Pageants 24
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The Harrow Historical Pageant
The Harrow Historical Pageant was one of the first of the inter-war pageants to return to the traditional civic style of the pre-1914 movement (see also the entry for the Reading Historical Pageant... -
National Pageant of Wales
The National Pageant of Wales, which took place in Cardiff in 1909, was almost certainly the first major pageant to be staged in the principality, and remains to this day undoubtedly the largest. W... -
The Unsheathed Sword: Centenary Pageant at Reigate Priory
Reigate was no stranger to historical pageantry. A ‘Pilgrim’s Pageant’ was held there in May 1913 in celebration of a successful campaign to raise funds for the preservation of Colley Hill, a local... -
The Conway Pageant: Tableaux Vivant
The Tableaux Vivant was part of the more general Conway celebrations in 1927. For an analysis of both, see entry for Conway Pageant: Pageant Plays -
Beneath Hadrian's Tower: A Historical Pageant
This pageant was one of a great many held across the UK to mark the occasion of the queen's coronation in 1953. Owing to saturation coverage of the coronation and the royal family, as well as the a... -
The Pageant of London
The Pageant of London was the main attraction of the Festival of Empire at Crystal Palace in 1911. Undoubtedly the largest and most ambitious pageant of the Edwardian period, if not the whole twent... -
The Wisbech Pageant
The idea for a pageant in Wisbech was first mooted by the town’s Mayor, J.W.A. Ollard, in his inaugural speech in 1928, where he spoke of his ‘dream’ for a ‘monster’ pageant in the town.3 Such an e... -
The Pageant of Thornhill
The Pageant of Thornhill was an elaborate example of a post-war village pageant. It was one of the last pageants performed in West Yorkshire after the fiasco of the Bradford Centenary Pageant (1947... -
The Chelsea Historical Pageant
Performed in 1908, the Chelsea Pageant was part of the initial wave of ‘pageantitis’, and notably the first pageant to be staged within the capital. ‘Little Chelsea’, declared The Times, was ‘going... -
A Vision of Empire
‘A Vision of Empire’ was commissioned by the Daily Express in 1932 as part of the annual Empire Day celebrations. It was written to be a short pageant of only 30 minutes, conducted at ‘lightning sp... -
The Pageant of Newark
The Pageant of Newark was first proposed in July 1935 by Douglas P. Blatherwick, a local writer of plays and music, at a Town Hall meeting chaired by the Mayor, P.J.C. Staniland. From the beginning... -
Pageant of Hampshire History
Women’s Institute Pageants were highly popular during the 1920s and early 1930s, and county pageants were also greatly successful (see entries for the pageants of Staffordshire 1928 and Northampton... -
Pageant of Rushden
Though based on the Southbank of London, home of the famous ‘Skylon’, the 1951 Festival of Britain sought to have an impact across the regions through local exhibitions, concerts and events.4 The F... -
St Albans Pageant 1953: A Masque of the Queens
Having staged a pageant during the height of Edwardian ‘pageant fever’ in 1907, as well as one of the early post-war pageants in 1948, St Albans did it for the third time during the Coronation cele... -
A Pageant of Bristol Cathedral
A pageant was held to mark the 800th anniversary of Bristol Cathedral. Three performances were given in the nave of the cathedral. The focus of the pageant on the history of the cathedral, from its... -
Historical Pageant of Huntingdonshire
Huntingdon had not held a pageant since the wildly successful pageant at Hinchingbrooke in 1912, though there had been further pageants in the county (e.g., Buckden, 1932). Hinchingbrooke House.1 T... -
The Sherborne Pageant
The Sherborne Pageant of 1905 truly was ‘the mother of all pageants’, its style, organization and themes consequently and consistently replicated when ‘pageant fever’ swept the nation. It was the b... -
Welbeck Abbey Historical Pageant
According to the Historic Houses Association, ‘The Welbeck Estate covers some 15,000 acres, nestled between Sherwood Forest and Clumber Park. At its heart lies Welbeck Abbey, a stately home which d... -
The Pageant of Empire
The Pageant of Empire took place over the course of a wet six weeks in July and August 1924 in the huge newly-constructed concrete Wembley Stadium. It was just one attraction of the monumental Brit... -
The Butleigh Revel
The Sherborne Pageant held in Dorset in 1905 was the birth of modern pageantry, from which a number of different strands originated. For Louis Napoleon Parker, the Pageant Master at Sherborne, and ...