Barrow Pageant of History
Pageant type
Performances
Place: Barrow (Barrow) (Barrow, Lincolnshire, England)
Year: 1953
Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors
Number of performances: n/a
Notes
13–20 June 1953
Name of pageant master and other named staff
- Pageant Master: Borril, Dora M.
Names of executive committee or equivalent
n/a
Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)
Borril, Dora M.
Notes
Dora Borril was a local writer and historian who staged plays for the Festival of Britain in 1951 (‘Plough Play Revived in Post-War Years’, Grimsby Telegraph, 2 May 2013, accessed 21 November 2016, http://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/plough-play-revived-post-war-years/story-18867511-detail/story.html)
Names of composers
n/a
Numbers of performers
n/a
Financial information
n/a
Object of any funds raised
n/a
Linked occasion
Coronation of Elizabeth II
Audience information
Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest
n/a
Associated events
n/a
Pageant outline
Scene I. The Chest on the River.
Scene II. The Groans of the Britons. AD 447.
Scene III. The Coming of Hengist and Horsa
Scene IV. A Tournament in the Middle Ages
Scene V. The Children of Henry VIII.
Scene VI. The Virgin Queen
Key historical figures mentioned
- Horsa (d. 455?) ruler in Kent
- Hengist (d. 488?) ruler in Kent
- Elizabeth I (1533–1603) queen of
England and Ireland
Musical production
n/a
Newspaper coverage of pageant
n/a
Book of words
n/a
Other primary published materials
- Coronation Souvenir programme for 'Pageant of History Barrow on Humber'; held 13-20th June 1953 to commemorate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II to the British Throne. Barrow-on-Humber 1953.
References in secondary literature
n/a
Archival holdings connected to pageant
- Hull History Centre, Hull. Typescript, reference U DDMM/29/21
Sources used in preparation of pageant
n/a
Summary
This was an example of the many relatively small-scale historical pageants held to commemorate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II (see entries for Sandy and Benfleet). In this case the driving force seems to have been Dora M. Borril, a local writer and historian: as well as being pageant master, Borril was author of the script. In terms of content, the pageant focused squarely on the pre-modern era, the culminating scene featuring a visit by the first queen Elizabeth. Good Queen Bess and Elizabeth Windsor were of course closely associated in 1953, the coronation of the latter being widely heralded as the dawn of a new ‘Elizabethan age’.
Footnotes
How to cite this entry
Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Barrow Pageant of History’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1377/