Item List (54)

The congregation of Union Chapel was formed in 1799 when a group of evangelical Anglicans broke away from the church to join with other nonconformists. Their aim was to create a 'Catholic and liberal plan' that would 'unite Christians of different…

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…

In 1920, Southampton had held one of Britain’s largest anniversary celebrations of the Mayflower voyage – only Plymouth could make a challenge to that supremacy. By the time the 1970 commemoration came around, however, Southampton’s Devonian rival…

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…

Lancashire always claimed a certain affiliation with the Mayflower story because of Myles Standish’s local connection. As residents of one of the premier cities in “Standish country”, the people of Preston felt entitled to have their own performance…

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…

This celebration for the 300th anniversary of the Mayflower voyage took the simplest form: a service at the Congregational Church which was located on the Green at Ossett. As at similar events elsewhere, speakers took the floor to reflect on the…

This celebration in the Primitive Methodist Church at Ellesmere is another example of the innumerable small-scale local celebrations organised across towns and villages in Britain under the auspices of the Free Church Council. The Council was hugely…

Historical pageants, a form of largescale amateur historical re-enactment, had seen their heyday in the 1920s - some, such as Southampton's John Alden's Choice, had focused especially on the Mayflower. After the Second World War, with the rise of the…

The Memorial Church of the Pilgrim Fathers was one home of the Congregationalists in London, and stood in Buckenham Square, New Kent Road in Southwark, from the 1860s to 1941. After the mid-19th century growth of interest in the Mayflower, the…