cynical Tesco ads look positively upbeat.
Image © The British Library Board
"TERRIBLE MISHAP TO SANTA CLAUS" ran the clickbaity headline (although we understand you couldn't click it back then), followed by a brief but bewildering account of how the man in red lost control of his aeroplane over the Obelisk in Lewisham, plummeting from a "great height" and scattering toys hither and thither.
The whereabouts of Mr Claus (or at least his mortal remains) are never clarified. But Sainsbury's kindly waives any entrance fee to snap up his toys at a reduced price — even though presumably they're now evidence in an air crash accident investigation.
The Obelisk area of Lewisham — or Ladywell to be precise — takes its name from the war memorial, but what initially confused us is that this memorial didn't exist till 1921 — 12 years after Santa's horrific accident. Apparently, another area of Lewisham was known as the Obelisk beforehand. So at least we know it wasn't a collision with the war memorial (still there today) which brought down Santa's aircraft. That would have just been a step too far.
What else could have caused the crash? Drink-flying? Waiting for Croydon Aerodrome to be built so Santa could land? Maybe we'll never discover what caused the aerial misadventure, but at least we know why Santa now travels by sleigh.
While a festive ad of this gumption sits awkwardly now, readers at the time were likely unperturbed. After all, this was when you could buy a nice bit of radium for your wife.
