Borough of Reigate Pageant: The Heritage of the Crown
Pageant type
Performances
Place: Reigate Priory (Reigate) (Reigate, Surrey, England)
Year: 1953
Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors
Number of performances: 11
Notes
2-12 September 1953, 8pm
Name of pageant master and other named staff
- Devised, Written and Directed by [Pageant Master]: Hummel, Cecile
- Musical Director: Joyce Hooper
- Sub-Producers Part I: George Robertson and Chas K. macadie
- “ Part II: Mrs K. Millar, Norman L. Turner, Arthur Brooker, Mrs E.V. Warren, Miss Medeleine Sharp, Gary Durham
- “ Part III: Joy Anderson; the Mayoor and G. Leonard Boyle, Captain Patterson
- Deputy Pageant Master and Arena Manager: Macadie, C.K.
- Narrator: Norman Balchin
- Mistress of Horse: Miss Nancy Peters
- Wardrobe Mistress: Mrs Rachel Rundle
- Deputy Wardrobe Mistress: Mrs Gwen Webb
- Scenery: Ray Tuff Studios
- Properties: Duncan Little
- Sound and Continuity: Terency Hayden
- Public Relations: K. Headington and G. Leonard Boyle
- Transport: F.G. Lewis
- Producer’s Secretary: Mrs J. Skevington
Names of executive committee or equivalent
Coronation Executive Committee
Chairman: The Worshipful Mayor Alderman H.G. Daniels
Secretary: G.M. Gibbs
Hon. Treasurer: Gordon Simmons
General Entertainments Committee
Chairman: G. Leonard Boyle
Pageant Committee
Chairman: Herbert J. Best
Hon. Secretary: Miss J. Grimes
Other members: C. Hummel, K. Headington, J.W. Hieatt, R.A.W. Lutman, C. Macadie, R.D. Nicol, M. Rubeck, R.D. Tuff.
Lighting and Sound
Chairman: M. Rubeck
Staging
Chairman: R. D. Nicol
Tickets
Chairman: R.A.W. Lutman
Stewards
Chairman: J.W. Hieatt
Publicity
Chairman: R.D. Tuff
Notes
Patrons included Lieutenant of Surrey, General Sir Robert Haining; Rt. Hon Earl of Onslow; Bishop of Southwark; Sir Harold Webbe, MP; Sir Gordon Touche, MP; J.K. Vaughan-Morgan, MP
Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)
Hummel, Cecile
Names of composers
- Purcell, Henry
- Stravinsky, Igor
- Holst, Gustav
- Handel, George Frideric
- Williams, Ralph Vaughan
- Britten, Benjamin
- Elgar, Edward
- Walton, William
- Kodály, Zoltán
- Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da
- Moeran, E.J.
- Wagner, Richard
Numbers of performers
n/a
Financial information
Object of any funds raised
n/a
Linked occasion
Coronation of Elizabeth II
Audience information
- Grandstand: Not Known
- Grandstand capacity: n/a
- Total audience: n/a
Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest
Associated Events
Associated events
n/a
Pageant outline
Key historical figures mentioned
- Becket, Thomas [St Thomas of Canterbury, Thomas of London] (1120?–1170) archbishop of Canterbury
Musical production
Newspaper coverage of pageant
Book of words
n/a
Borough of Reigate Pageant: the Heritage of the Crown Souvenir Programme. N.P., 1953. [Price 6d.]
Other primary published materials
n/a
References in secondary literature
n/a
Archival holdings connected to pageant
- Copy of programme in Surrey History Centre, Woking, reference 7523/File 2.
Sources used in preparation of pageant
n/a
Summary
This pageant was held in the Coronation year of 1953, though three months after the event itself. Held in the Surrey town of Reigate, it was one of a number of pageants in the towns surrounding London in these years. Pageantry had first come to Reigate in the Edwardian period – there was a pageant in 1913, and another in nearby Merstham after the First World War, as well as in 1937. Pageantry became something of a local tradition in the post-war period, with further events in 1956 (the ‘Surrey Cavalcade’), 1959 and 1963. In 1953 a range of medieval and early modern history was covered in the various episodes, and there was one scene dealing with the ‘present and future’. The pageant-master was Cecile Hummel, headmistress of Merstham Grange School.
Footnotes
How to cite this entry
Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘Borough of Reigate Pageant: The Heritage of the Crown’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1170/