The Masque of Ancient Learning and Its Many Meanings

Other names

The Masque of Learning and Its Many Meanings: A Scenario With Interpretations
The Masque of Learning and Its Many Meanings: A Pageant of Education Through the Ages
The Masques of Learning and Their Many Meanings: A Pageant of Education Through the Ages

Pageant type

Jump to Summary

Performances

Place: Synod Hall (Edinburgh) (Edinburgh, City Of Edinburgh, Scotland)

Year: 1912

Indoors/outdoors: Indoors

Number of performances: 30

Notes

1912 and 1913

The performance history of this pageant is unusually complex and requires detailed comment here. In summary, there were 30 performances in all. 4 were held in March 1912, followed by 10 in November the same year. Part II of the pageant then moved from Edinburgh to London, being performed 16 times in March and April 1913, the venue being the Great Hall of the University of London.

The pageant began life in March 1912 as the Masque of Ancient Learning and Its Many Meanings. A text describing the pageant was published subsequently, sometime in 1912.[1] On the initial staging it was performed for the public three times in the evening, and once for schoolchildren (time unknown but presumably in the afternoon) as a celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of University Hall, Edinburgh – a residential establishment for students. The pageant took place at Synod Hall on Castle Terrace in Edinburgh’s old town. The pageant was a great success and so was repeated in the same venue later that year, in November, but this time in an expanded form with a longer chronology. On this second staging it was called The Masques of Learning and Their Many Meanings: A Pageant of Education Through the Ages and the whole pageant was performed in two parts. These ran as two concurrent events over two weeks at the same venue as those given in March. Part I had three performances that reprised those done in March concentrating on the history of ‘ancient learning’; this was performed three times on three evenings. A sequential part II of the pageant followed in the subsequent week. Part II was entitled A Masque of Medieval and Modern Learning – again performed three separate times. In addition to the six public performances, four further shows were given subsequently for audiences of schoolchildren. Newspaper reports state that 9,000 Edinburgh children in total attended these four events (Westminster Gazette, 11 Dec. 1912, 3).

In 1913, part II of the pageant transferred to London and was performed in the Great Hall of the University of London. London performances took place in both March and April of that year. A London newspaper also reported that the Belgian government had placed a passenger streamer at the disposal of the entire cast in order that the pageant might be performed in Ghent later that year as part of an international exhibition (London Evening Standard, 11 Apr. 1913, 13). The number of performances given at the exhibition is unknown.

Texts for both pageants were published separately as booklets; part I initially in 1912 and part II probably followed in early 1913. Later however, they were published as a single text.[2] It is possible that the conjoined text had several imprints.

[1] The Masque of Ancient Learning and Its Many Meanings [A Pageant of Education From Primitive to Celtic Times Devised and Interpreted by Patrick Geddes.] (Patrick Geddes and Colleagues, the Outlook Tower Edinburgh, 1912)
[2] The later conjoined text is a rare book; fortunately, an available copy has been digitised and is available as an electronic copy at the Hathi Trust online collection.
The date of publication for this copy is unclear but is probably around late 1913, certainly ahead of the First World War; the digitised copy available at Haithi is date stamped as a library addition in 1916.

Name of pageant master and other named staff

Pageant Master: Duncan-Rhind, Thomas
Pageant Master: Dearmer, Mabel
Prolocutor, Edinburgh performances: George Cairncross
Prolocutors, London performances (March): George Cairncross
Prolocutors, London performances (April): Rathmell Wilson

Notes

Thomas Duncan-Rhind was Pageant Master for the Edinburgh Performances; Mabel Dearmer was Pageant Master for the London performances.

Names of executive committee or equivalent

Chairman: Professor Patrick Geddes
Treasurer: Mr G.E.R. Coldstream
Mistress of the Robes: Miss Gladys Walker
Secretary: Miss J.M. Campbell Noble.

Notes

In spring 1912, the Executive Committee was made up of members of Geddes’s Edinburgh-based Outlook Tower Association, supplemented by University of Edinburgh staff and students. Beyond the key figures listed, most names of committee members have not been recovered. The pageant text also states that the Masque’s ‘Marshall’ [i.e. Pageant Master] Mr Duncan-Rhind, was assisted by Miss Bayly-Jones and Mr A. Lorne-Campbell. An early published edition of the pageant cites the assistance of university personnel with staging the Masque; these are named as: Professor Niecks; Professor Baldwin Brown; Professor Hardie; Professor Kennedy; Professor Paterson; Mr A.F. Giles; Dr W.W. Taylor and Dr Schlapp. Also listed are unnamed Presidents of the Union and Student Representative Council.

When the pageant was reprised once more in Autumn 1912, a specific pageant organisation known as ‘The Edinburgh Masquers, Outlook Tower’ was formed. Names of the Masquers have not been recovered but it is likely that many from the original Executive were again involved.

In London, the director of the pageant was Mabel Dearmer, who was director of the Morality Play Society at Crosby Hall and wife of Percy Dearmer, who had been a leading figure in the 1909 English Church Pageant.

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

Geddes, Patrick

Names of composers

Moonie, W.B.

Numbers of performers

500 - 1000

Advertisements for the pageant in 1912 state that it features ‘over 500 performers’ (Gentlewoman, 16 March 1912, 13). It is probable that the various stagings of this pageant had different numbers of personnel involved. Certainly, the Edinburgh Evening News claimed the November 1912 performances had up to 1000 involved, including ‘players, orchestra and choir’ (16 Nov. 1912, 6) This may have been an inflated number, but it reflected an impression that this was a well-supported endeavour.

Financial information

The surplus for the first series of performances, in March 1912, was said to be £250.

Object of any funds raised

Outlook Tower Association (Edinburgh); the Morality Play Society of the Civics Department, Crosby Hall (London)

Notes

The Outlook Tower Association in Edinburgh was the chief beneficiary in Edinburgh; and in respect of London performances—the Morality Play Society of the Civics Department, Crosby Hall was the intended recipient. Newspaper reporting of the November 1912 performances in Edinburgh state that some of the surplus would be used for the benefit of University Hall, and some would be given to the Outlook Tower Association; a specific scheme of the Association’s was to begin a fund to erect a bronze statue of St Columba outside of Edinburgh’s Tolbooth Church.

Linked occasion

Twenty-fifth anniversary in March 1912 of the foundation of University Hall Edinburgh

Audience information

Grandstand: No
Grandstand capacity: n/a
Total audience: n/a

Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest

Edinburgh, March 1912

Reserved, 7s 6d; 6s; 5s, 4s.
Unreserved, 3s; 2s; 1s.

Edinburgh, November 1912:

Single performance tickets:
Reserved, 7s 6d; 6s; 5s; 4s
Unreserved, 3s; 2s; 1s 6d.

Double Tickets (admitting to One Performance of each Masque)
12s; 10s; 8s; 7s; 5s; 3s 6d; 2s.

London April 1913:

Reserved 3s; 4s; 5s; 7s. 6d.
Unreserved, 2s.

Ticket prices for London performances in March 1913 have not been recovered but it may be assumed they were the same or similar to those applied in April 1913.

Associated events

Geddes delivered a number of lectures in Edinburgh in 1912; these were described as his ‘interpretations’ which explained ‘some of the deeper meaning and symbolisms of the Masques’ and aimed to bring out ‘their varied suggestions and aims, artistic and dramatic, educational and civic’ (Westminster Gazette, 11 Dec. 1912, 3). It is not known if these were given on entirely separate occasions or on the same dates of performances and in conjunction with these.

Pageant outline

PART I

Prologue: The School Bag

This was explanatory of the pageant’s purpose, which was to depict creatively the development and meaning of education over time and within different cultures; the action involved two players in two roles. Its organiser in both March and November was Mr George Cairncross. Cairncross also played one of the roles—that of a professor. In addition, he acted as narrator for the remainder of the pageant. The scene is the ‘portal of the university’. Here a boy meets the professor. The professor examines the contents of the boy’s bag and offers explanations of the significance of the child’s books in terms of their history. For example, ‘from the modern arithmetic book back through general knowledge to the encyclopaedia, through renaissance and medieval studies, to the classic.’ A story book is described as having its origins in folklore. Other items are given similar treatment: an apple is described as ‘the raw food’ alongside a ball which can be seen as ‘the ready missile of Primeval Man’. In this way the boy is ‘heir of all the ages more fully than he knows’. The child responds by asking if he will understand all this when he matriculates. The professor replies that he will. The pageant then opens and henceforth the professor announces each scene.

Primitive

In the performances staged in March 1912, the organisers are named as Miss Begg assisted by Miss C. White. In November 1912, the organisers are stated to be Miss Meredith Williams and Miss Katherine Cameron. The action is split into eight sections as follows:

Life tree in the background
Water nymph dancing, followed by spirits of Nature and by Pan. The Dance of Nature and Life. Child Humanity.
Mother follows seeking child.
Hunter with Game and Hound. Young woman staunches hunter’s wound with herbs; then gives him an apple.
Older women, with rude sheaf and distaff. The women croon a song. Man twangs his bow.
Primitive occupations of sexes; Labour and Rhythm.
Enter the Bringer of Fire, with ember in hollow stalk. Women make the hearth. The family circle forms.
Hunter counts upon his fingers; signs it to others.

It is unlikely this episode contained dialogue. Instead, it depended upon the performance of expressive dance, mime and music in order to symbolically portray the dawn of civilisation.

Egyptian

Miss Mary Forbes was the organiser for this episode in both performances of the pageant: first in March, then in November 1912. The episode showed some ‘brief selections from the great past of historic Egypt’. It begins with a scene in which Egyptian Gods assemble and into which Thoth, the god of ‘Intellect and Education’ enters carrying ‘scales of judgement and the key of life’. A further named character is the goddess Isis, though it is unclear what dramatic function she plays. The selections then proceed to show a scene involving ‘Ropestretching’. In this, some ‘peasants quarrel over their boundary’ which leads to a priest calling in ‘ropestretchers’. Measurements are then recorded by a scribe and ‘peace is restored’. The final selection is a depiction of a funeral procession in which a ‘mummy’ is carried by bearers and the action viewed by mourners.

Hebrew I: The Exodus

In March 1912 the organisers of this episode were Mrs W.K. Dickson assisted by Miss Walpole. By November a change of personnel had taken place, and the organiser was Mrs H.O. Tarbolton assisted by Mrs W.K. Dickson. The text of the pageant describes the action thus:

Moses and Aaron look down sadly on the dejected Israelites.
Slaves bearing bricks, and beaten by the Taskmaster.
Moses strikes the Taskmaster and frees the Slaves.
He casts off his Egyptian garment and appears as a Jewish prophet and Chief, and brings Aaron before the People robed as their High Priest.
Hymn of Praise: Moses leaves Israelites, and goes into the wilderness.
Aaron sets up the Golden Calf.
Moses returns and in his anger breaks the Tables of the Law. [sic] Repentance of the People.
Return of the Spies, bearing grapes.
Joyful Procession and Hymn.

In the performance given in March 1912, the Hebrew episode is divided into 3 parts. A later published edition of the pageant indicates that after the initial performance, this episode was conjoined into a single dramatic item. In the March performance around 20 players took part in this episode, both men and women.

Hebrew II: The Court of Solomon

In March this part of the pageant had separate organisers; namely Mrs Bankhead and Miss Maisie Howatson. In the subsequent performances given in November, part 11 of the pageant was conjoined with Part 1 but still had a separate organiser: this was Miss Cecile Walton. The drama presented is unclear but from the brief text provided it seems to have been centred on a visit of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon’s court. The episode involved the performance of a dance by a woman; in total around 40 players took part. Of interest is the fact that the Queen of Sheba was played by the pageant master’s wife.

Hebrew III: The Finding of the Law

In March 1912 Mr and Mrs Sterling Craig organised this episode. In subsequent performances it appears to have been a shorter drama, not separate but conjoined with parts I and II. There was no separate organiser. The performance given involved a confrontation between a priest and a prophet.

Chinese

In March 1912 the organiser was a Mr Chu. In November this task was taken on by Dr C.C. Wang. The drama of this episode is unclear, but it involved two ‘Peasant -Emperors’. These are named as Yao and Shun. Confucius also features in the drama. All named players were male.

Hindus

In both March and November 1912, the organiser of this episode had an Indian name. In March this was Mr Jyoti Sircar. In November, Mr M. L. Bangara was responsible for organisation. This episode explained the origins of the caste system. In Geddes’s text comment is made on the role played by Indian students in the episode, as follows:

Probably no other Western University is so rich as Edinburgh in the membership of students as widely representative of all the many races and religions of India. With a generous good will which the committee and designer of the Masque desire most warmly to acknowledge, the Indian students, beside their present co-operation, have contributed a wealth of suggestion which might well lead, on some future occasion, to the presentment of a Masque of Indian Learning, complete within itself.

Buddhists

In Spring 1912 in Edinburgh, this episode was organised by Mr Jyoti Sircar, who also took charge of the Hindu episode. Similarly, Mr M.L. Bangara was also responsible for this scene in the November performance. The episode dramatised the transformation of Prince Siddartha into the Buddha. The episode progressed to show the acceptance of Buddha’s teachings by King Asoka and his family.

Parsis and Persians

Mr J.H. Mehta organised this episode in March 1912. In November Mr M.M. Gandevia was the episode’s director. Geddes describes the Parsi community as ‘small but important’ and acknowledges that the present concentration of this community ‘around Bombay’ had Persian origins. The drama of the episode is summarised as follows:

Zoroastrian High Priest—followed by Parsi in indoor dress (sacred white muslin shirt always worn), bearing Sacred Fire; and by Parsi gentleman in outdoor dress. Priest chants verse from Avesta in Sermon of Zoroaster.

Preceptor, with three disciples, all in ancient costumes, and with mirror, bow and arrow, and model horse; representing the ancient Persian Education, which consisted in ‘speaking the truth, drawing the bow, and in riding the horse.

Firdausi, the ‘Homer of Asia’ in 12^th century costume.

Author of ‘Shah-nameh,’ the epic of ancient Persia.

Greeks

In the first text produced to accompany this pageant the Greek episode is divided into three parts. It is unclear how these were conjoined or whether the episode was always so divided. Part I was subtitled ‘Homeric’ and was organised by Mrs Robert Burns. Part II was the charge of Mrs Cadenhead ‘assisted by Lady Grant’; the subtitle for this was, ‘Parnassian and Olympian’. Part III was organised by Mrs Cadenhead. The same group of organisers took charge in November, except this time Lady Grant was the sole organiser of Part II. The description of the drama is generally a little vague. In Geddes’s text the summary provided is as follows:

Background of Nature and Primitive occupations.
Homer; his song evokes from the shades Paris and Helen, Achilles, Odysseus.
Athletes and Sappho with her maidens: Choric Dance.
Muses, Gods, Goddesses and Sibyl.
Nature Background: represented by Esop, with animals.
Diogenes.
The Oath of Hippocrates.
Pericles and his work. Philosophers, Dramatists and Orators.

Overall, Geddes appeared to be suggesting that Greek philosophy still had relevance to modern life. The episode involved music and dance; and featured well known writers and philosophers of ancient Greece, as well as mythical characters.

Roman

In March 1912, Mrs Hamilton More Nisbett was the organiser. In November she was joined by her husband, and both are named as organisers. Mrs Nisbett also took the part of ‘Justitia’, a personification of Justice, in the performance. The episode takes a chronological format, being split into three eras of Roman history. It opens with a scene focused on early Rome. The principal characters in this section are a group of peasants and a small party of soldiers. At some point in the drama the Sibyl enters bearing ‘the nine-fold heritage of Greece’. The drama moves forward into Imperial Rome and features the emperor Augustus, his advisor Maecenas and the writers Virgil and Horace. Further along the coming of Christianity is signalled with the character of St Jerome. The third era depicted concerns the end of Graeco-Roman culture. The main character in this is the female mathematician Hypatia. The martyrdom of Hypatia likely formed part of the performance.

Celtic

This episode was organised in March 1912 by Miss E.H. Kirkwood. An acknowledgement was also made to the artist John Duncan and to ‘Mr D. Mackenzie. In November 1912, Miss Kirkwood was joined by M.E. MacMillan and Sarah MacGregor. Most of the drama in this episode was concerned with allegory and legend. Fairies, a witch and a banshee feature. The narrative then moves on to depict Druids and the legendary Celtic poet, Ossian. The beginning of Christianity in Scotland and Ireland is depicted through the figures of St Patrick and St Bridget. An Arthurian sketch follows on from this featuring Arthur and Merlin. The episode ends with a scene centred on St Columba and his monks.

Epilogue

This closing episode was part of the Edinburgh performances. It was entitled ‘The Statue of St Columba’ and arranged by Mrs Kennedy Fraser. The dramatic content is unknown.

PART II

Medieval I: Mohammedan

It is difficult to know what shape this episode took, but it appears to have been separated into three parts. Some kind of comparison between the two great religions of Christianity and Islam is implied by the conjunction of parts I and II. The summary provided by Geddes for this episode states it began with the following:

‘Harun receives Ambassadors and Scholars from Europe, India and China.
Omar Khayyam.’

The organiser is named as Mr S. El Azim. Clearly, the central character in this part is Harun al-Hashid—the Caliph of Baghdad; it is likely the drama owed something to the Thousand and One Nights. Geddes comments that the actors involved with the episode were Egyptian and Indian students at the University of Edinburgh. Following the scene featuring Harun, the drama moves to depict the poet, Omar Khayim. What precisely was depicted is unknown.

Medieval II: Ecclesiastical, etc.

According to Geddes’s summary, this part of the pageant featured St Benedict and his order as well as Templars and Hospitallers. ‘The Coming of the Friars: Dominicans and Franciscans’ is mentioned, as is the foundation of the first college (Merton) at Oxford. The foundation of Scots College in Paris by Robert the Bruce and the beginning of universities at St Andrews, Glasgow and Aberdeen is somehow dramatised. The organiser was Miss Mabel Dawson. The nature of the drama presented is unknown.

Medieval III: Secular Life and Learning

Specific details of the content of this part of the episode are unknown. Geddes’s summary makes mention of the following:

The Great Fair.
Strife of Barber-Surgeon and Herbalist—origin of Medical Schools.
Mohammedan Merchants bring in M.S. of Aristotle to Michael Scot. Their discussion (clerical and lay) arouses Medieval University.

The episode’s organiser was Miss Agnes Lowson. Depictions of medieval fairs are familiar features of historical pageantry, and it is of interest therefore that Geddes incorporated this. It must be assumed that the philosopher Michael Scot featured somewhere in the drama presented.

Renaissance I: Origins

This episode was organised by ‘Miss Dalyel’. It contained several scenes relating to central concerns of the renaissance period, the first of which featured the character of Faust. This scene was meant to show a transition from superstition to the pursuit of scientific enquiry. Faust the alchemist is shown ‘as struggling through hypothesis and error towards the light of knowledge’. A second scene features ‘Lorenzo the Magnificent’. Few details have been recovered but among the characters Lorenzo encounters is Leonardo da Vinci who enters bearing ‘the model of a coming masterpiece’. The third scene shifts back to Geddes’s home turf of Scotland and what he describes as ‘the brilliant court of James IV’. Among the characters who pass through James’s court are the poets William Dunbar and Robert Henryson. The scene includes a reading of Dunbar’s poem ‘The Thistle and the Rose’.

Renaissance II: James IV and Queen Mary

This scene depicts a meeting between the queen and the religious reformer, John Knox. The two were reputed to have a disputatious relationship but in this scene the conversation dramatised was cordial and centred upon the establishment of parish schools. A photograph reproduced in one newspaper shows Mary surrounded by her female maidservants (The Sketch, 19 March 1913, 26.) Three of the four Maries are depicted in this photo, though one of those included is the fictitious ‘Mary Hamilton’. The episode was organised by Mrs Adrian C. Hope.

Renaissance III: Edinburgh University

This scene depicted the foundation of Edinburgh University by the city authorities in 1583. Details have not been recovered but since the pageant was initiated to celebrate the anniversary of the opening of student accommodation that had been designed by Geddes and that housed students attending Edinburgh University, this commemorative scene was significant. The episode’s organiser was ‘Rev. Anson Wood’.

Encyclopaedists I: French

This episode was organised by ‘Mons. M Tirol’. The drama presented is first set in a Parisian salon at which are gathered a number of notable ‘encyclopaedists’, including David Hume and Adam Smith. The drama included the performance of a ‘pavane’.

Encyclopaedists II: Edinburgh

The organiser for this episode was Mr W.F. Beattie. The scene takes place in Edinburgh and depicts a gathering at the home of Adam Ferguson. In attendance are other famous figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, such as the architect William Adam, the engineer James Watt and the poet Robert Burns. A meeting between Burns and the writer Walter Scott is also shown.

Encyclopaedists III: German Culture

This episode’s organiser was a ‘Herr Hopp’. Geddes comments that German learning might of course readily occupy a whole Pageant of its own’ but in order to simplify the drama many ‘arbitrary omissions’ had to be made. The scene opens with Emmanuel Kant taking his daily walk. Shortly, he is joined by Goethe, then Schiller and afterwards by the ‘brothers Humboldt’. Joining these historical figures are ‘Alexander, the traveller and geographer, and Wilhelm the scholar and jurist’ who stood ‘respectively for the sciences and the humanities, which German studies have since so eminently advanced’. These figures were said to be exemplars of the modern German university. These characters are then joined by the brothers Grimm. The scene concludes with the return of ‘nature-shapes’ from the Primitive episode, nymphs from the Greek episode and ‘fairies from the Celtic world’.

Present and Future

The joint organisers of this episode were Mrs E. A. Walton and Mrs James Walker. Taking part in the episode were human representations of various aspects of the modern city and its institutions including the university. Town and gown are seen to be united in their task and ‘a new schoolboy’ comes to the stage who stands between the representatives of the city and representations of the faculties of the university, each of whom send over a graduate to the city. Geddes writes that:

Thus craft and science, town and gown progress together. For symbol of this union, what plainer that that of our foremost faculty, of medicine and surgery, with its hospitals, or best of all their civic association and development, into public health.

It is presumed that the example of the city Geddes had in mind was Edinburgh. The University of Edinburgh’s medical faculty was world famous and esteemed.

Key historical figures mentioned

Hypatia of Alexandria (c.355–c.415) mathematician, astronomer and philosopher
Brigit [St Brigit, Brigid] (439/452–524/526) patron saint of Kildare
Patrick [St Patrick, Pádraig] (fl. 5th cent.) patron saint of Ireland
Columba [St Columba, Colum Cille] (c. 521–597) monastic founder
Scot [Scott], Michael (d. in or after 1235) translator, philosopher, and astrologer
James IV (1473–1513) king of Scots
Margaret [Margaret Tudor] (1489–1541 queen of Scots, consort of James IV
Dunbar, William (1460?–1513x30) poet and courtier
Henryson, Robert (d. c. 1490) poet
Mary [Mary Stewart] (1542–1587) queen of Scots
Knox, John (c. 1514–1572) religious reformer
Seton, Mary (b. c. 1541, d. after 1615)
Livingston, Mary (d. 1585)
Hume, David (1711–1776) philosopher and historian
Smith, Adam (bap. 1723, d. 1790) moral philosopher and political economist
Adam, William (bap. 1689, d. 1748) builder and architect
Watt, James (1736–1819) engineer and scientist
Burns, Robert (1759–1796) poet
Scott, Sir Walter (1771–1832) poet and novelist

Musical production

There was a live orchestra and choir. It is impossible to know how large this was, but it is possible that musicians and choir members together numbered several hundred individuals.

Newspaper coverage of pageant

Edinburgh Evening News

Scotsman

Gentlewoman

Pall Mall Gazette.

Westminster Gazette.

The Stage

The Sketch

Book of words

n/a

Texts meant to accompany this pageant were published multiple times in different editions. First, in 1912 as The Masque of Ancient Learning and Its Many Meanings [A Pageant of Education From Primitive to Celtic Times Devised and Interpreted by Patrick Geddes.] (Patrick Geddes and Colleagues, the Outlook Tower Edinburgh, 1912). Part II of the pageant was also published later in 1912 or possibly early 1913 as the Masque of Medieval and Moderun Learning: a copy of this text has not been recovered. In addition to these two items, a third ahssociated text was published on the history of St Columba, written by Mr Victor Branford (copy not recovered). These booklets are not books of words exactly but were meant to assist the viewer to appreciate the drama presented by naming the main players and describing the narrative core of scenes. Conjoined versions containing parts 1 and II were published several times from 1913 and it seems likely that these run into multiple editions. Although surviving copies appear to be quite rare books, possibly because they were little more than brochures with paper covers.

Other primary published materials

n/a

References in secondary literature

Macdonald, Murdo. Patrick Geddes’s Intellectual Origins (Edinburgh, 2021)
Meller, Helen. Patrick Geddes: Social Evolutionist and City Planner (London, 1990)

Archival holdings connected to pageant

Collections held by Archives at the of the University of Edinburgh and also at Strathclyde University Archives in Glasgow contain a variety of Geddes’s papers. Material relating to the pageant can be found among these.

Sources used in preparation of pageant

n/a

Within the Celtic episode the poems collected by James Macpherson that were purported to be written by Ossian were probably some kind of influence on the drama. Similarly, the opening episode of Part II was possibly inspired by tales from The Arabian Nights/Thousand and One Nights.

Summary

Despite the publicity which attended this pageant and the high profile of its chief proponent— Patrick Geddes—there is a great deal about it which remains stubbornly opaque. For example, although it had a large cast there is no way of knowing if the drama contained any dialogue. It seems likely that it did not.¹ Despite being staged in an indoor venture, and despite Geddes’s evident enthusiasm for the history of education, it seems to have fallen to a narrator (described as a ‘prolocutor’) to explain the rather ambitious ideas of the author and how these had been given dramatic form. There can be no doubt that the prolocutor’s task must have been a challenge, given that this pageant aimed to depict ‘the whole sequence of European history and civilisation, so far as it has moved forward and changed under educational influences and discoveries’.²

While outdoor pageants often depended on scale and spectacle to impress audiences, the indoor variety, performed in theatres and public halls, which began to become popular in the years running up to the outbreak of war in 1914, probably required a different kind of criteria for success. A press report of the time commented on this, stating that the ‘benefit most evidently to be gained from this indoor pageantry was a nearer and more assured acquaintance with the old life and customs on which our life is built than the more spacious outdoor pageantry can give’.³ Thus, while the Masque of Learning aimed to be dramatic—for Geddes himself argued that ‘if history was dramatic … it should be presented dramatically’—something more than mere spectacle was required to enliven what, in this particular pageant, could have amounted to little more than mime, interspersed with occasional dance, set upon a distant stage.⁴ The role played by the prolocutor as a narrator was thus of critical importance to the success of the performance.

Though Patrick Geddes was reputed to have great personal charisma and was undoubtedly an original thinker, the quality of his writing was questionable. Indeed, one Geddes scholar has described his writing as ‘torturous’.⁵ Certainly, as the texts produced by him to accompany the pageant demonstrate, his writing was meandering and very often difficult to understand. In addition, Geddes’s pageant texts give no information about who, if anyone, scripted a narrative to accompany the pageant. Since these texts were supposed to assist people in understanding the Masque, this level of opacity was a problem. Geddes’s writing on the pageant’s subject matter provides little more than skeleton summaries of the drama, accompanied by his opinions on how each culture and age are of significance to our educational traditions. The logic of these written discussions generally takes the form of meandering discourse or, as Geddes put it, a ‘general conception of the Masque’.⁶ Frequently, his musings are impossible to follow. Yet some sort of dramatic performance took place and was accompanied by an informative narrative. We must assume that in addition to his responsibilities as a performer, the narrator himself was also in charge of providing engaging and descriptive narrative content. When placed alongside ‘a multitude of beautiful scenes, fine colour harmonies, graceful groupings’ and a ‘pageant of clothes’ described at the time as probably having ‘no equal’, such storytelling seems in the end to have made for an impressive piece of theatre in which ‘the centuries go scurrying past like clouds in a windy sky’.⁷

Loose organisation on the part of Geddes was clearly corrected by efforts of the many episode organisers and narrators, not to mention the dedication of hundreds of performers—all of which made the Masque of Learning into a great success that was staged several times. Indeed, it may only have been the looming threat of war that stopped it from running even longer. Nonetheless, by the time the pageant was being performed for the fourth time, in London in April 1913, it had become apparent that audiences would benefit from a little more help to follow the details on their programmes when the lights were down. Thus, improvements to the narration were announced; and presumably these further helped the audience get to grips with Geddes’s singular and high-flown ideas about the relationship between culture, learning and human advancement.⁸ Yet whatever difficulties audiences might have had, this did not seem to deter attendance in large numbers. Geddes’s personal popularity as well as the involvement of well-known figures in the performance may have helped stimulate interest. In Edinburgh, the performances were given extra frisson by the involvement of many foreign students and academics. In London, newspaper reports of the performances list many aristocratic ladies taking part, as well as the involvement of individuals then well known in English theatrical circles. The writer and director Edith Craig, who was the daughter of the celebrated actress Ellen Terry, for example, supplied Geddes with some of the costumes used in the pageant.⁹

What in March 1912 had begun as a fundraiser to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Edinburgh student residences designed by Geddes—and focused initially on the early history of the development of higher education—proceeded to grow legs and was performed multiple times, including in the UK capital. As it grew, Geddes then began to ascribe greater significance to its content. Yet, right from the start this was a pageant with some unique features. For example, the two programmes of shows done in Edinburgh in 1912 were very novel in terms of what might be expected of a historical pageant during these years, in that the actors involved were from multiple minority ethnic backgrounds. Geddes was able to use his contacts at the University of Edinburgh to encourage staff and students from Asia and Africa to take part. Geddes commented that ‘[p]robably no other Western University is so rich as Edinburgh in the membership of students as widely representative of all the many races and religions of India’.¹⁰ The resulting theatrical display, particularly in Part I of the pageant, was undoubtedly remarkable for its time. The ancient universities of Scotland, which traditionally had a more liberal attitude regarding religious diversity in comparison with English counterparts, were popular with many non-Christians during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Thus, Geddes could appoint players and involve organisers who came from all corners of the globe. In addition, he reached out to the small Jewish community then resident near the university in Edinburgh to lend a hand specifically with the episodes centred on how the people then described as ‘Hebrews’ had contributed to the history of education.¹¹ This incorporation of different social and ethnic groups ultimately meant that Geddes could range widely across global history while aiming to present spectacles that had a high level of visual authenticity.

The first Edinburgh performances of the Masque of Ancient Learning must have obtained sufficient success to encourage Geddes to keep going and expand his chronology—bringing the pageant’s tale of how education had developed in the ancient world right up into contemporary times. In the pageant’s second Edinburgh staging in November 1912, the show was so expansive it was performed in two separate parts, each one week apart. Those who chose to attend both parts saw around six hours of performance. Within such a mammoth theatrical experience, although there can be no doubt that Geddes hoped to educate audiences, he also aimed to entertain and to sustain attention with an impressive level of theatre. To achieve this, a small army of managers was necessary—and each of the many episodes presented had their own organisers. These episodes sequentially covered the great civilisations of the ancient world; but in addition to those that were well-known, such as those of the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, Geddes added eastern civilisations from China and India. He completed this whirlwind tour of the ancient past with an episode featuring the Celts; this inclusion doubtless reflected contemporary interest in the history of Celtic civilisation. Geddes probably planned this as both a fitting end to a pageant concentrated on the ancient world, but also as the inspirational foundation for further theatre focused more on European cultures in modern times, and the ways in which these medieval and modern cultures had embraced education. The latter then became a follow-on Part II within an expanded Pageant of Learning.

Geddes believed in the importance of education for all so the pageant format, with its combination of educative purpose and amusement, was one which he embraced with enthusiasm. Moreover, at the time of this pageant’s debut, the growing popularity of indoor pageants got around the tricky outdoor problems of the cold and dark of early Spring in Scotland when the anniversary of University Hall took place.¹² The exotic costumes used in this show would not have stood up well in the blustery Edinburgh weather—of that we can have no doubt. By 1912, when this pageant was first performed, a track record of successful indoor pageants already existed, and this must have inspired Geddes. Not least, among the popular theatrical pageants that had been put on, was the Pageant of Great Women, which was first staged in 1910. Geddes may have intuited that this pageant had been able to deliver an educational message alongside providing vivid and engaging drama. It seems likely that Great Women was an inspiration for Geddes’s own foray into pageantry.

Worthy of note too, is the historical scope of Geddes’s idea. The storyline makes the point that education is so fundamental to the human condition that vestiges of its development can be deduced from depictions of primeval humans onwards through time. The prologue which introduces the pageant makes the point that even the schoolchild is the inheritor of thousands of years of learning. Geddes’s belief in evolutionary theory is also a running theme throughout the drama, with each age taking forward the best ideas of its predecessors. In respect of this approach, Geddes passes no comment on aspects of the past that even in the context of the early twentieth century were problematic. For example, the Indian caste system, the development of which was a feature of the episode elaborating on Hindu culture. Four castes are highlighted—Sudras, Vaishyas, Brahmins and Kshatryas—and these are compared to western class systems, as follows:

…labourers and merchants, priests and warriors. Poor and rich, labour and capital; these two first castes are the ones mainly developed in Western lands by our industrial age; yet we also have been increasingly developing the culture-caste of the university: while our public schools have especially endeavoured to provide a courage-caste, with its ambitions turned from gain or learning towards an ideal of rule.¹³

Here and in other parts of the text, Geddes is generally uncritical and even sympathetic to western imperialist conquest—a fact that might be surprising to some with an interest in Geddes’s more enlightened social and educational views. The contradiction that existed in some of Geddes’s ideas is worth noting and is writ large in his pageant commentary. While he may appear to have been in favour of access to education and culture for all, he had some quite deterministic views on the natural social order—whether into castes or classes—and displays a very conservative interpretation of the likely benefits of imperialism. In the Roman episode, for example, he is generally in praise of Roman conquest, claiming that it inspired engineering genius. He draws parallels between the achievements of Roman engineers and Scottish engineers like Macadam and Telford, making comparison between them in terms of their respective belonging to great empires.¹⁴ Geddes also cites the fact that the Scottish legal system owed much to Roman law. Furthermore, he argues that the constituent parts of the Roman army of conquest produced many benign economic and social advantages:

[i]ncluding road-making and engineering on a scale answering to that of our railway age, postal communications anticipating our modern ones, police order unsurpassed, and public building still far from as fully attained. After his period of service, the legionary obtained his grant of land, and settled down to farm it, thus educating and absorbing the native peoples and earlier settlers, with their traditions; much as Canada—most Roman of all modern Empires—is again doing today. His daughters married into the surrounding community; his sons took their turn of service and were settled in due time farther north or south, or east or west.¹⁵

Despite such dispersal, Geddes goes on to comment that successive generations still looked back to Rome as ‘the mother city’,¹⁶ a remark that gave credence to the notion that the UK performed a similar role within Britain’s contemporary overseas dominions. Geddes’s views on gender relations are similarly inconsistent. While many episodes had women in charge and the pageant was well received in contemporary feminist newspapers, nevertheless tradition was more prominent in pageant themes than any questioning of traditional gender roles.¹⁷ For example, the schoolchild and would-be scholar who opens the pageant in its prologue, is a boy. Moreover, the opening sketch in episode I displays ‘that division of labour of the sexes with which civilisation begins:– Man as Hunter, with game and hound: Woman as fruit-gatherer, a primitive Eve; and as herbalist, initiating surgery and medicine.’¹⁸

Thus, although there was much that was avant-garde in this pageant in terms of multi-cultural representation, there was also a good deal of interpretation of the past that conformed to traditional imagery. The Celtic episode, for example, makes use of many of the expected mythical tropes of pageant narratives in that it features fairies and Arthurian legend. Geddes may have been persuaded that Celtic civilisation was ‘truly classic’ and worthy of serious study, but he struggled to depict it in anything much beyond mythological characters. Any authentic elements of Celtic culture were confined to scenes depicting druid priests. Regardless of such artistic licence, the pageant attracted scholarly interest. One contemporary report remarked that ‘visitors from London as well as from other cities which have long ceased to think of Edinburgh as in such ways productive’ made the journey north to see the Masque and among them were members of educational and learned bodies, like the Positivist and Sociological Societies.¹⁹ Evidently, Edinburgh was viewed by some as something of a scholarly backwater compared to English cities. At any rate, interest by nascent sociologists who counted Geddes as an ally raised the ‘question of London performances of the Masques of Learning’.²⁰ Geddes responded to this call and Part II of his Masque transferred to London in the Spring of 1913.

There is little doubt that Geddes invested belief in the potential of historical pageantry to educate. He wanted to use theatrical display to proselytise about a subject of interest to him—that is to say, the future of education and citizenship. In terms of the latter, he saw universities as having a potentially transformative influence over urban life. Following its dramatization of past glories, the finale of the Masque attempted to show how education might affect the future.

Geddes’s Masques aimed not only to ‘present vivid pictures of their times, but to express the contribution of each period and phase to our present heritage of civilisation’.²¹ By uncovering how learning was undertaken in the past he hoped to show how it continued to evolve in the present. Likely, what appeared on stage was indeed a colourful spectacle—but also one aimed at an elite audience and destined to appeal chiefly to the erudite. This was no popular show. From this point of view, Geddes rather misunderstood the democratic foundations of Parker’s vision, instead, his take on the pageant form was certainly more exclusive—but just the same it found a ready audience. Yet despite press acclaim, it is unlikely this pageant could have been rolled out much more widely. Moreover, it appears possible that the growing crisis in Europe also called a halt to Geddes’s theatrical ambitions.

¹ One report states that ‘the scenes were mostly without words’ but were ‘introduced by a prolocutor’, see ‘Masque of Learning’, London Evening Standard, 12 March 1913, 6.

² ‘Masque of Learning’, London Evening Standard, 7 Apr. 1913, 10.

³ ‘Masque of Learning’, London Evening Standard, 12 March 1913, 6.

⁴ Quotation attributed to Geddes in the Edinburgh Evening News, 16 Nov. 1912, 6.

⁵ Alex Law. ‘The Ghost of Patrick Geddes: Civics as Applied Sociology’, Sociological Research Online, 10: 2, 3.

⁶ The Masque of Ancient Learning and Its Many Meanings [A Pageant of Education From Primitive to Celtic Times Devised and Interpreted by Patrick Geddes.] (Patrick Geddes and Colleagues, the Outlook Tower Edinburgh, 1912), 1.

⁷ ‘Masque of Learning’, Westminster Gazette 12 March 1913, 6.

⁸ ‘The Masque of Learning’, Pall Mall Gazette 4 Apr. 1913, 7.

⁹ Ibid. Craig was also heavily involved with the Suffrage pageant – The Pageant of Great Women. Indeed, it is very likely that costumes from this pageant were shared with the Masque. See https://historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1629/

¹⁰ Masque of Ancient Learning (1912), 22.

¹¹ Edinburgh Evening News, 16 Nov. 1912, 6. At the time, many middle class Jews lived in the Marchmont area of the city with others less well-off living and working around Causewayside.

¹² One commentary press review commented that indoor pageants were ‘a new thing’ but that Geddes’s Masque demonstrated that the trend was ‘justifiable and instructive’. See ‘Masque of Learning’, London Evening Standard, 12 March 1913, 6.

¹³ A Masque of Learning and Its Many Meanings A Pageant of Education Through the Ages: Devised and Interpreted by Patrick Geddes (n.p. but likely 1913), 12.

¹⁴ Masque of Learning (c.1913), 28.

¹⁵ Ibid., 26.

¹⁶ Ibid., 26

¹⁷ The pageant was reviewed in the suffrage press in publications like Common Cause and Vote. It is highly likely that at least some of Geddes’s female advocates involved with the pageant encouraged such coverage. Many of these women were socially influential. For example, Mabel Dearmer (who produced the London performances) was well known in London artistic circles and was described in a later obituary as ‘a staunch suffragist’, see ‘ In Memorium’ (Mabel Dearmer), Church League for Women's Suffrage, 1 Aug. 1915, 6.

¹⁸ Masque of Learning (1912), 5.

¹⁹ Westminster Gazette, 11 Dec. 1912, 3.

²⁰ Ibid.

²¹ Ibid.

Footnotes

How to cite this entry

Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘The Masque of Ancient Learning and Its Many Meanings’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1640/

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