Arundel Pageant
Other names
- 'Sussex by the Sea’
Pageant type
Performances
Place: Arundel Park (Arundel) (Arundel, Sussex, England)
Year: 1951
Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors
Number of performances: 1
Notes
19 May 1951
[Afternoon]
Name of pageant master and other named staff
Names of executive committee or equivalent
n/a
Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)
Names of composers
n/a
Numbers of performers
1000The performers were children
Financial information
n/a
Object of any funds raised
n/a
Linked occasion
1951 Festival of Britain
Audience information
- Grandstand: Not Known
- Grandstand capacity: n/a
- Total audience: 5000
Notes
Source: The Times, 21 May 1951, 2.
Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest
n/a
Associated events
n/a
Pageant outline
Passing of the Romans and the sack of a British village by Picts
Arrival of Hengist and Horsa and their welcoming of Vortigern
Battle of Hastings
George IV takes a dip at Brighton from a bathing box
The Laying of the Foundation Stone of Christ’s Hospital in 1897
Youth at Work and Play Today
Finale
Key historical figures mentioned
- Hengist (d. 488?) ruler in Kent
- Horsa (d. 455?) ruler in Kent
- Vortigern [Gwrtheyrn] (fl. 5th cent.)
ruler in Britain
- George IV (1762–1830) king of the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and king of Hanover
Musical production
n/a
Newspaper coverage of pageant
The
Times
Manchester
Guardian
Portsmouth
Evening News
Book of words
- None known
Other primary published materials
- ‘Sussex By Sea’: Pageant. Arundel, 1951.
References in secondary literature
n/a
Archival holdings connected to pageant
- Copy of Programme in National Archives, Kew, Reference D1/FOB 3672-3674
- Details of a film made of the pageant at the BFI Collections Website, accessed 16 January 2016, http://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/Details/ChoiceFilmWorks/150591804
Sources used in preparation of pageant
n/a
Summary
The Pageant was one of hundreds held across the Festival of Britain to celebrate the 1951 Festival of Britain (see entries for Brighton and Rochester). This was the first major pageant in Arundel since the great Arundel Pageant of 1923 and involved over a thousand children from local youth clubs. The Battle of Hastings scene included members of the Crawley and Horsham Hunt as mounted Norman knights.1 The Pageant was watched by five thousand spectators, as well as Princess Elizabeth (the future Elizabeth II), hosted by the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk, the occupants of Arundel Castle (though the Duke, who had featured prominently in 1923 had very little to do with the 1951 Pageant). The Princess addressed the children afterwards, declaring that ‘they who portrayed the past, held the future in their hands, and would all in some degree affect the course of history. By learning now to be good citizens, their influence could not fail to be good.’2
How to cite this entry
Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Arundel Pageant’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1374/