Mitcham Pageant

Pageant type

Notes

Information drawn from 'Survey of Historical Pageants' undertaken by Mick Wallis; with thanks to Heather Constance of Merton Heritage and Local Studies Centre.

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Performances

Place: The Green (?) (Mitcham) (Mitcham, Surrey, England)

Year: 1922

Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors

Number of performances: 1

Notes

22 June 1922

The venue of the pageant performance was probably Mitcham Cricket Green.

Name of pageant master and other named staff

  • Director [Pageant Master]: Devenish, Mrs Weston

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

n/a

Financial information

n/a

Object of any funds raised

n/a

Linked occasion

The Coronation of King George V.

Audience information

Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest

n/a

Associated events

  • Street procession
  • Sports events

Pageant outline

Key historical figures mentioned

  • Elizabeth I (1533–1603) queen of England and Ireland

Musical production

n/a

Newspaper coverage of pageant

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Book of words

n/a

Other primary published materials

n/a

References in secondary literature

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Archival holdings connected to pageant

  • Merton Heritage and Local Studies Centre holds a copy of the programme, as well as some photographs.

Sources used in preparation of pageant

n/a

Summary

This is an early example of an historical pageant held to celebrate a coronation, in this case that of George V in 1911. The years before the First World War saw great enthusiasm for all things Elizabethan. This was reflected in rising popularity of mock-Tudor architecture, the ‘Merrie England’ preoccupations of the folk song and dance revival, and the burgeoning of an increasingly commodified Shakespeare cult. These were the years that saw Stratford-upon-Avon establish itself as a major tourist destination, and the staging of ‘Shakespeare’s England’, a massively elaborate summer-long exhibition at Earl’s Court in London, featuring life-size models of Tudor buildings and a replica of the Revenge, one of the ships that helped fend off the Spanish Armada in 1588.1

The focus of the Mitcham pageant accorded with such developments; indeed, the pageant was entirely concentrated on the Elizabethan period, paying particular attention to one of the several visits to the locality made by the queen. The action culminated with a scene portraying the bringing of the news that the Spanish Armada had set sail for England.

Photographs from the time indicate that there was also a procession of performers through Mitcham.


1 Paul Readman, ‘The place of the Past in English Culture, c.1890-1914’, Past and Present, 186 (2005), esp. 166-8

Footnotes

How to cite this entry

Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Mitcham Pageant’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1595/