‘The World’s Most Famous Strip-Girl’: Lady Godiva and the Coventry Pageants
It is perhaps surprising that the celebration of the opening a new cathedral should be marked by public nudity, however, the 1962 Coventry Cathedral Festival which marked the opening of the Cathedral almost twenty-two years after the old building had been destroyed in a bombing raid was accompanied by a search for someone to play what the Daily Mail declared as ‘the world’s most famous strip-girl’[1]
Above: Programmes of various Lady Godiva Pageants on display in the Herbert Museum, Coventry
Pageantry is an ancient tradition in Coventry, dating back to medieval times. The comparatively recent Godiva Procession, to commemorate Lady Godiva’s famous ride through the town during the eleventh century to free its people from punitive taxation, has been held every few years since the 1860s.[2] The tradition of a young girl riding naked through the town (in fact, wearing a flesh-coloured dress and a tactfully positioned long wig) predictably raised the pulses of the townspeople. ‘One of the Disgusted’ wrote in protest as far back as 1854 that: ‘I hold no extreme views in regard to public exhibitions, but simply, as the head of a family, I would uphold that common modesty…surely, whatever the promoters of the Godiva show may say, we are not to be told in the middle of the nineteenth century that the spectacle of a female on horseback, half intoxicated and nearly naked, and thus triumphantly paraded in open day through the main thoroughfares of an English city, is neither offensive to decency nor public morality.’[3]
Although these protests were repeated each time the procession was staged, and generally eclipsed the other historical scenes in the pageants, they had little effect on the overall enthusiasm of the town to provide a link with its esteemed past. As one newspaper put it succinctly in 1929, alongside several pages of photographs of Miss Muriel Mellerup, whose honour it was to play the local patroness, Coventry was full of ‘300000 peeping toms…Just because one pretty girl decided to impersonate Lady Godiva for half an hour or so to-day.’[4]
The
appearance of Lady Godiva, the Yorkshire
Evening News reassured its readers, that though ‘There are some people in
the city, it is whispered, who have disapproved of Lady Godiva’s “costume” of
flesh-coloured tights and who wanted more draperies. Even the picture on the
official programme was criticised, but there were plenty of clergymen,
councillors, aldermen and other civic dignitaries present to quell the voice of
censure.’[5]
The Western Morning News went further
than that, actually finding a local clergyman who told the newspaper that ‘her
appearance was the soul of modesty and decorum…There was nothing to which any
healthy-minded person could take exception. It was a most ennobling spectacle.’[6]
Miss Mellerup was reported as ‘Breathless and flushed, but still smiling’,
remarking that ‘Hardly once did she raise her eyes to look at the crowds which
waved hats and handkerchiefs. Asked if she felt shy, Lady Godiva said: “No, I
was not really nervous. As a matter of fact, I have been looking forward to it
for a long time, and it was not any worse than I thought it would be. I should
be delighted to do it all again.”’[7]
The first post-war pageant was held during the Festival of Britain in June 1951, when much of the city still lay in ruins, trod a careful line in attempting to restore the gaiety and returning to the (somewhat normality) of the pre-war traditions. As the Chicago Tribune, one of many American newspapers and magazines to cover the Pageant, remarked: ‘This time, Godiva rides, not only for Coventry, but for all Britain. She will be, the city council hopes, one of the prime features of the Festival of Britain.’[8]
The Manchester Guardian, reporting in February 1951, was critical of the overly-rigorous pronouncements of the spoil-sport council on Lady Godiva: ‘Everything seems to conspire against those whose job it is to organise our gaiety. Coventry has now started looking for a Lady Godiva to take part in its Festival of Britain pageant. Applicants must be of “mature age, cultured, of good physique and appearance, and able to ride a horse side-saddle at walking pace.”’[9] The paper asked pointedly: ‘Why does the lady have to be cultured? Does this mean that she must be able to quote from ancient charters to prove her existence and look as if she fully realised that her ride is in protest against excessive taxes.’ The Guardian relented a little, acknowledging that ‘Coventry does not want its Godiva joking over-heartily with passers-by to cover her embarrassment, or breaking off her side-saddle. The more one thinks about it, the more the undertaking grows in solemnity’. It concluded, darkly that ‘Siberian weather’ was being reported and hoped that this would not last until June.
Above: Anne Wrigg as Lady Godiva, flanked by nuns
However, it was roundly decided that the stage and screen actress, Anne Wrigg (who later appeared on Coronation Street in the 1980s) had been the right choice for all concerned, flanked by a column of nuns, once again firmly eclipsing the rest of the Pageant and garnering full-page photographs in many newspapers. Whether or not Lady Godiva’s ride managed to dispel painful memories of the war or to take people’s minds off the long, slow process of reconstruction, the Festival of Britain heralded the start of the rebuilding in earnest of Coventry. Whilst the mass newspaper coverage of the event stemmed in part from the same imperatives of much of today’s tabloid coverage – or the Daily Telegraph’s fixation with A-Level Results – the Godiva Pageant represented a fiercely-defended civic tradition.
Newsreels of the 1929 and 1951 Pageants can be found on the British Pathe website:
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/lady-godiva-in-coventry-festival
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/pathe-news-special-festival-in-coventry/query/boy
[1] Daily Mail 18 January 1962, 7.
[2] Ronald Aquilla Clarke & Patrick A.E. Day, Lady Godiva: images of a legend in art & society (Coventry, 1982). 'The City of Coventry: Social history to 1700', in A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 8, the City of Coventry and Borough of Warwick, ed. W B Stephens (London, 1969), 208-221, accessed 23 February 2016, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol8/pp208-221.
[3] London Daily News, 11 May 1854, 3.
[4] Yorkshire Evening News, 30 June 1929, np.
[5] Yorkshire Evening News, 30 June 1929.
[6] Western Morning News, 1 July 1929, 8.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Chicago Tribune, 15 February 1951 [Reprinted in Spokesman Review], accessed 23 February 2016, https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19510215&id=yX1WAAAAIBAJ&sjid=0OUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7102,5400804&hl=en
[9] Manchester Guardian, 17 February 1951, 4.