Plaques (Dartmouth, 1955 and 1957)

Dartmouth had an unanticipated role in the Mayflower story: as described briefly by William Bradford in his history of the voyage and the colony, the Mayflower and Speedwell had to dock in the town’s harbour after the latter sprung a leak shortly after leaving Southampton. In comparison to Southampton and Plymouth, Dartmouth was much slower to capitalise on this link to the Pilgrim Fathers. According to the historian Crispin Gill, because the town had been ‘in decline’ from the late nineteenth century until after the Second World War, there was little interest in celebrating the history until a postwar tourist trade (overflowing from nearby Torquay) had developed.

In 1955, the Mayor (Dorothy Holwill) unveiled a small plaque at Bayard’s Cove to commemorate ‘The Sailing of the Pilgrim Fathers From this Port in the Mayflower & Speedwell on 20^th August 1620’. In 1957, a much more descriptive plaque was also dedicated in the Cove, paid for by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants. The Governor General of the Society, Waldo Morgan Allen, was accompanied by the Mayor (Bertie Lavers) and the US Embassy Counsellor (Brewster H Morris) did the honours. The bronze plaque tells the story of the Mayflower – and Dartmouth’s connection, ending with the ‘The Mayflower Compact, a charter of self-government, ‘The First American Constitution’ – which meant ‘Dartmouth took part in establishing civil and religious liberty in the New World.’

‘Memorial to be unveiled by Mayor’, Torbay Express and South Devon Echo (5th March 1957), 3.

Crispin Gill, Mayflower Remembered: A History of the Plymouth Pilgrims (Plymouth, 1970).