As part of our Spotlight on Arts & Humanities series we delve into the Redress of the Past project led by historian, Professor Paul Readman. In a new film, the culmination of his Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) AHRC funded research project, Professor Readman explores how the phenomenon of historical pageantry gripped the nation over the course of the twentieth century, and examines their importance to Britain today. 

Postcard showing Louis Napoleon Parker with a large megaphone. Image: David Clarke Collection, King’s College London

The birth of 'pageant fever'

In 1905, the charismatic impresario Louis Napoleon Parker staged the very first historical pageant. Engaging over 900 actors, musicians, costume makers and organisers, Parker put on a reenactment of the history of Sherborne, Dorset in the ruins of its castle. Special trains carried visitors from London, and 30,000 people are said to have watched the performances. A whole community was inspired, and the historical pageant movement was born.

Parker’s innovation sparked what people at the time called ‘pageant fever.’ The format of the Sherborne pageant set the precedent for its successors: a chronological sequence of episodes from local history, played out by actors dressed in historical costumes sewn by volunteers, with accompanying props, music, and souvenirs for the crowds to take home. Beginning with the story of the town’s foundation by St Aldhelm in 705 and ending with a visit from Sir Walter Raleigh in 1593, the spectacle comprised a total of eleven episodes which journeyed through 1200 years of Sherborne’s unique history, linking that to the larger history of Britain as a whole. 

Communities across the nation set about staging historical pageants of their own, retelling their own local histories in dramatic performances that encouraged the public to think imaginatively about their place and their past. By the interwar period, these spectacles had spread to large industrial towns and cities, who upscaled Parker’s original format to include up to 10,000 performers and address social and economic histories as well as the traditional tales of battles, kings and queens. Hundreds of thousands of people were involved as performers and organisers, millions more as supporters and spectators.   

The popularity of pageants until at least the 1960s in villages, towns and cities alike tells us that historical pageants played a significant role in bringing communities together through an engagement with the history of their surroundings. Existing at the scale they did, they arguably represented one of those most significant forms of public engagement with history before new attractions, including historical documentaries, TV dramas and public heritage sites, replaced them. Firsthand accounts demonstrate the impression they left on participants. 

Pageants are still staged in some places today, such as the town of Axbridge in Somerset, and their wider legacy is apparent in the popularity of ‘living history’ and historical reenactment societies. Yet their ongoing cultural significance has gone unappreciated. The Redress of the Past project asked what inspired millions of people to volunteer their time and resources into historical pageantry. 

The Pageants Database: A Major New Digital Resource

Backed by two grants from the AHRC, the Redress of the Past project worked with King's Digital Lab to create an open-access, searchable database of pageants in Britain.

Engaging Local Communities 

The exhibitions and events put on in collaboration with museums and other groups enabled communities to connect their past and present. An exhibition at St. Albans, ‘Pageant Fever’, welcomed more than 19,000 visitors to explore the history of pageants in the city.

For the exhibition at Tullie House Museum and Gallery in Carlisle, the Redress of the Past team worked closely with the curator Edwin Rutherford to develop what he described as “a new model of co-curation for the museum”. Costumes, photographs and local memories from the city’s 1928, 1951 and 1977 pageants featured in an exhibition that also included newly recorded oral history testimonies deriving from the project research – many of which can be accessed through the project website.

Restaging the Past : a documentary film

The research influenced the activities of charitable organisations, feeding into successful Heritage Lottery Funding applications. The project’s work with Windrose Rural Media Trust was especially important, supporting the preservation of archive film, and leading to the creation of a new documentary film about pageants. In the words of the Trust’s Director Trevor Bailey, the collaboration has “greatly expanded the opportunities for us as filmmakers”, not least through the recording – often for the first time – of original pageant music.

Restaging the Past, the resulting documentary film made in collaboration with Windrose, tells the story of the historical pageant movement across the twentieth century. It features footage from the Sherborne Pageant of 1905, as well as pageants in St Albans (1907, 1948 and 1953), Carlisle (1928, 1951 and 1977), Birmingham (1938), Guildford (1977 and 1987) and elsewhere. The film begins and ends with the preparation and performance of the 2022 Axbridge Pageant in Somerset, a pageant which is restaged every ten years and which shows how vital such events can be to the life of 21st century communities, as new tales from the 20th and early 21st centuries are woven into the narrative.

Axbridge, and other contemporary pageants like it, demonstrate that pageants retain their potential to bond communities together by offering audiences an immersive experience of the past. More broadly, the story of pageantry in Britain prompts us to consider how and why dramatisations of history continue to captivate contemporary British audiences, proving that certain art forms provide us with creative avenues into the past that are not available elsewhere.