A history fanatic named Scott has revealed the reason why Brits love to have turkey for their Christmas dinner, as the tradition goes back almost 500 years to a trader in Yorkshire
Alice Sjoberg Social News Reporter
07:05, 23 Dec 2025Updated 07:44, 23 Dec 2025
People have been baffled to learn the reason why Brits like to enjoy a turkey for their Christmas dinner, as the tradition goes back several centuries.
For many, Christmas dinner is one of the best meals of the year, and will be something they look forward to for months. While most people will enjoy a turkey, or something similar such as chicken, along with sides such as roast potatoes, roasted vegetables, pigs in blankets, and gravy, this has been the go-to Christmas meal for most families for as long as they can remember. But have you ever wondered why the tradition of eating turkey on Christmas came about?
This is something that one history fanatic named Scott has wondered, as he took to his TikTok account ‘madabouthistory’, where he boasts over 181,500 followers, to explain the history behind how Brits got into the habit of having a turkey on Christmas.
“Why do we eat roast turkey at Christmas?” he asked at the start of the video.
He went on to say he had asked his friend the same question, who shared theories that it could have come from America, as they eat turkeys at Thanksgiving.
However, Scott then went on to say this actually isn’t the reason for the longstanding tradition, as it dates back several centuries before that.
“In the year 1526, nearly 500 years ago, a Yorkshire trader by the name of William Strickland introduced the first turkey into England,” Scott explained.
Strickland was an English landowner who sailed on early voyages to the Americas, during which he was credited for bringing back a turkey. A few years later, in 1550, he was granted a coat of arms, it included a "turkey-cock in his pride proper", which is said to be the oldest surviving European drawing of a turkey, according to the College of Arms.
Meanwhile, at some point in the 16th century, King Henry VIII is credited with eating a turkey at Christmas, making him the first person to do so.
About two hundred years later, in 1843, Charles Dickens wrote and published A Christmas Carol, where a turkey is the price meal they all enjoy for their Christmas dinner at the end of the story.
The story sees grumpy Ebenezer Scrooge meet with the angels of past, present and future to see how his bad mood and behaviour has affected him and those around him.
In the end, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man, and anonymously sends a large turkey to the family of his overworked clerk, Bob Cratchit.
Later in the early 1900, during the Edwardian period, King Edward VII is reported to have loved eating turkeys, which made it a more popular meal for the rest of the British population.
“And then eventually, turkey replaced other meats, like goose, as being the meal to have, the food to have at Christmas,” Scott said.