Plaque, St Wilfrid’s Church (Scrooby, 1955)

The Pilgrim Father William Brewster was baptised in this parish church (built in the 15th century and restored in the Victorian period). In 1955, a 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 St Wilfrid’s, as part of this trip, they gifted and unveiled a bronze plaque – embossed with mini Mayflowers – to mark the occasion. The Rev J.B. Bunting welcomed the group, and described the Scrooby Church as being ‘the seed of the United States’. He had even written a special song, ‘Freedom’, for the occasion (sung to the tune of Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory). After, thirty women from the Parish served a ‘delightful tea’ in the Church House, and local children collected autographs – looking at the Americans ‘as though’ they ‘were as important as the original Pilgrims.’

E. Frances Reyer, The Mayflower Descendants’ Return to the Pilgrim Country of England and Holland, 1955 (unpublished memoir), 32. ‘150 American visitors’, Lincolnshire Standard and Boston Guardian (24 September 1955), 9.