Item List (150)

The town of Romford to the east of London tried very hard indeed to find connections between itself and the Mayflower. It had its own Mayflower Tercentenary Committee, an affiliate of the Essex committee, whose job it was to organise tercentenary…

Hugh Parry’s pageant, which you can read more about here, travelled around the UK throughout 1920 and into the next year. In February 1921, it came to Sheffield. The fanfare around the event was huge: newspapers had begun trailing the spectacular in…

In a brief article entitled 'The Mayflower and All That' the Torbay Express and South Devon Echo reported on the festivities held in one of Devon's small boroughs, Totnes. There, the local townspeople dressed 'in Elizabethan rig' as part of the…

Lichfield played no part in the original story of the Mayflower, as far as we know - though leading Pilgrim Edward Winslow was born not that far away in Droitwich. Nonetheless, like other places, this small city was one of many to play a small part…

Born at Dowth Castle, near Drogheda, Co. Meath, Ireland, John Boyle O’Reilly (1844-1890) was a journalist, writer and civil rights activist. He worked as a recruiter for the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, also known as the IRB or Fenian…

Ebenezer Elliott (1781-1849) was born in Masbrough, near Rotherham, Yorkshire. His father was a fiery Calvanist and radical known as "Devil Elliott" for his passionate sermons. Ebenezer Elliot inherited something of this radical politics but was also…

Born in Liverpool, Adam Hodgson (1788–1862) was an English merchant, travel writer, and abolitionist. His father, Thomas Hodgson (1737–1817), profited from the Atlantic Slave Trade, with interests in Gambia, before moving into cotton manufacturing.…

Felicia Hemans (1793-1835) was born in Liverpool to local merchant George Brown and Felicity Wagner, she was the fifth of seven children. Perhaps more than any other poet Hemans cemented the lasting popular appeal of the Mayflower myth through her…

Born in Kentish Town, London, William Henry Bartlett (1809 - 1854) was a travel-writer, artist and engraver, who become one of the leading topographic illustrators of his generation. He travelled widely and produced works providing history and…

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1860) was born in Coxhoe Hall, Durham, and the eldest child of 12 siblings (8 boys and 4 girls). For over two hundred years the Barrett family had resided in Jamaica as the owners of sugar plantations which profited…