Pageants 20

A map will be displayed here shortly.

  1. The Dover Pageant
    Dover’s staging of a historical folk-play in 1908 was a nationally important and spectacular example of an Edwardian town gripped by ‘pageantitis’. Directed by the original master himself, Louis Na...

  2. National Pageant of Wales
    The National Pageant of Wales, which took place in Cardiff in 1909, was almost certainly the first major pageant to be staged in the principality, and remains to this day undoubtedly the largest. W...

  3. The Grand Empire Pageant 1909
    The Grand Empire Pageant of 1909 programme was one of several imperial-themed pageants held before 1914, designed to instil patriotism and military values among participants and spectators (see Bat...

  4. Oxford Pageant of Victory
    From the book of words and its references to several hundred participants in some scenes, this appears to have been a very large pageant, and was one of a number held in the aftermath of the First ...

  5. The Pageant of London
    The Pageant of London was the main attraction of the Festival of Empire at Crystal Palace in 1911. Undoubtedly the largest and most ambitious pageant of the Edwardian period, if not the whole twent...

  6. The Three Towns Pageants
    The Festival of Britain 1951 was the key cultural event of the period.3 Nationwide, a programme of events was skilfully planned with the aim of embracing modernist influences on British culture whi...

  7. The Kenilworth Castle Pageant
    The Kenilworth Castle Pageant was another landmark pageantry event in Warwickshire, following the Warwick pageants of 1906 and 1930. Despite being billed as a ‘Kenilworth’ pageant, it depended on v...

  8. Southampton Quincentenary Pageant
    Taking place as part of a wider celebration, staged to acknowledge the quincentenary of a charter that established the County Town of Southampton in 1447 and the five hundred and second anniversary...

  9. St Paul’s Steps
    How much did spectators actually get out of pageants? Did people in the cheapest seats at the pageant, who most likely did not buy a programme or book of words, particularly those whose grip on his...

  10. Pageant of Gwent
    The Pageant of Gwent took place in 1913 at Abergavenny as part of the Royal National Eisteddfod of Wales—the second time the arts festival had been held in the county following Newport in 1897. It ...

  11. Army Pageant
    The Army Pageant, London, was a major and ambitious spectacle, performed 21 times in the summer of 1910. It was a leviathan effort in all respects, but did not seem to make a profit—and was, as suc...

  12. A Pageant of Hampton
    A Pageant of Hampton was the second of three large pageants in Southampton in the interwar period, following the Mayflower Pageant of 1920. Unlike that event, and the Silver Jubilee Pageant that fo...

  13. Dartford Division of Kent Historical Pageant
    The Dartford Historical Pageant was one of the final civic extravaganzas produced by the famous pageant master Frank Lascelles. In his typical fashion,1 the pageant was a large and spectacular affa...

  14. Lady Godiva Procession and Pageant
    Pageantry was an ancient tradition in Coventry, dating back to medieval times. The comparatively recent Godiva Procession, to commemorate Lady Godiva’s famous ride through the town during the eleve...

  15. The Walthamstow Pageant 1930
    The Walthamstow Pageant of 1930 was staged to commemorate the granting of a Charter of Borough Incorporation the previous year. It took place indoors at the plush Palace Theatre, an impressive buil...

  16. Derbyshire Coronation Pageant
    Excerpts from Shakespeare’s history plays were a very common feature of historical pageantry, one example being the Southampton Quincentenary Pageant of 1947, which began with the trial scene from ...

  17. The Walthamstow Pageant 1934
    The Walthamstow Pageant of 1934 was the borough’s second of the decade, after the same-titled event in 1930. In most ways it was the same as the first, barring a few changes to the script. It again...

  18. A Pageant of Monarchy
    This was one of the many pageants in Surrey produced by David Clarke, who had worked with Christopher Ede on the Guildford pageant of 1957, and had himself produced the 1968 Guildford pageant. Like...

  19. Heritage Pageant
    There had been pageants at Chailey put on by the Heritage Craft Schools for lame and crippled children in 1919, 1920, and 1922, though these had all been processional.

  20. Pageant of London (South of the Thames)
    Staged in the grounds of the Crystal Palace, at Sydenham, this pageant was a celebration of the history of London—but specifically that of south London. This perhaps reflected a feeling that the hi...