Bexhill Historical Pageant

Pageant type

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Performances

Place: Egerton Park (Bexhill) (Bexhill, Sussex, England)

Year: 1927

Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors

Number of performances: 3

Notes

20–23 July 1927

[20 July at 4.15pm and 8pm; an extra performance was put on 23 July, at 8pm]

Name of pageant master and other named staff

  • Pageant Master: Kirwan, Patrick
  • Stage Manager: Mrs E.H. Gandy

Names of executive committee or equivalent

n/a

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

  • Millens, Major W.H.

Names of composers

  • Byrd, William
  • Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich 

Numbers of performers

600

Financial information

n/a

Object of any funds raised

n/a

Linked occasion

Part of a Civic Festival commemorating the Charter of Incorporation of Bexhill in 1902. 

Audience information

  • Grandstand: Yes
  • Grandstand capacity: 1000
  • Total audience: 5000 - 10000

Notes

Audiences of 5000 were noted on 20 July with all performances sold out, Bexhill-on-Sea [Observer, 23 July 1927, 9].

Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest

2s.

Associated events

Events for 20 July:

  • Noon – a drumhead service and community singing at the Town Hall
  • Luncheon at the Sackville Hotel
  • Parade through the Town
  • Cars with tableaux
  • Military tattoo and fireworks
  • An inspection of Territorial Troops by Lord Leconfield

Pageant outline

Prologue

A Solitary Figure in Black discovers the figure of Harold’s body after the Battle of Hastings. Aldwyth [Ealdgyth], wife of Harold, finds the body with Edith [likely to have been Eadgifu], Harold’s illicit love, although the two are united in death. Count William arrives and asks whose body it is. As Harold’s body is taken away, William prophesies the future of England.

Episode One. 1070. English taking the oath of allegiance to Robert of Eu

After various figures pledge allegiance, Count Robert promises them protection and is acclaimed by the crowd.

Episode Two. 1148. John, Count of Eu, restored his possession of Bexhill

There is merrymaking and a May Queen is crowned. Egelfleda comes to crave protection from the lawless lust of one of Stephen’s Barons. King Stephen, with the Bishop of Chichester, crushes the Barons’ power and preserves the freedoms of the English people.

Interlude.

Episode Three. 1492. A Review by Henry VII of the Sailors and men of Bexhill

Henry reviews the men about to fight on behalf of the Cinque Ports.

Episode Four. 1570. Queen Elizabeth’s Grant of the Manor of Bexhill to Lord Buckhurst

A Tudor revel is thrown in the Queen’s honour as the Queen enters. An interlude is performed before the Queen, before she confirms the grant of Downland Manor to Lord Buckhurst. They dance a Pavane, before a final madrigal is performed as the Queen exits.

Episode Five. 1670. John Ashburnham greeting Charles II

Charles is on his way to Dover with Henrietta Maria, the Duchess of Orleans and the Court.

Episode Six. 1806. The Bexhill Militia

Recruiting for the Militia to defend England from invasion. Bexhill’s unit is on its way to join the great review by the Duke of York at Eastbourne. [Performed by members of the British Legion].

Episode Seven. Little Common Smugglers

A farce of smugglers evading the authorities.

Display of Modern Military of the Royal Engineers of ‘B’ Company (Cinque Ports)

Military Tattoo

Key historical figures mentioned

  • Harold II [Harold Godwineson] (1022/3?–1066) king of England
  • Eadgifu [Eddeua] the Fair [the Rich] (fl. 1066) magnate
  • Ealdgyth [Aldgyth] (fl. c.1057–1066) queen of England, consort of Harold II
  • William I [known as William the Conqueror] (1027/8–1087) king of England and duke of Normandy
  • Stephen (c.1092–1154) king of England
  • Hilary (c.1110–1169) bishop of Chichester
  • Henry VII (1457–1509) king of England and lord of Ireland
  • Elizabeth I (1533–1603) queen of England and Ireland
  • Sackville, Thomas, first Baron Buckhurst and first earl of Dorset (c.1536–1608) poet and administrator
  • Henrietta Maria [Princess Henrietta Maria of France] (1609–1669) queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland, consort of Charles I
  • Ashburnham, John (1602/3–1671) courtier and politician
  • Henriette Anne [formerly Henrietta], Princess, duchess of Orléans (1644–1670)
  • Charles II (1630–1685) king of England, Scotland, and Ireland

Musical production

Music performed by Bexhill String Orchestra. Included various Pavannes and courtly dances, Byrd, ‘Earl of Oxford’s March’, and Tchaikovsky's, ‘1812 Overture’.

Newspaper coverage of pageant

Bexhill on Sea Observer
Sussex Agricultural Express
Sevenoaks Chronicle and Kentish Advertiser
Kent and Sussex Courier
Portsmouth Evening News
Daily Telegraph
Daily Express
The Times
Daily Mail
Daily Chronicle
Daily Mirror
Hastings and St Leonards Observer

Book of words

n/a

Other primary published materials

n/a

References in secondary literature

n/a

Archival holdings connected to pageant

  • Film of the pageant, ‘Bexhill Pageant’, accessed 28 March 2017, available at Southeast Screen Archive, http://screenarchive.brighton.ac.uk/detail/444/

Sources used in preparation of pageant

  • Mullens, William Herbert. A Short History of Bexhill. Bexhill, 1927.

Summary

For a town with a very short span of history, Bexhill’s pageant may have seemed presumptuous. It was part of an outbreak of pageant fever on the south coast seaside towns during the 1920s and 1930s—other victims included Sandwich (1926) and Battle (1932). The Bexhill Pageant was also conscious of a French pageant held in Falaise in Normandy to commemorate the nine-hundredth anniversary of the birth of William the Conqueror.1 Its Pageant Master, Patrick Kirwan, had previously put on successful pageants at Arundel Castle (1923) and Wimbledon (1925) and had acted as assistant to Frank Lascelles at the great Wembley Festival of Empire Pageant (1924). 

Whilst recruitment of volunteers was evidently quite successful, there were fears that the advertising committee had manifestly failed to carry out its task, with the Bexhill on Sea Observer observing that ‘the Pageant is only vaguely understood by some people. It may be their own fault for not trying to obtain more information with regard to a matter which should concern them, or the lack of knowledge may be due, as we have heard it suggested, to faulty methods of publicity.’ It added that ‘We know it is said that although Bexhill takes time to warm to any new thing, it is never found wanting in the end, and its enthusiasm is all the greater for the process of slow combustion.’2 Nonetheless, it felt able by early July to declare marked signs of progress for the pageant and civic festivities, declaring that ‘one may safely prophesy that the pageant will not be a failure through any fault of the performers.’3

In the event, however, things did not go without a hitch. After the first performances on 20 July, a ‘Spectator’ wrote in indignation to the Bexhill on Sea Observer that 

Many people would like to know who was responsible for the deplorable muddle on July 20th… The processions and pageant overlapped so that it was impossible for most people to see more than one of these events, and the evening show in Polegrove was not worth seeing at all. It merely held the town up to ridicule after all the wonderful things that had been promised.4

Despite this hiccup, caused by a slow procession and an utterly-underwhelming and disorganized military tattoo, the pageant, which sold well, seemed also to be well received: an extra performance was arranged for 23 July for those who had been unable to get a ticket to the first two performances. It seems that despite everything that evidently did go wrong, the pageant was a success. On 30 July, the Mayor declared that ‘whatever other people might think of the pageant he was perfectly satisfied, and he thought the members of the Council would agree, that it was a huge success.’ He added that there was a ‘certainty that it would be very good propaganda for the town’, and noted how widely it was advertised.5

 The Bexhill on Sea Observer’s ultimate pronouncement was a mixed one, declaring that ‘By universal consent the pageant was a beautiful spectacle, worthy in every respect of an historic celebration’ and that the pageant had generated a ‘large amount of publicity for Bexhill at the beginning of its summer season.’ However, it added that ‘Over the tattoo fiasco one is disposed to draw a charitable veil’.6 Nonetheless, the council’s refusal to publish financial records, having already levied a penny-rate on the town, drew significant criticism, with a Mr H. Bond asking why, if the pageant had sold every seat, it appeared that the pageant had not in fact made any money: ‘what would the ratepayers have been saddled with had the weather been really bad?’7]

The Bexhill Pageant commemorated a small but memorable milestone in the history of a young town through recounting its illustrious pre-history, as well as that of the surrounding area. The pageant also attested to taxpayer reluctance and hostility towards council spending on pageants, which would only grow more pronounced in the coming decades.

Footnotes

1. ^ Bexhill on Sea Observer, 30 April 1927, 10
2. ^ Bexhill on Sea Observer, 4 June 1927, 4.
3. ^ Bexhill on Sea Observer, 2 July 1927, 2.
4. ^ Bexhill on Sea Observer, 30 July 1927, 9
5. ^ Ibid., 7.
6. ^ Ibid., 4.
7. ^ Bexhill on Sea Observer, 19 November 1927, 3.

How to cite this entry

Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Bexhill Historical Pageant’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1529/