Description
Lectures and sermons were popular ways of engaging with the Mayflower tercentenary in churches and religious communities, not least because there was a genuine demand for information about the Mayflower, the Pilgrim Fathers, and their importance in history. One example of this comes from Croydon, where a regular “Library Lecture” session was devoted to “the story of the Pilgrim Fathers”, as told by the Rev. E.E. Cleal. Although a religious man himself, Cleal’s lecture related the “facts” of the voyage and the first years of settlement in New Plymouth. He introduced the “Separatists” and told of their struggle to leave Britain for Holland, and then for the New World. It was by no means easy to gain permission to do so: Cleal even compared this to the difficulties encountered by men of military age who tried to leave during the late war. Other little factual nuggets also featured: the original date of the Pilgrims’ departure from Plymouth was 6 September 1620. But, Cleal explained, the new calendar must add ten days to this, meaning the real anniversary date was the 16th. Such details were rarely mentioned in sermons, which tended to give greater attention to abstract matters of faith and morality. Lectures tended to be more factual, though there was significant overlap in content in sermones and lectures.