Time’s Daughters
Pageant type
Notes
Organized by Bedford College.
Performances
Place: The Regent's Park (Regent's Park) (Regent's Park, London, England)
Year: 1930
Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors
Number of performances: 2
Notes
17 May 1930
The Pageant appears to have been repeated in the College Hall that evening.
Name of pageant master and other named staff
Producer and Writer [Pageant Master]: fforde, Phyllis
Names of executive committee or equivalent
n/a
Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)
- fforde, Phyllis
Names of composers
n/a
Numbers of performers
n/a
Financial information
n/a
Object of any funds raised
In aid of the Bedford College Extension fund.
Linked occasion
n/a
Audience information
- Grandstand: Not Known
- Grandstand capacity: n/a
- Total audience: n/a
Notes
Spectators had to be turned away, suggesting that attendance was large and that the pageant made a profit.
Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest
n/a
Associated events
n/a
Pageant outline
'Time's Daughters'
The scenes included a ‘kaleidoscope’ of huntresses of early England, Plantagenet queens and ladies weaving tapestry, Queen Elizabeth ‘dancing before the Spanish Ambassador, but not, if you please, to his tune’, before ending with ‘the Woman of To-day’ which focused on students of the college.[1]
[1] Zoë Thomas, ‘Historical Pageants, Citizenship, and the Performance of Women’s History before Second-Wave Feminism’, Twentieth Century British History, 28 (2017), pp. 319–43
Key historical figures mentioned
- Elizabeth I (1533–1603) queen of England and Ireland
Musical production
n/a
Newspaper coverage of pageant
Observer
Sheffield
Independent
Sphere
Yorkshire
Post
Bedford
College Magazine
Book of words
n/a
Other primary published materials
n/a
References in secondary literature
- Chapman, Siobhan. Susan Stebbing and the Language of Common Sense (Liverpool, 2013). At pp. 79-80.
- Thomas, Z. ‘Historical Pageants, Citizenship, and the Performance of Women’s History before Second-Wave Feminism’, Twentieth Century British History, 28 (2017). At pp. 340-2.
Archival holdings connected to pageant
n/a
Sources used in preparation of pageant
n/a
Summary
Bedford College was the first women’s institute for higher education in the United Kingdom; founded in 1849, it became part of the University of London in 1900. At a time when few women had opportunities to attend university, the college played an invaluable role. By 1913, when the college had moved to Regent’s Park, it had 300 students, which rapidly rose to 600 by the 1920s, owing to growing demand.1 This led to a push to expand the site, requiring funds, at least some of which were raised by a pageant, ‘Time’s Daughters’. The pageant, which featured the role of prominent women in British history, was evidently highly popular: spectators were turned away from Regent’s Park.2 As Zoe Thomas has argued, the pageant reflected a growing tradition of feminist historical pageants, which began with the Suffragette Pageant of Great Women (1909) and continued with a large number of pageants organized by county Women’s Institutes throughout the interwar period.
Nonetheless, the pageant met with sexist commentary from male journalists, with the reporter from the Observer commenting that ‘To a mere man, it seemed much more a conspiracy to demonstrate the splendid beauty and fitness of the girl student to-day, for these young women looked captivating enough in the period costumes with which they marched under the trees of the College garden and across the lime-lit stage of their fine new hall.’3
The College’s fundraising attempts were further boosted when Prince George attended a dinner in December of that year, which gave the press the opportunity for more sexist comments about the students.4 Building continued at Bedford College throughout the 1930s and after the Second World War (the site was hit by several bombs, with the faculty and students evacuated to Cambridge). The Regent’s Park site was given up after the college merged with Royal Holloway in 1985.5
Footnotes
1. ^ Negley Harte, University of London: An Illustrated History, 1836-1986 (London, 1986), p. 197.2. ^ Zoë Thomas, 'Historical Pageants, Citizenship, and the Performance of Women’s History before Second-Wave Feminism’, Twentieth Century British History, 28 (2017), p. 340.
3. ^ Observer, 18 May 1930, p. 21.
4. ^ Siobham Chapman, Susan Stebbing and the Language of Common Sense (Liverpool, 2013), pp. 79-80.
5. ^ Carol Dyhouse, 'Students: A Gendered History (London, 2016), pp. 155-71; ‘The 20th Century’, Royal Holloway Website, accessed 3 January 2018 <https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/aboutus/ourhistory/the20thcentury.aspx>.
How to cite this entry
Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Time’s Daughters’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1612/