Festival of Cycling Pageant
Pageant type
Performances
Place: Dunlop Sports Field, Erdington (Birmingham) (Birmingham, Warwickshire, England)
Year: None
Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors
Number of performances: 1
Notes
23 June at 6.15pm
Name of pageant master and other named staff
- Festival President [Pageant Master]:
Kimberley, F.A.
- Festival Organiser: E.T. Bannister
- Commentators: Winifred Munday, A.P. Chamberlin and Reg. C. Shaw
Notes
Kimberley was President of The British Cycle and Motor Cycle Manufacturers Association.
Names of executive committee or equivalent
n/a
Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)
- McLachlan, D.D.
Names of composers
n/a
Numbers of performers
60Financial information
Sponsors of the Festival included the British Cycle and Motor Cycle Manufacturers TU, Gaumont and Odeon Theatres, National Cycling Union, National Clarion, Tricycle Association, and the National Association of Cycle Traders.
Object of any funds raised
n/a
Linked occasion
Part of the Festival of Cycling, 23-24 June 1951, which was itself a part of the Festival of Britain Celebrations.
Audience information
- Grandstand: Not Known
- Grandstand capacity: n/a
- Total audience: n/a
Notes
Free
Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest
n/a
Associated events
Other Events of the Festival of Cycling included Release of Pigeons, Parade of Clubs, Cycling Races, Bicycle Safety and Skill exhibitions, Tug o’war, Folk Dancing, Festival of Cycling Singers, Cabaret, Fireworks, Open-Air Church Service by the Archdeacon of Birmingham, and Bicycle Polo.
Pageant outline
Prologue
Episode One. Two-Legged Transport
Ancient Greeks light the Olympic torch and send a third Greek off on foot carrying the torch around the stadium.
Episode Two. Four-Legged Transport, Eighteenth Century
Dick Turpin on horseback starts his famous ride to York.
Episode Three. Two-Wheeled Transport – The Earliest Illustration 1640s
The first known illustration of a bicycle-shaped vehicle is installed, in the shape of a stained glass window, in Stoke Poges Church near Windsor, 1642. Tableau shows craftsmen of the period carrying the stained glass window as onlookers look suitably amazed.
Episode Four. The Bicycle – Feet on the Ground, 1760-1790
- Alternative One: A Phaeton in Fleet
Street, London
- Alternative Two (if a tableau of the
Phaeton cannot be produced): A Parisian carrying a toy Velocifere. Then De
Sivrac with his full-sized Velocifere
Episode Five. Feet Still on the Ground – The Hobby Horse, 1818
Baron Von Drais startles London with the Draisienne or Hobby Horse, startling a group of onlookers. Disraeli rides a hobby horse to the Houses of Parliament
Episode Six. Feet Off the Ground – The Bicycle is Born (1839-42)
MacMillan cycles along and arrives before Glasgow Magistrates. Before interested onlookers, he is fined 5s for knocking down a child on a side-path. Much shaking of heads as he rides away, seemingly unperturbed.
Episode Seven. MacMillan’s Design Departed From! – The Dear old ‘Boneshaker’ or Velocipede, 1869
Scene in Hyde Park with a group admiring the Boneshaker
Episode Eight. And Now the World-Famous ‘Penny Farthing!’, 1874-1890
The Commentator introduces ‘The Penny Farthing’, ‘which was the steed of the adventurous young men of the period, contributed nothing to cycle design, but what a thrill to our grand-parents or great-parents who rode it!’
[Alterative of a tableau of three girls ‘crazy about the adventurous “young blood” on his Penny Farthing, just as modern teenager girls go crazy over Motor-Cycle Speedway riders!’]
[Alternative Two: Set in the (topical) Battersea Park (current site of Festival Gardens) where the ‘smart set’ of the 1880s and 1890s meet, where both men and women cycles.]
Episode Nine. And Now the Bicycle is Really Born – As A Commercial Proposition, 1885.
J.K. Starley against the background of the Stock Exchange with gentleman bidding up bicycle stocks and shares. The Commentator tells the story of the ‘Bicycle Boom’.
Episode Ten. It’s the Great Year of 1888!
The annus mirabilis of cycling. J.B. Dunlop has invented the pneumatic tyre, the cyclists are given freedom of the highway. Tableau of Dunlop being given a copy of the Act of 1888 and then winning a race on his pneumatic-tyred machine.
Episode Eleven. The Bicycle As We Know It To-Day.
We move from a 1900 girl to a 1920s girl to the Clubgirls to-day on bicycles, set against a country inn.
Episode Twelve. The Bicycle as a Dollar-Earner and a vital British Export.
A final tableau of cyclists in the costumes of the USA, South America, British West Africa, Malaya, India, Canada, Rhodesia and New Zealand on modern British bicycles draped in their countries’ flags. This is followed by a British Club Girl and Clubman Cyclist, one with the Union Jack and the Saltire. Fallowed by standard-bearers with flags of the CTC, NCU, National Clarion, and Tricycle Association.
Epilogue.
The Runner from the Prologue mounts a modern bicycle and cycles around the stadium with his torch alight. The Narrator declares:
In this Festival Year, we send a message throughout the world that this Game of Cycling which we love will go from strength to strength in the years to come!
God Save the King is sung.
Key historical figures mentioned
- Turpin, Richard [Dick] (bap. 1705, d.
1739) highwayman
- Disraeli, Benjamin, earl of Beaconsfield
(1804–1881) prime minister and novelist
- Macmillan, Kirkpatrick (bap. 1812, d.
1878) inventor of the pedal bicycle
- Starley, John Kemp (1855–1901) bicycle
manufacturer
- Dunlop, John Boyd (1840–1921) inventor
of the pneumatic tyre
Musical production
n/a
Newspaper coverage of pageant
n/a
Book of words
- None noted
Other primary published materials
- Festival of Cycling: Programme. London, 1951.
References in secondary literature
n/a
Archival holdings connected to pageant
- Warwick Modern Records Centre. Copy Programme and typescript of the Pageant, Reference MSS.328/C/3/5/1
Sources used in preparation of pageant
n/a
Summary
The 1951 Festival of Britain was the occasion for many historical pageants (see Coventry and Wollaston), of which the Festival of Cycling Pageant was certainly one of the more unconventional. Most of these took the form of celebrations of the history of particular localities. This pageant, however, told the story of the development of the bicycle, and the pastime of cycling. It was held as part of the Festival of Cycling, itself an element of the wider Festival of Britain, but it was evidently also something of a publicity stunt for the bicycle industry. The event itself was held at the Dunlop Sports Field, which was in the grounds of the Dunlop Rubber factory complex in the Erdington district of Birmingham: unsurprisingly, J.B. Dunlop, inventor of the pneumatic tyre in 1888 (‘the annus mirabilis of cycling’), got an episode to himself. Aside from Dunlop, other sponsors included the National Association of Cycle Traders and the British Cycle and Motor Cycle Manufacturers Association whose head, F.A. Kimberley, officiated as president of the pageant.
Footnotes
How to cite this entry
Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Festival of Cycling Pageant’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1469/