Details

Subject(s)

• Hospitals—England—Crewe (Cheshire East)—Finance [Browse]
• Pageants—England—Crewe (Cheshire East) [Browse]
• Fund raising—England—Crewe (Cheshire East) [Browse]
• Processions—England—Crewe (Cheshire East) [Browse]

Filmmaker

• Kenyon, James, 1850-1925 [Browse]
• Mitchell, Sagar, 1866-1952 [Browse]

Production company

• Mitchell and Kenyon [Browse]

Publisher

• British Film Institute [Browse]

Library of Congress genre(s)

• Actualities (Motion pictures) [Browse]

Summary note

The local pageant was an Edwardian craze, kicked off in 1905. The Crewe Hospital Procession and Pageant was founded the following year to fund-raise for the Crewe Memorial Cottage Hospital. The 1907 carnival took over an hour to make its way through the town's streets. Mitchell & Kenyon made of this an 11-minute film, showing the best of those who had taken part, with a focus on the prizewinners. This surviving footage features participants in historical and national costumes as well as cross-dressers, and features a number of troupes of black-faced minstrels and (very well choreographed) 'golliwog' dancers. These popular entertainment figures were imported from the USA from the late 19th century. Though racial representations like these seem shocking to us today, in the context of Edwardian Britain - so far from the culture they parodied - should perhaps be understood as more naïve than malicious. Campaigners for women's suffrage are also sent up by one of the troupes in the film's final frames.

Notes

Title from resource description page (viewed July 17, 2018).

Language note

Silent.

Other title(s)

• Crewe Hospital procession and pageant (1907)
• Crewe Hospital procession and pageant

OCLC

881551040

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