Pageants 21

A map will be displayed here shortly.

  1. The Dover Pageant
    Dover’s staging of a historical folk-play in 1908 was a nationally important and spectacular example of an Edwardian town gripped by ‘pageantitis’. Directed by the original master himself, Louis Na...

  2. Bilston Historical Pageant
    Bilston is a town in the heart of the Black Country whose industries were historically focused on coalmining, stone quarrying, iron and steel production, buckle and lock making, and manufacturing i...

  3. Silver Jubilee Pageant
    There was a revival of historical pageantry in 1977 on the occasion of the queen’s silver jubilee, and David Clarke’s pageant in Guildford was one of the most notable examples. Clarke had worked wi...

  4. The Isle of Wight Pageant
    Historical pageants were always demonstrations of civic defiance or loyalty towards authority, emphasizing the importance of a place in wider national history, of which the 1907 Historical Pageant ...

  5. Wallingford Charter Celebrations Pageant
    Wallingford lies roughly equidistant on the road between Reading and Oxford, just on the western edge of the Chiltern Hills. Though in 1951 its population was only 3514, it was able to celebrate a ...

  6. Battle Abbey Pageant
    Pageants were often promoted as a means of boosting the status of the place in which they were held, acting as an advertisement of a town, city, or a region. Unfortunately, pageants were often resp...

  7. Reigate Pageant
    The town of Reigate was no stranger to pageants. It had previously held pageants in 1913, 1933, 1935, and had been planning a Pageant to celebrate the Coronation of George VI since December 1936.[1...

  8. Tonbridge Juvenile Pageant
    J.F. Ash, the librarian and registrar at the local school, wrote and organized the pageant over the course of just six weeks. As its title suggests, the cast of nearly seven hundred was largely mad...

  9. Berkhamsted Pageant Play, 1922
    Berkhamsted pageant play was performed four times from Wednesday 5 to Saturday 8 July 1922.3 The week was beset with poor weather, with rain interrupting every performance except one.4 A souvenir b...

  10. 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...

  11. Tamworth Millenary Celebrations and Tableaux
    A letter to the Tamworth Herald in February 1911 reminded readers that the town was coming up to the millennium of the founding of the castle by Ethelfleda, Queen of the Mercians in 913:Sir, - In t...

  12. Buckingham Pageant and Bazaar
    This was one of very few pageants held in the small rural county of Buckinghamshire. Despite the pageant being held under the auspices of the Buckingham Methodists, it seems to have involved many p...

  13. Dartford Division of Kent Historical Pageant
    The Dartford Historical Pageant was one of the final civic extravaganzas produced by the famous pageant master Frank Lascelles. In his typical fashion,1 the pageant was a large and spectacular affa...

  14. The Oxford Millenary Pageant
    The Oxford Millenary Pageant was a relatively small event, staged to coincide with and illustrate the wider celebrations of this anniversary. Its Pageant Master was William Bridges Adams, a theatre...

  15. 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...

  16. Grand 1066 Pageant to Commemorate the 900th Anniversary of the Battle of Hastings
    The Grand 1066 Pageant to Commemorate the 900th Anniversary of the Battle of Hastings was a pageant almost entirely in name only, which shows how wider national commemoration had shifted away from ...

  17. Winchester National Pageant
    The 1908 Winchester Pageant was, like those held in Sherborne (1905), Romsey (1907), and Oxford (1907), one of the crowning achievements of Edwardian historical pageantry, genuinely living up to it...

  18. A Pageant of Monarchy
    This was one of the many pageants in Surrey produced by David Clarke, who had worked with Christopher Ede on the Guildford pageant of 1957, and had himself produced the 1968 Guildford pageant. Like...

  19. The Salisbury Peace Pageant
    The Peace Pageant of Salisbury was the main event of the celebrations in the city following the Treaty of Versailles. It took place a week after the first official Peace Day of 19 July 1919—somewha...

  20. Pageant of York
    The alleged 1900th anniversary of the founding of the city of York in 1971 was employed by the city council to stage a yearlong programme of celebrations. The varied programme produced was without ...