Mayflower Tercentenary Celebration, Royal Albert Hall and other venues, London (September, 1920)

Thursday 16th September 1920 was the date accepted as marking exactly three hundred years since the sailing of the Mayflower from Plymouth. Thus that date was chosen as the first day of the Mayflower Tercentenary celebrations in London. Earlier in the day there was a meeting at the Memorial Hall, Farringdon, followed by a procession from there to the Guildhall for a second meeting. The evening event was held at the Royal Albert Hall.

Hymns and devotions were sung and Rev. Thomas Nightingale, Secretary of the National Council of Evangelical Free Churches, read a lesson from a bible which had belonged to John Eliot, one of the Pilgrim Fathers. There was a choir of 1000 voices and a full programme of music.

Although the Prime Minister David Lloyd George was supposed to take the Chair, he was unavoidably prevented from doing so by other business. He therefore sent his apologies and a letter to be read in his stead. The letter hit the highlights of the Mayflower’s thematic significances in 1920: religious faith; the glories of history; and Anglo-American unity. It described the sailing of the Mayflower as one of the most moving episodes in the British past and a source of pride for all religious leaders and confidently asserted that the “celebrations will forge another link in the golden chain of sympathy and goodwill that binds us to our kinsmen in America”.

Pall Mall Gazette, "Pilgrim Fathers", 16 September 1920.

The Scotsman, “The London Mayflower Celebrations: letter from the Prime Minister”, 17 September 1920.

James Rendel Harris Archive, Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, Selly Oak.