Waifs and Strays Pageant

Pageant type

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Performances

Place: Royal Albert Hall (Kensington) (Kensington, Middlesex, England)

Year: 1935

Indoors/outdoors: Indoors

Number of performances: 1

Notes

22 May 1935

Name of pageant master and other named staff

  • Pageant Master: Helder, C.G.E.
  • Director of Music: Dr Wheeler Robinson

Names of executive committee or equivalent

Executive Committee

  • Chairman: Colonel E. Wyndham
  • Duchess of York
  • Beatrix Wilkinson
  • Bishop of Southwark

Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)

Names of composers

n/a

Numbers of performers

1000

Financial information

n/a

Object of any funds raised

Funds raised for the Waifs and Strays Society

Linked occasion

Fifty-fourth anniversary of the society

Audience information

  • Grandstand: No
  • Grandstand capacity: n/a
  • Total audience: n/a

Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest

n/a

Associated events

After the pageant 1100 children were presented with purses of 10s.

Pageant outline

Episode 1. Alfred Making friends with the Danes after defeating them

Episode 2. The First Prince of Wales invested at Caernarvon

Episode 3. The Arrival of James VI of Scotland at Walton and is welcomed by the people of Essex

Episode 4. Symbolical allegory of the British Empire, Dominions and Colonies

Key historical figures mentioned

  • Alfred [Ælfred] (848/9–899) king of the West Saxons and of the Anglo-Saxons [also known as Aelfred, the Great]
  • Edward II [Edward of Caernarfon] (1284–1327) king of England and lord of Ireland, and duke of Aquitaine
  • James VI and I (1566–1625) king of Scotland, England, and Ireland

Musical production

Music performed by the Royal Amateur Orchestral Society

Newspaper coverage of pageant

The Times
Observer

Book of words

n/a

Other primary published materials

n/a

References in secondary literature

n/a

Archival holdings connected to pageant

n/a

Sources used in preparation of pageant

n/a

Summary

The pageant was one of several arranged by the Waifs and Strays Society held around the country, though it seems that different scripts were used for each pageant. The society had previously held pageants at Hyde in Manchester in 1927 and at Grasmere in 1932.1

Footnotes

1. ^ Manchester Guardian, 25 May 1927, 14; Manchester Guardian, 15 September 1932, 18.

How to cite this entry

Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Waifs and Strays Pageant’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1523/