Item List (8)

Historical pageants, a sort of amateur re-enactment, were incredibly popular forms of engagement with the past in the early to mid 20th century. They usually took the form of a series of chronological episodes, often starting as far back as the…

The Surrey Threatre was the venue for the London performance of Stirling and Hayes’s play about the Mayflower, which had had its debut in Plymouth at the end of August. It began its run in London in late September at the Surrey Theatre (since…

Deep in the countryside of Buckinghamshire, in the small Quaker village of Jordans, the ‘Mayflower Barn’ has been claimed since the early 20th century to be made out of timbers from the original ship. James Rendel Harris, a notable if eccentric…

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…

In addition to the pageant put on by Rev. Hugh Parry, the Mayflower tercentenary also saw the production of several original plays, including John Alden's Choice, performed in Southampton, and The Seed and the Fruit performed in Exeter. Probably the…

Norwich’s celebrations were talked of at least a year in advance of the tercentenary. The previous May, the Norfolk Protestant Dissenters’ Benevolent Society met for its 120th annual meeting, during which the various members discussed the…

Although the months of September, October, and November 1920 marked the high point of the Mayflower tercentenary, celebratory events continued to be held in the winter and even into 1921. In the case of Manchester, the performance of Hugh Parry’s…

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…