Dunstable Pageant

Pageant type

Notes

Entry researched by Chloe Ratcliffe, King’s College London Undergraduate Research Fellow.

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Performances

Place: Priory Meadow (Dunstable) (Dunstable, Bedfordshire, England)

Year: 1963

Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors

Number of performances: 7

Notes

24–29 June 1963

[In the evenings, with an additional matinee on Saturday 29 June.]

Name of pageant master and other named staff

  • Pageant Master: Williams, Dorian
  • Stands and Ground: Mr R.F. Carrington
  • Box Office and Seating: Councillor W.T. Lack O.B.E
  • Costumes: Mrs. I.E. Smith
  • Transport: Mr D.J. Smith
  • Master of the Horse: Mr. W. Hill.
  • Arena facilities: Mr D.G. Pope
  • Communications: Mr J. Baxter

Notes

The original Pageant Master was Mr. Cyril Swinson but he died on 3 January 

Names of executive committee or equivalent

General Committee

  • President: His Worship the Mayor of Dunstable
  • Chairman of Executive Committee: Councillor L. Palmer
  • Vice Chairmen: Alderman M.L. Kilby and Canon C. Mackonochie
  • Hon. Treasurer: Mr B.C. Cartland
  • Patron: Major Simon Whitbread, Lord Lieutenant of Bedfordshire
  • Hon. Secretary: Mr. H. Stew
  • Assistant Hon. Secretary: Miss B. Allen

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

n/a

Linked occasion

n/a

Audience information

  • Grandstand: Yes
  • Grandstand capacity: 2000
  • Total audience: n/a

Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest

n/a

Associated events

n/a

Pageant outline

Key historical figures mentioned

n/a

Musical production

n/a

Newspaper coverage of pageant

Luton News

Book of words

n/a

Other primary published materials

  • Dunstable Pageant, 24-29 June 1963. [Dunstable, 1963].

References in secondary literature

  • Freeman, Mark. ‘“Splendid Display; Pompous Spectacle”: Historical Pageants in Twentieth-Century Britain’. Social History, 38, no. 4 (2013): 423-455.

Archival holdings connected to pageant

  • Bedfordshire Archives and Records, Bedford. Correspondence regarding the Pageant, reference LC/ROY1/11.

Sources used in preparation of pageant

n/a

Summary

This seems to have been quite a large-scale pageant, involving about one thousand performers. Held over six days, it seems to have been a success­—since an extra matinee performance was put on at the end of the run. The Pageant Master was to have been Cyril Swinson, one of the more important pageanteers of the post-1945 period, but he died in January the same year. The scale and apparent success of the event suggests that the pageant form retained considerable vitality into the early 1960s, at least in some places.

Footnotes

How to cite this entry

Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Dunstable Pageant’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1534/