Pageants 26

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  1. The Historical Pageant of Leicestershire
    The Leicester Pageant of 1932 was locally a major event, with twelve performances and a cast of 5000 performers, utilising the Edwardian pageantry tradition through one of the most successful and b...

  2. Arundel Historical Pageant
    ‘Astride mettlesome palfreys, four knights in armour will gallop to fight with lances set and pennons flying just as in the brave days of old—and all for the smiles of a fair lady!’5 The Arundel P...

  3. 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 ...

  4. George Herbert Tercentenary
    Pageants often attracted a range of eminent writers, poets, historians and other ‘literary types’. Examples include the historian Charles Oman in the 1907 Pageant of Oxford; the writer Arthur Quill...

  5. 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...

  6. Sir Walter Scott Centenary
    There were so many events taking place in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the death of Sir Walter Scott that it is not surprising that most passed without much fanfare. However, this part...

  7. 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...

  8. Wimbledon Park Pageant and Fair
    Pageants in the suburbs of London were popular during the 1920s and 1930s. If interwar London was to be defined by its suburbs, made famous as John Betjeman’s ‘Metroland’, pageants themselves were ...

  9. Hartshead Pageant of Robyn Hode
    Pageants were great opportunities for those who might charitably be called local enthusiasts—or, less charitably, cranks. The Reverend Harold N. Pobjoy, the Vicar of Hartshead, writer and local his...

  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. 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...

  12. Old Moreton 1589-1914
    In the early years of the twentieth century, Elizabethan revels held as added attractions during Merrie England-type fetes were ten a penny. However, that held in 1914 in the village of Odd Rode, C...

  13. The Wolsey Pageant
    The Wolsey Pageant was a mid-to-large scale event staged in Ipswich to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the town’s most famous son: Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. The pageant was directed and partly-w...

  14. The Pageant of Streatham (1951)
    The Streatham Pageant of 1951 was the third and seemingly final outing for the event first staged in 1925 and then again in 1936. It was staged in the Streatham Baths Hall instead of Streatham Hall...

  15. Berkshire Historical Pageant
    Women’s Institute (WI) Pageants were highly popular during the 1920s and early 1930s, and county pageants were especially successful. Other County WI pageants were held at the following: Norfolk (1...

  16. Scarborough Historical Pageant and Play
    ‘The verdict upon Scarborough’s Historical Pageant will be that financially it might have been a greater success; in every other respect it could not have been.’[1] So the Scarborough Mercury repor...

  17. 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...

  18. The Ipswich Pageant
    The Ipswich Pageant of 1951 was staged for a coincidental dual purpose: firstly, as part of the much wider Festival of Britain celebrations (alongside hundreds of others, for instance at Arundel, B...

  19. Jubilee Festival Historical Pageant
    The Monmouth Pageant of 1935, created by the English Folk Dance and Song Society of Monmouthshire, was staged twice in one day at a racecourse on Vauxhall Fields. It was in recognition of the natio...

  20. 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...