Warwickshire Coronation Pageant

Pageant type

county:

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Performances

Place: Warwick Castle (Warwick) (Warwick, Warwickshire, England)

Year: 1953

Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors

Number of performances: 10

Notes

17–25 July 1953

17 July 7.45pm; 18 July 2.30pm and 7.45pm; 20 July 7.45pm; 21 July 7.45pm; 22 July 7.45pm; 23 July 7.45pm; 24 July 7.45pm; 25 July 2.30pm and 7.45pm.

Name of pageant master and other named staff

Pageant Master and Producer [Pageant Master]: Parker, Anthony
General Hon. Sec.: Mr A.R. Browne
General Hon. Treasurer: Mr S.W. Davey
Local Authorities Hon. Sec. Mr R.M. Willis
Press Hon. Sec. Mr J.A. Pritchard
Master of the Music: John Cook
Mistress of the Robes: Mrs D. Pattinson
Mistress of the Ballet: Miss Audrey Seed
Master of the Properties: Mr E.N. Hiley, MBE
Master of Heraldry: Mr F.P. Wallsgrove
Master of the Horse: Mr C.H. Trimnell
Organising Committee Hon. Sec.: Mr L. Edgar Stephens, CBE, DL
Episode Directors:
I: Major Tom Carless
II: Leonard Turner
III: Mrs D.B. Herringshaw
IV: J. Bishop
V: Mrs M. Dalton and Mr G. Tisdale
VI: H. Clark
VI: Mrs R. Holbech
VII: E.J.P. Reynolds
IX: A.J. Hunt
X: R.H. Bancroft

Notes

Anthony Parker was Louis Napoleon Parker’s grandson.

Mrs Holbech is described as ‘Chairman’ rather than ‘episode director’.

Names of executive committee or equivalent

Executive Committee:

General Honorary Treasurer: Mr S.W. Davey
General Honorary Secretary: A.R. Browne
Local Authorities Hon. Secretary: R.M. Willis
Press Honorary Secretary: Mr J.A. Pritchard

Finance & General Purposes Committee:

Chairman: Mr G.M. Nelson
Vice-Chairman: Mr F.D. Farley
Mr J.A. Pritchard
Mr J.W. Nunn
Major G.R.L. Rodwell, MC
Mr F.C. Reynolds
Mr W.A. Robotham
Mr C. Stephens
Mr E.N. Hiley, MBE
Mr D.H. Brown, CBE
Mr H.E. Haden
Lt.-Col. G.C. White, OBE
Mr W.F. Taylor
Mr A.R. Browne
Mr H.G. Clarke, OBE
Mrs T.N. Waldron
Mrs C.E. Holbech
Rev. Bracebridge L. Hall
Mr S.W. Davey
Mr Anthony Parker
Mrs A.T. Lees
Mrs P.M. Hyde, MBE
Mr L. Stephens, CBE, DL

Publicity & Printing Committee:

Chairman: Mr H.G. Clarke, OBE
Mr P.W. Hollyoak
Mr A.J. Cattanach
Mr S. Clarke
Mr F.C. Reynolds
Mr A.R. Browne
Mr J.W. Nunn
Mrs P.M. Hyde, MBE
Mr J.A. Pritchard

Works Committee:

Chairman: Mr D.H. Brown, CBE
Mr R.M. Willis
The Hon. H.A. Feilding
Mr David Watson
Mr A.R. Browne
Superintendent J. Cunningham [a policeman]
Mr R. Wormell
Mr P.W. Hollyoak
Mr S. Sherry
Mr G.J. Fowler;
Mr S. Roberts
Mr E.N. Hiley, MBE
Mr G.R. Barnsley
Mr D.H. Brown, CBE
Mr C.H. Elkins
Mr H.E. Russell

Organising Committee:

Hon. Sec.: Mr L. Edgar Stephens

Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)

Parker, Anthony

Names of composers

Byrd, William
Gibbons, Orlando
Elgar, Edward
Cook, John
Parker, Anthony

Numbers of performers

2000

Parker had initially wanted 3000. Advertisements in June boasted of 2500 performers.

Financial information

Expenditure:

Site preparation and grandstand: £10323

Hire of costumes: £2334

Total Expenditure: £26639

Receipts:

Box Office: £16666

Sale of materials: £630

Total Receipts: £20290

Deficit of: £6349²

Object of any funds raised

Proceeds in aid of King George VI Memorial Fund

Linked occasion

To commemorate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, 2 June 1953

Audience information

Grandstand: Yes
Grandstand capacity: n/a
Total audience: 42593

Notes

This included 6000 schoolchildren.³

Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest

£2. 2s. 0d.–5s.

£2. 2s. 0d.; £1. 0s. 0d.; 15s.; 10s.; 7s. 6d.; 5s.

Associated events

There was an inter-denominational service at the Warwick Public Arena, addressed by the Bishop of Coventry.

Pageant outline

Episode I. The Lady of the Mercians, 915 AD

Ethelfleda arrives at the head of a victorious army after vanquishing the Danes and setting up fortresses across the Midlands. She reassures the villagers of their safety, chooses Warwick to build a fortress and inspires them to found Warwick School and then the Shire of Warwick.

Episode II. The Trial by Duel at Gosford Green, 1398 AD

Gosford Green near Coventry is appointed by Richard II as the place to settle an affair of honour between Henry Lancaster, Duke of Hereford, and Thomas Mowbraw, Duke of Norfolk. The lists are set up and the crowd comes to watch the event. The Dukes take the oath to the Constable, and the Marshall is made ready. As the duel is about to begin, the King throws down his staff and stops the tournament, before deciding to banish Norfolk for life and Hereford for ten years.

Episode III. The Charter of Royal Sutton Coldfield, 1528 AD

Henry VIII and his courtiers are to come hunting at Sutton Chase at the invitation of Bishop Vesey. Crowds gather to see him. The Bishop shows the King how poor the people are and beseeches him to grant the Chase and Forest to the town. At first enraged, King Henry refuses, but the Bishop manages to win him round, and he grants the town a Charter of free government.

Episode IV. The Betrayal of the Duke of Suffolk, 1554 AD

At Astley Castle, near Nuneaton, the Duchess of Suffolk anxiously awaits the return of her husband, the Duke. He has failed in his attempt to set his daughter, Lady Jane Grey, upon the throne of England and has been defeated by Mary’s troops before fleeing for his life. It seems he is about to be captured when one of his gardeners, Underwood, suggests hiding in a hollow oak in the park. The soldiers arrive but cannot find the Duke. Then Underwood’s wife learns there is a reward of two hundred pounds and goads her husband to betray the Duke. The Duke is forced to give himself up and is led off to the Tower and his death.

Episode V. Princely Pleasures at Kenilworth Castle

At the invitation of Lord Leicester, Queen Elizabeth I visits Kenilworth Castle, where elaborate entertainment is provided for her. There is a Masque, The Seven Gifts of the Seven Gods, and then loyal addresses from the people of Warwick and Coventry. Young William Shakespeare, aged 11, is there with his father, the Bailiff of Stratford and is noticed by the Queen. There is a ‘Bride-ale’ or mock wedding feast, country dancing, a Stately Dance by the courtiers, and much gaiety and song.

Interval [Counts as Episode VI.]

A trumpet fanfare was sounded three minutes before the pageant continued.

Episode VII. The Field of Edgehill, 1642

Part I

Richard Shuckburgh and his huntsman are casting hounds. Presently royalist forces appear led by Charles I. The King persuades Shuckburgh to join him. The Royalists make ready for battle, and the young princes are taken to safety. Charles makes a speech, and all draw swords, form a line and advance into battle crying ‘For God and the King’.

Part II

The scene is now Kineton and the Parliamentary baggage train arrives to take up positions for the night. The Roundheads are being harangued by Puritan priests, when suddenly there is the sound of musketry and gunfire and Prince Rupert charges in. The Roundheads are taken by surprise, and the Cavaliers loot the baggage train.

Episode VIII. An Eighteenth-Century Home Guard, 1798

The episode depicts the formation of a troop of volunteers at Solihull in 1798 during the Napoleonic Wars. The Town Crier tells the assembled townspeople how the volunteers will protect their hearths and homes against the threat of the invader. The volunteers are then inspected by the Earl of Warwick.

Episode IX. Tom Brown at Rugby

It is 1834 at Rugby and Tom Brown is on his way to the School for the first time. The sound of a post-horn can be heard, and the stage coach ‘The Tally Ho’ drives up. Tom alights and is met by his friend, East. Then follows the redoubtable game of Rugby football, when the young Tom Brown saves the day for the School House side.

Episode X. Queen Victoria at Leamington Spa

Part I. 1838

In the coronation year of young Queen Victoria news is brought to the people of Leamington of the Queen’s visit. There is general celebration, and the Town Band plays ‘See, the Conquering Hero Comes!’

Part II. 1858

Queen Victoria visits Royal Leamington Spa with the Prince Consort. She is welcomed by the Chairman of the Council, presented with bouquets, and watches a firework display in her honour.

Interlude. The Ballet of the Peacocks

The Finale

The arena is in darkness, then floodlights light up the castle, making it stand out against the evening sky. All around can be seen torch-bearers making an intricate pattern who then come into the Arena, followed by choirs. They sing the ‘Triumph Song’.

Now let us sing
Of Warwickshire, of Warwickshire!
Our voices ring
In praise of Warwickshire!
Our story’s told,
Our history is done
As days of old
Were pictured one by one.⁵

The cast enters one by one, and the chorus sings a narrative line to recapitulate each scene. Then ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. While this is being sung, Queen Elizabeth I and her courtiers come into the arena. Queen Victoria comes from the opposite side. The two Queens advance with their followers and take up positions in the stands before addressing the crowd:

We were the two great Queens that England found
To guide her fortunes till she led the World.
Now, once again, your Sov’reign Lady’s crowned,
And valiantly her standard is unfurled.
Long may she live! And glorious be her reign!
That England proudly lead again a lady,
As did she when Drake sailed the Spanish Main
With Gloriana’s colours at this mast!
…GOD SAVE OUR GRACIOUS QUEEN ELIZABETH

The national anthem is then sung by all, and the orchestra plays a march past as the whole of the Pageant passes in review. As they pass from the Arena, the Pageant flag is lowered, the lights fade into darkness, and the Pageant is over.’

Key historical figures mentioned

Æthelflæd [Ethelfleda] (d. 918) ruler of the Mercians
Richard II (1367–1400), king of England and lord of Ireland, and duke of Aquitaine
Arundel [Fitzalan], Thomas (1353–1414) administrator and archbishop of Canterbury
Mowbray, Thomas (I), first duke of Norfolk (1366–1399) magnate
Henry VIII (1491–1547) king of England and Ireland
Anne [Anne Boleyn] (c.1500–1536) queen of England, second consort of Henry VIII
Grey, Henry, duke of Suffolk (1517–1554) magnate
Grey [other married name Stokes], Frances [née Lady Frances Brandon], duchess of Suffolk (1517–1559) noblewoman
Elizabeth I (1533–1603) queen of England and Ireland
Dudley, Robert, earl of Leicester (1532/3–1588) courtier and magnate
Dudley, Ambrose, earl of Warwick (c.1530–1590) magnate
Radcliffe, Henry, fourth earl of Sussex (1533–1593) soldier and administrator
Cecil, William, first Baron Burghley (1520/21–1598) royal minister
Drake, Sir Francis (1540–1596) pirate, sea captain, and explorer
Sidney, Sir Philip (1554–1586) author and courtier
Shakespeare, John (b. in or before 1530, d. 1601)
Shakespeare, William (1564–1616) playwright and poet
Shuckburgh, Sir Richard (1596–1656) royalist army officer and antiquary
Charles I (1600–1649) king of England, Scotland, and Ireland
Charles II (1630–1685) king of England, Scotland, and Ireland
James II and VII (1633–1701) king of England, Scotland, and Ireland
Lindsay, John, seventeenth earl of Crawford and first earl of Lindsay [known as earl of Crawford-Lindsay] (1596–1678) politician
Rupert, prince and count palatine of the Rhine and duke of Cumberland (1619–1682) royalist army and naval officer
Harvey, William (1578–1657) physician and discoverer of the circulation of the blood
Hyde, Edward, first earl of Clarendon (1609–1674) politician and historian
Greville, George, second earl of Warwick and second Earl Brooke (1746–1816) art collector
Arnold, Thomas (1795–1842) headmaster and historian
Victoria (1819–1901) queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and empress of India
Albert [Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha] (1819–1861) prince consort, consort of Queen Victoria

Musical production

Music Performed by various Warwickshire choral societies. John Cook composed most of the music for the pageant; he also acted as conductor. Performed pieces included:

William Byrd. Motet (Episode V).
William Byrd (arranged by). ‘Sellenger’s Round’ (Episode V).
Orlando Gibbons. ‘The Queen’s Commande’ (Episode VI).
‘Agincourt Song’.
‘Floreat Rugbeia’ (Rugby School Song) (Episode IX)
Puritan Hymns.
The National Anthem. Second verse of National Anthem ‘is taken from the Official Peace Version as authorised by the Privy Council in 1919’.
‘The Ballet of the Peacocks’, choreographed by Audrey Seed (interlude before the Finale).
Anthony Parker. ‘The Triumph Song’.
Edward Elgar (arranged by). ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ (words Arthur C. Benson).

Newspaper coverage of pageant

Leamington Spa Courier

The Times

Warwick Courier

Buckingham Advertiser and Free Press

Northampton Mercury

Manchester Guardian

Book of words

Warwickshire Coronation Pageant, Warwick Castle, July 17 to 25, 1953: Souvenir Programme. No publication details, 1953.

This is was book of words rather than an overview programme.

Other primary published materials

n/a

References in secondary literature

Parker, Anthony. Pageants: Their Presentation and Production. London, 1954.

Archival holdings connected to pageant

Manchester Rylands Library Archives, Manchester, Papers of Julia Derbyshire, a sheet of instructions to performers, helpers and staff involved in the Warwickshire Coronation Pageant of 1953. GB 133 BDD/5.
Warwickshire Archives, Stratford Upon Avon: Photographs and Supplementary Information, CR4342; Further Photograph, PH1039.
Coventry Archives, Herbert Museum: Programme. CCA/3/1/10687.

Sources used in preparation of pageant

Hughes, Thomas. Tom Brown’s Schooldays. London, 1857.
Shakespeare, William, Richard II

Summary

The Coronation of Elizabeth II on 2 June 1953 heralded a ‘new Elizabethan Age’, evidenced by the music of Benjamin Britten (whose opera Gloriana was unfortunately a failure), the photography of Cecil Beaton, the sculpture of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth, and Edmund Hilary and Sherpa Tenzing’s ascent of Mount Everest. This was an apparently definitive break with the past decade of post-war austerity and rationing (though rationing continued for several more years), whilst utilizing the spirit of communality which endured through street parties and other events. Among these events, of course, were pageants. In contrast to the pageants that had celebrated the Labour-run Festival of Britain two years previously, which had stressed the history of ordinary people in preference to that of monarchs and aristocrats (see the entry for the 1951 Pageant of Rushden), the Coronation pageants, quite naturally, foregrounded the ‘better sorts’ of people in their narrative and particularly the positive role that the monarchy played in society.⁶

Warwick Castle, which had a long history of interactions with royalty and still basked in memories of Louis Napoleon Parker’s spectacular 1906 Warwick Pageant, was an ideal place to hold a pageant that brought together towns across the county into a grand celebration. Speaking in Leamington Spa in January 1953, Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary and very much the Prime Minister in Waiting, praised the town (which proudly sported the title Royal Leamington Spa) for its filial obedience (and overwhelming tendency to vote Conservative), which he believed would be manifested in the upcoming pageant.⁷ It was an obvious choice, then, continuing the esteemed rituals of Edwardian pageantry, that Anthony Parker, who had put on the fervently royalist Pageant of Kenilworth Castle (1939) and who was grandson of Louis Napoleon Parker, should be pageant master.⁸ Whilst the 1939 pageant had been a fiasco, ruined by the weather, Parker proceeded on a far-grander scale, wanting ‘3000 performers, a large choir, 150 horses, a pack of stag-hounds, a flock of sheep, and an ass’, plus ‘a balloon ascent’, for a production that he referred to as on a ‘Hollywood-in-Warwickshire scale’.⁹ Parker set about casting across the county for people ‘any age from 12 to 92’, stressing the joys of pageantry. However, it seems that—despite the rest of the county holding off from other pageants during the season so as to concentrate its efforts—the number of performers was revised down first to 2500 and finally to 2000.¹⁰ Despite the pageant being held in Warwick, the county town, other towns pulled together to provide particular scenes which featured them, with Kenilworth making all the Elizabethan costumes and doing meticulous historical research for Queen Elizabeth I’s visit to Kenilworth Castle—with barely a suggestion that the pageant, which did not actually feature a scene at Warwick Castle, should be held elsewhere.¹¹

Advance tickets sold well, despite Anthony Parker keeping all but the briefest outline of the pageant a carefully guarded secret, with 25000 seats booked by late June and Womens’ Institutes and other organisations as far away as Buckinghamshire planning their annual outings to the pageant, as well as a number of companies (such as Fergusons tractors) buying the most expensive seats to use for corporate hospitality.¹² In an echo of the heights of Louis Napoloen Parker’s Edwardian Pageantry, the Leamington Spa Courier confidently predicted an outbreak of uncontrollable ‘Pageantitis’ and that ‘soon the whole of this part of Warwickshire will be giving itself up unreservedly to “the Pageant.”’¹³

The pageant itself was an interesting mixture of content which had appeared in other pageants. Ethelfleda, warrior queen of Mercia, was a recurring first scene in a large number of Midlands pageants. Elizabeth I’s visit in 1572 had featured both in the 1906 Warwick Pageant in a very similar manner (the Queen also met the young Shakespeare in that too). The Warwick Pageant of 1906 told a different account of the Duke of Suffolk’s flight, with Dudley’s servant, Thomas Underwood, and his wife presented as loyal to their master to the end. Whether this was an acknowledgment that the old bonds between master and servant had been wholly eroded by the last few decades is unclear. The scene from Tom Brown’s Schooldays with the Rugby match had featured in the 1931 Rugby Historical Pageant. The 1953 pageant omitted the story of Guy of Warwick, told in the 1906 pageant and also in Barbara Drummond’s 1927 Guy of Warwick Pageant held in the town. Though the narrative presented episodes from across the whole county, thus losing the geographical specificity of many other pageants, it did stress the importance of royalty and aristocracy in society as a natural part of the social order. In a break from L.N. Parker’s instructions for holding pageants, the Battle of Edgehill during the English Civil War was portrayed, although Anthony Parker turned what was essentially a bloody stalemate into a lauded Royalist victory, depicting Rupert’s attack on the Parliamentarian baggage train.

The pageant itself did not disappoint the reporter for the Courier (though one often finds that local pageants tended to impress news-starved local papers whose backers often themselves had a financial or personal stake in the pageant—with journalists struggling for ever-greater hyperbole): ‘The Pocket Oxford Dictionary defines the word Pageant as “a spectacular performance; any brilliant show.” The compilers have hit the nail on the head in describing the Warwick Pageant of 1953.’¹⁴ The reporter was captivated by almost every scene. There was slight incredulity at the presentation of the Underwoods’ ‘dastardly’ and ‘treacherous’ behaviour in betraying their master, the Duke of Suffolk, to Bloody Mary—the vicissitudes of Pageantry meant that the faithful servant first hid the Duke, then was tempted by the reward, persuaded by his wife, and finally corrupted by the reward, giving up the Duke to the soldiers, all within five minutes—he could ‘only hope that the Underwoods got no good out of it.’¹⁵ The scene with Shakespeare had ‘good bits’ and was ‘a satisfying spectacle, and the music fitted perfectly’, although the command performance for Queen Elizabeth was ‘not quite so successful’ as it was ‘played too far off to be effective.’¹⁶ Nonetheless, the events were captivating, with the reporter noting the effectiveness of the floodlighting in bringing out the grandeur of the costumes, particularly in the Elizabethan scene and the Peacock Ballet (a reference to Warwick Castle’s own birds): ‘Sometimes one forgot that it wasn’t daylight.’ For a performance which began relatively late, the ten episodes did not seem overly long:

Three and a half hours flashed past, and that is quite a test on a rather cold night. Much of it will remain a picture in the mind’s eye, and what more could the author and producer wish for than to turn a passing show into a lasting memory? ... The separate episodes melt into each other smoothly and naturally, showing the dramatic turn of events as ordinary people view them; not with the historian’s passionate reverence for truth, but with the deep-rooted love of a highly coloured situation that produces artists, playwrights, actors and Pageants.¹⁷

The reporter for the Courier estimated that some 20000 attended on the first night, though this seems optimistic. If this was indeed the case, only 22000 further people attended the other ten performances, giving a total audience of 42593, which included 6000 schoolchildren who presumably watched either for free or for a heavily discounted rate. The pageant, like Anthony Parker’s previous attempt at Kenilworth, suffered from unsettled weather and rain. It made a small loss, some of which was recouped from donations from local notables such as Mr Barrow Cadbury of the Cadbury family.¹⁸ Further to this, a fundraising Pageant Dance was held at the Royal Leamington Spa Assembly Rooms on 15 September, whose organisers noted that ‘it is hoped that as many as possible will wear their pageant costumes. Those ladies who are complaining that hemlines became bedraggled in mud and wet beyond hope and resurrection, can rest assured that these honours won in the field will be worn by many, and will be regarded as a hallmark of their faithful attendance in all weathers.’¹⁹ Whether or not the pageant made a loss, the Leamington Spa Courier saw the event as a highlight of the year: ‘The pride in the county which it engendered was an asset from which we may expect to receive benefits as time goes on.’²⁰

After the Pageant had finished it became clear that there was a small deficit. Immediately following the pageant it was predicted that there would be a small loss. A number of wealthy Midlanders gave money to make up the shortfall, with Mr Barrow Cadburys (of the Cadburys family) donating £100.²¹ However, it later emerged that the Pageant had lost £6349, which had to be guaranteed by Warwickshire County Council. The General Purposes Committee nonetheless praised Parker and the Pageant as a whole, ‘probably the finest production of its kind ever to be staged anywhere’, blaming the constant rain throughout the production as ‘no doubt a very considerable factor in keeping the box office takings below the figures which would have ensured financial success.’²² The Pageant also blamed competition from other events during the Coronation year, including other events at Warwick Castle. Others suggested that the price of tickets had been too high to attract sufficient audiences. Lord Willoughby was nonetheless adamant that ‘in every other way we can say the Pageant was an unqualified success.’²³

In fact, the failure of the Warwick Coronation Pageant – one of the last grand-scale pageants to be held in Britain – points to the wider failure of pageants in general. The Warwick Coronation Pageant was, despite the rain, relatively well attended, and it is unlikely given the surrounding urban populations, that many more people would have attended. The post-1939 era had seen dramatic increases in costs, meaning that the profit margin on pageants were increasingly thin. An outlay on such a scale as the Warwick Coronation Pageant was a great risk, which councils and individuals were ever-more unwilling to bear. the Warwickshire Coronation Pageant marked the decline of pageantry in the county, with competition from cinema, dancehalls and, most of all, television whittling down audiences to the level that such lavish events could no longer be staged. With the increase in popular entertainments, especially those centred around the home, fewer people were willing to attend pageants, much less to abandon the requisite amounts of free time required to appear in one. The well-publicized failure of individual pageants made cities or societies less willing to put on a pageant (other than those on a very small-scale), and, as pageants fell increasingly out of fashion, felt less need to ‘keep up with the Joneses’ by staging their own civic pageant as a status symbol. The decline of Pageants in the 1950s suffered a similar pathology to ‘pageantitis’, or the mushrooming of pageants in the early twentieth century, only in reverse.

This said, the tradition did not die out entirely in Warwickshire and a number of performers retained fond memories long after the pageant, which they relayed sixty years on.²⁴ A smaller-scale pageant was held in Warwick in 1996, and some of the spirit of the performances of 1906, 1930 and 1953 live on in the town’s annual Victorian evening, involving hundreds of costumed participants and held every November. Whilst the economics of pageants may have collapsed, the urge to dress up in the past remained deeply ingrained in Britain.

Footnotes

^ Leamington Spa Courier, 23 January 1953, 4.
^ Banbury Guardian, 25 February 1954, 2.
^ Banbury Guardian 25 February 1954,2, and Leamington Spa Courier, 31 July 1953, 5.
^ Leamington Spa Courier, 17 July 1953, 11.
^ Warwickshire Coronation Pageant, Warwick Castle, July 17 to 25, 1953: Souvenir Programme (no publication details, 1953), 40
^ See Stuart Ward, British Culture and the End of Empire (Manchester, 2001), chapter three.
^ Leamington Spa Courier, 16 January 1953, 4.
^ Times, 10 July 1939, 10.
^ Leamington Spa Courier, 23 January 1953, 4.
^ Leamington Spa Courier, 15 May 1953, 7.
^ Leamington Spa Courier, 26 June 1953, 4.
^ Ibid., 9; Buckingham Advertiser and Free Press, 20 June 1953, 9.
^ Leamington Spa Courier, 3 July 1953, 6.
^ Leamington Spa Courier, 24 July 1953, 7.
^ Ibid.
^ Ibid.
^ Ibid.
^ Leamington Spa Courier, 31 July 1953, 5.
^ Leamington Spa Courier, 28 August 1953, 4.
^ Leamington Spa Courier, 25 December 1953, 6.
^ Leamington Spa Courier, 31 July 1953, 5.
^ Banbury Guardian, 25 February 1954, 2.
^ Ibid.
^ ‘Ralph’s Coronation Pageant Memories’, Warwick Courier, 30 June 2013, accessed 14 January 2016, http://www.warwickcourier.co.uk/news/nostalgia/ralph-s-coronation-pageant-memories-1-5226276.

How to cite this entry

Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Warwickshire Coronation Pageant’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1235/

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