Item List (150)

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…

The village of Golcar in West Yorkshire shows us how, as in many other towns and villages in 1920, the transatlantic Mayflower tercentenary manifested in highly localised ways. Golcar was home to a thriving non-conformist community and it was within…

The celebratory meeting at Goldenhill, near Stoke-on-Trent, on the occasion of the Mayflower Tercentenary was held under the auspices of the Tunstall Free Church Council. The Chairman for the event was Mr W.C. Colclough, who opened proceedings by –…

Lincolnshire claimed a special connection to the Mayflower story because a number of the ship’s occupants had come from that part of the country, principal among them being William Bradford, who became the second governor of the Plymouth Colony. Thus…

The 300th anniversary celebrations at Penrith – a far cry from the Mayflower’s southern and midland roots – were presided over by the Chief Constable of Cumberland and Westmorland, Colonel Turnbull of Barton Hall, Penrith. Like other small-scale…

The main events of Manchester’s Mayflower Tercentenary took place over the week of September 18th to 25th. First was a young people’s demonstration in Cross Street Chapel, held on Saturday the 18th. On the following Monday, there was a large public…

The non-conformist congregations of Leicester, which had a long history, came out in force to support the Mayflower tercentenary there: about two dozen different churches took part in a series of events that included cinema shows, historical…

Several passengers on the Mayflower came from Billericay in Essex – including Christopher Martin, who was originally the governor of the leaky Speedwell. There had been religious dissenters in the town since the early 17th century; after the…

Francis Webster & Sons was a textiles firm in Arbroath, founded in the late 18th century and only ceasing business in the 1990s. In 1956, they were commissioned to weave the canvas sails for the replica ship ‘Mayflower II’ that was being built at…

One of the boldest commemorations of the Mayflower, and not just in Britain but the USA too, happened in a non-anniversary year. This was the Mayflower II, a reconstruction of what the original ship may have looked like, and its retracing of an…