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Thomas De La Rue arrived in London circa 1817 and began making straw hats and bonnets of embossed paper. He had trained as a printer in Guernsey and soon returned to that trade along with Robert Westall, R.A. De La Rue began to delve in various fields of publication. The firm of De La Rue is responsible for many innovations in newspaper printing, and improve the quaility of playing cards, banknotes, and cheques. It was Thomas' son, Warren De La Rue, that contributed to the development of an envelope cutting machine that was in use in the firm by 1844. It could produce 2,700 envelopes an hour. Thomas De La Rue acheived many technical advancements, but he died before his company began the production of Christmas cards in 1874.

The Christmas cards of De La Rue were designed and produced in an exquisite style that remained true to the essence of what a Christmas card should be. They felt that the appeal of a card should be in the design and verse, not mechanics or gimmicks. Many more female artist were employed then at Marcus Ward or Goodall. Many of the De La Rue designs incorporated adolescent girls, much as Greenaway did at Marcus Ward. But in contrast, the young girls illustrated at De La Rue were usually naked or partly dressed, yet maintained an air of innocence. Some of the many artist working for De La Rue were W.S.Coleman (created many of the nudes), Rebecca Coleman, J.M. Dealy (feminine children), and F.S. Walker (Royal Society of Painter Etchers).

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