What Made England
Pageant type
Notes
Information drawn from 'Survey of Historical Pageants' undertaken by Mick Wallis; with thanks to Jenny Parker of Middlesbrough Central Library.
Performances
Place: various locations (Middlesbrough) (Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, North Riding, England)
Year: 1937
Indoors/outdoors: Outdoors
Number of performances: 1
Notes
10 July 1937
The pageant was performed multiple times on a single day. The cast processed from church to church, giving a performance in each.
Name of pageant master and other named staff
Names of executive committee or equivalent
Middlesbrough Rural Deanery established a 'Pageant Committee' to organise the event.
Names of script-writer(s) and other credited author(s)
- Lillie, William
Notes
William Lillie was Middlesbrough Borough Librarian until 1950.
Names of composers
n/a
Numbers of performers
n/a
Financial information
n/a
Object of any funds raised
Archbishop of York's Appeal
Notes
Linked occasion
Coronation of King George VI.
Audience information
Prices of admission and seats: highest–lowest
n/a
Associated events
n/a
Pageant outline
Key historical figures mentioned
n/a
Musical production
n/a
Newspaper coverage of pageant
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Book of words
n/a
Other primary published materials
n/a
References in secondary literature
n/a
Archival holdings connected to pageant
Middlesbrough Central Library holds a copy of the pageant programme.
Sources used in preparation of pageant
n/a
Summary
This pageant was staged as part of Middlesbrough's Coronation Year celebrations. It was organised by the Middlesbrough Rural Deanery of the Church of England, which established a pageant committee to oversee preparations. The event was quite an unusual one, being performed successively in each of the Deanery's churches over the course of the same day, Saturday 10 July 1937. The cast processed from church to church between performances, adding to the spectacle. As the title of the pageant suggests, the focus was on national as much as local history—and it seems the whole was marked by a pronounced patriotic flavour. Perhaps tellingly, the culminating scene was of the 1937 Imperial Conference of May-June that year, which had been hosted by the newly-crowned king.
Middlesbrough Deanery would go on to organise another pageant the following year.
Footnotes
How to cite this entry
Angela Bartie, Linda Fleming, Mark Freeman, Tom Hulme, Alex Hutton, Paul Readman, ‘What Made England’, The Redress of the Past, http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/pageants/1598/