Pageants and pickpockets
by Paul Readman
I’ve just remembered a curious discovery Tom Hulme and I
made last summer, when we visited Sherborne. Before giving a talk to a
meeting of the Somerset and Dorset History Society, we had time for a quick
look in the Sherborne School archives.
Above: Paul in the archives
One of the highlights of the archive – apart from the life-size cut-out of Old Shirburnian Benedict Cumberbatch – is a large-format commemorative album of photographs relating to the 1905 pageant. This album was presented to Louis Napoleon Parker, who later donated it to the school. One picture of a performance in full swing caught our eye, since it seemed very similar to the one we were using in our talk later on.
Above: a scene from the the Pageant
There was something odd about the neat rectangular white smudge in the bottom right foreground, however. What was it? I looked more closely. It was a white paste-like substance (an early version of Tipp-ex?) that had been applied directly to the surface of the photographic print. But why? Perusal of the version I was using in the talk supplied the answer.
The two photographs are not identical, but were both taken around the same time from the same vantage point, and almost certainly with the same camera. And the version I had supplied the answer to the mystery of the white smudge, which had been applied to conceal a notice affixed to the grandstand: “BEWARE OF PICKPOCKETS”. Clearly it was felt unseemly for this to appear in the photograph that appeared in the presentation album!
Pickpockets, indeed, were a problem at pageants, as they were at other events of this kind. A few years earlier, there had been similar concerns about security at the King Alfred Millenary celebrations, held in Winchester in 1901. Indeed it was reported in the press on that occasion that professional pickpockets had taken advantage of the cheap special trains laid on to travel from London and relieve spectators of their valuables. This was probably scaremongering, but worries about pickpockets at pageants persisted until at least the Second World War. It might be added that pickpockets themselves frequently featured in the action of pageants; they were often shown been put in the stocks in medieval fair scenes.
Paul Readman