Item List (150)

Under the auspices of the Anglo-American Society, an audience at the Imperial Hotel in Birmingham (now Imperial House, Temple St - visible on the left of the image) was one of the first to hear readings from a new play written by Birmingham author Mr…

Unlike its neighbours to the east and west, Southampton and Plymouth, Bournemouth could claim no special relationship to the Mayflower story. Nevertheless, the wide reach of the Free Church Council meant that Bournemouth too had an opportunity to…

Like others organised by the Free Church Council, Bradford’s celebration for the Mayflower anniversary in 1920 was to be fairly modest with much emphasis on preaching and lecturing. But early reports were good for Bradford. By May, months before the…

The small market town of Brigg in north Lincolnshire did its tercentenary bit in 1920 by holding a “Mayflower bazaar” at the Congregational Church in December 1920. The organisers hoped to raise £100 in aid of the church, though it is not recorded…

This Mayflower celebration in 1920 was utterly tiny, but took a very unusual and rather charming form. The Baptist Church Sunday School brought its young scholars together to demonstrate the building of the Mayflower ship to the accompaniment of…

Chatham, on the Medway in North Kent, was one of several towns and cities to undertake performances of the Mayflower Pageant written by the Rev. Hugh Parry (which you can learn more about here). Like many early twentieth-century pageants, Parry’s…

The 88th annual assembly of the Congregational Union of England and Wales in 1920 occasioned a talk given by Rev. A.E. Garvie, Principal of New College, London (later part of the University of London’s theology faculty). Garvie reflected on the…

Lectures and sermons were popular ways of engaging with the Mayflower tercentenary in churches and religious communities, not least because there was a genuine demand for information about the Mayflower, the Pilgrim Fathers, and their importance in…

Duxbury Hall was thought to be built on the same site as the birthplace of Miles Standish, whose imagined unrequited affection for Patricia Mullins was invented and immortalised by Longfellow. Duxbury Hall itself was to be the site of a visit by the…

Because they were viewed as “the spiritual ancestors of the non-conformists”, a great many non-conformist churches and groups were keen to celebrate the Mayflower Pilgrims. In Eastbourne, “local enthusiasts, in many cases quite youthful”, got…