Pageants 21
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The Warwick Pageant
The success of the Sherborne Pageant attracted a good deal of notice, particularly in places with claims to long or illustrious histories. One of these places was the town of Warwick, site of an im... -
Ramsgate Historical Pageant and Charter Jubilee Celebrations
A number of coastal resorts such as Torquay (1924) held pageants to commemorate their histories, as well as to draw tourists during the season. The Ramsgate Historical Pageant was certainly one of ... -
The Pageant of Essex
Following on from the Barking Pageant in 1931, the larger-in-scope Pageant of Essex was staged in summer 1932 to raise money for the newly opened King George Hospital in Ilford. Directed by Frank L... -
Warwickshire Coronation Pageant
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 Cec... -
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... -
Pageant of Dudley, 1908
The Dudley Pageant, held at the height of ‘Pageant Fever’ in 1908, was conceived around the same time as major pageants in Dover, Bath, and Bury St Edmunds.2 However, compared to others of the time... -
The Kenilworth Castle Pageant
The Kenilworth Castle Pageant was another landmark pageantry event in Warwickshire, following the Warwick pageants of 1906 and 1930. Despite being billed as a ‘Kenilworth’ pageant, it depended on v... -
Oxford Historical Pageant
The Oxford Historical Pageant of 1907 was a major civic event, and took place in the grounds of Magdalen College. Despite being wholly a part of the initial outburst of pageant fever, it was one of... -
The Pageant of Ewelme
Ewelme is a small village in the Chiltern Hills in South Oxfordshire with a population of a thousand (2011); it has the distinction of having featured on the TV series Midsomer Murders.[1] This was... -
A Pageant of Bristol and the West
Bristol’s was the last major pageant held before the First World War and there was a distinct feeling that the place had come late to the party—after major West Country pageants at Sherborne, Bath,... -
A Historical Pageant Held at Westcroft Park
Staged in the grounds of Westcroft Park, and organised by the Woking Group of Women’s Institutes, this was a fairly small pageant: it was performed just once, on the afternoon of 27 June 1928. It i... -
The Pageant of Dudley, 1951
Dudley had previously held a pageant in 1908, staged by children on the same site as the 1951 pageant. This had been a great success seen by thousands. Although a small place often eclipsed by near... -
Lady Godiva Procession and Pageant
Pageantry was an ancient tradition in Coventry, dating back to medieval times. The comparatively recent Godiva Procession, to commemorate Lady Godiva’s famous ride through the town during the eleve... -
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 Walthamstow Pageant 1930
The Walthamstow Pageant of 1930 was staged to commemorate the granting of a Charter of Borough Incorporation the previous year. It took place indoors at the plush Palace Theatre, an impressive buil... -
Norfolk Federation of Women’s Institutes Pageant
Women’s Institute Pageants were highly popular during the 1920s and early 1930s, with the WI’s ‘county’ pageants being particularly successful. Other County Women’s Institute pageants were held at ... -
The Colchester Pageant
The Observer newspaper wrote of the Colchester Pageant that ‘it was inevitable, in these days of pageants, that Colchester should sooner or later seek to prove its claim to be considered, in many r... -
The Pageant of England
If one were in search of England in the 1930s, as so many contemporaries from H.V. Morton to J.B. Priestley to George Orwell seemed to be, one could do worse than head to Slough. The army had set u... -
The Spirit of Warwickshire
Parker’s spectacular 1906 pageant had made a great impression on the people of Warwick; as the Tamworth Herald reported in January 1930, the event ‘was still spoken of in the county as “The Pageant... -
Rochester Historical Pageant
Tom Hulme has written about interwar Civic Boosterism through Pageantry, whereby cities competed to raise their profile and, often combined with industrial and trades exhibitions, sought to boost t...