Description
Boston’s Grade I listed Guild Hall dates from the late 14th century, and serves today as the town’s museum. From the late 16th to early 19th century it was used as the council house of the town corporation – and space below as a prison. In 1607, several of the Pilgrim Fathers were – according to some historians, at least – imprisoned here after their first attempt to leave the country for Holland from Boston’s port.
In 1951, a stone plaque commemorating the imprisonment was fixed in the Guildhall (costing £32). The unveiling was timed to coincide with the annual visit of Americans on a ‘pilgrimage’ to Boston – that year 33 of them (‘the largest number ever’). Upon arriving from London on a specially named new ‘Mayflower’ train, they were given a civic welcome by the Mayor and Corporation, and, the following day, a special dinner was thrown by the English-Speaking Union. When unveiling the tablet, Lieutenant-Colonel Kuntz said that ‘the men commemorated by it held those same ideals of freedom which were so dear to us to-day’. Alderman Tom Mountain, in reply, ‘expressed the hope’ that the ‘two great nations would continue together to seek a higher wisdom, a wider vision, and a deeper sympathy.’ After the Second World War, ruminations on the ‘Special Relationship’ like this were common.
In 1955, another special return pilgrimage of 104 American Pilgrim descendants (plus 48 guests) toured Holland and England to visit the birthplaces, churches and departure points of their ancestors. Led by the Governor-General of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, Society, Lieutenant-Colonel Waldo Morgan Allen, they came ‘in the name of Anglo-American friendship’ and to perpetuate the memory of the Pilgrim Fathers. In the Boston Guild Hall, as part of this trip, they gifted and unveiled a bronze plaque – embossed with the Mayflower – to mark the occasion. The Mayor welcomed them to the Borough, and hoped that they would not regard Bostonians ‘in too unfriendly a light’ for having imprisoned their ancestors. As he went on ‘The magistrates here were very favourably inclined to them, and it was when they got to Lincoln that they were really put into prison’! Following speeches emphasised Boston’s present friendly relationship with its daughter city in Massachusetts. After, the Mayor also welcomed the delegation to the Town Hall, where they were served lunch and shown the various charters and civic regalia of the corporation.
Source
Frances Reyer, The Mayflower Descendants’ Return to the Pilgrim Country of England and Holland, 1955 (unpublished memoir), 26-8.
‘Mighty tough those US Pilgrims’, Lincolnshire Standard and Boston Guardian (1st October 1955), 16.