Pageant of Empire, Edinburgh
Pageant type
Performances
Place: Music Hall in the Assembly Rooms, George St. (Edinburgh) (Edinburgh, City Of Edinburgh, Scotland)
Year: 1927
Indoors/outdoors: Indoors
Number of performances: 1
Notes
24 March 1927
The pageant began at 8pm. The Music Hall is situated in the Assembly Rooms in George Street, Edinburgh. This prestigious venue is situated in the city's famed Georgian New Town and was purpose-built to house public events. At the time of writing, the hall has a capacity to seat 788 people.
Name of pageant master and other named staff
Pageant master: Rowland, Mrs Charles
Notes
The pageant was organised by the Lothian branches of the British Women's Guild of Empire.
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
The number of performers is unknown; but it is likely that all or most were adult women and young girls.
Financial information
n/a
Object of any funds raised
Women's Guild of Empire, Lothian region.
Linked occasion
n/a
Audience information
- Grandstand: No
- Grandstand capacity: n/a
- Total audience: 750 - 700
Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest
4s 9d.–1s 2d.
Admission cost 4s 9d, 2s 4d, and 1s 2d [Scotsman, 24 March 1927, 1]. A dress rehearsal was held a few days before the performance proper (exact date unknown); evidently the press were admitted to this, but if a larger audience attended, no note of this has been recovered [Scotsman, 23 March 1927, 14].
Associated events
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Pageant outline
Ballet of the Gardens of Britain
The pupils of Miss Isobel Ross performed a ballet. 'Deep blue draperies formed an effective background' to the dancing, which was performed by girls dressed in 'dainty flower frocks'. A butterfly dance and a rose dance were part of this programme; and a 'chorus of greenwoods, heaths, hills, and streams of Britain accompanied the main dancing tableaux, with these performers hailing from the west Lothian town of Broxburn and from Lasswade, a small town south of Edinburgh. [Synopsis based on 'Empire Pageant', Scotsman, 25 March 1927, 7.]
Cabot Embarking from Bristol
The explorer, John Cabot, is seen in Bristol surrounded by ' a crowd of wondering citizens' before embarkation on his voyage of discovery to the Americas during the reign of Henry VII.
Early settlers in America
The settlers are seen being raided 'by a party of delightful young Indians who crept on to the stage like bunnies, on all fours, the lust of battle in their eyes'.
Scottish Settlers in Australia
Settlers in Australia welcome 'a newcomer from the homeland'; all 'join forces to combat a bush fire'.
Procession of British Dominions
A parade of performers wearing costumes and carrying emblems representative of the dominions took place.
The National Anthem
Singing of the national anthem closed the pageant.
Key historical figures mentioned
- Cabot, John [Zuan
Caboto] (c.1451–1498) navigator
Musical production
Music was live. A newspaper review states that 'Miss Fordyce Andrew's Choir provided singing' ['Empire Pageant', Scotsman, 25 March 1927, 7].
Newspaper coverage of pageant
Scotsman
Book of words
n/a
Other primary published materials
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References in secondary literature
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Archival holdings connected to pageant
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Sources used in preparation of pageant
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Summary
The Women's Guild of Empire was one of many organizations that promoted popular forms of imperialism in the interwar years. Formed sometime after World War I, it was the brainchild of the formidable former socialist Flora Drummond, and at its peak, the Guild had over thirty branches with tens of thousands of members.1 The main object of the Guild's propaganda was working class women, and it was instrumental in promoting the emigration of many such women to the dominions. Foremost in the Guild's philosophy was anti-communism and the promotion of better relations between employers and the employed. It opposed industrial action and campaigned against the General Strike of 1926. Following this, the Guild and its leader were especially active in recruiting new members: events such as this pageant, held early in 1927, were therefore important for spreading the organization's core beliefs. The well-travelled Drummond attended the pageant herself and gave a speech; in this she stated that the aim of the performance was to be educative 'and the lesson they wished to teach was that one of the great ways of solving unemployment was to trade with our own Empire'.2 The pageant master—Mrs Charles Rowland—was local and well-known in amateur dramatic circles;3 and the performers were all members of the Guild or sympathisers with the Guild's right-wing, patriotic message. Drummond proclaimed that they 'of the Guild loved their country and were never tired of saying so'.4
Before re-inventing herself as a stalwart promoter of the British Empire, Drummond had achieved nationwide fame as an organizer with the Women's Social and Political Union. In particular, she had been responsible for many of the processions, some of which had a historical theme, that were undertaken by women suffragists. In this capacity, she was known as 'the General' because of her fondness for leading parades on horseback and wearing quasi-military costume. The pageant held in the Assembly Rooms in 1927 would therefore have been right up her street in terms of her evident fondness for drama. Unfortunately, a programme for the Edinburgh event has not been recovered and it received only a small amount of press coverage; thus we know little about its narrative content, but that which has come to light indicates that it told a general story of British exploration and settlement overseas but also highlighted the role of Scots in these endeavours. The latter was the case in at least one episode, which depicts the colonization of Australia.
It is possible that similar events organized by the Guild were held in other parts of the UK (there were similar imperial pageants organized primarily by women in Bristol in 1946 and 1949). The Scotsman newspaper, which reviewed the pageant, makes no note of the extent of the audience. However, it is likely this was of a respectable size given the continued popularity of Conservative-Unionist politics in the capital at this time, within which, as Chrisopher Harvie has remarked, the Scottish Unionists promoted themselves as 'the patriotic party of the "Anglo-Scottish" Empire'.5 Whatever else about this pageant, it would certainly have been an intensively patriotic display.
Footnotes
1. ^ For information about Drummond see entry by Kay Blackwell in Elizabeth Ewan et al (eds.) The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women (Edinburgh, 2006), 102-3; and Krista Cowman, ‘Drummond , Flora McKinnon (1878–1949)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online, accessed 7 February 2107 at: http://www.oxforddnb.com/index/39/101039177/
2. ^ 'Empire Pageant', Scotsman, 25 March 1927, 7.
3. ^ Mrs Charles Rowland's name appears in many notices in the Scotsman in association with amateur theatre. See, for example, Scotsman, 24 March 1933, 6 and 19 November 1934, 9.
4. ^ 'Empire Pageant', Scotsman, 25 March 1927, 7.
5. ^ Christopher Harvie, 'Scottish Politics', in A. Dickson and J.H. Treble (eds.) People and Society in Scotland , Vol. III, 1914-1900 (Edinburgh, 1998), 247.
How to cite this entry
Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Pageant of Empire, Edinburgh’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1444/