Pageant’s Tradition

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31211, 8 November 1966, Page 2

Pageant’s Tradition

(By ZALIA THOMAS)

LONDON.

On Saturday young and old will flock to London to see the Lord Mayor’s Show, as they have for the last 700 years.

Few realise the great traditions behind this pageant which unfolds in a procession from Guildhall to the Royal Courts of Justice where the Lord Mayor takes the declaration.

In 1215 King John confirmed the right of the citizens of London to elect a mayor, and required that the mayor be presented to the king or his justices for approval and that he should take an oath of office. From this stipulation the procession originated. Originally the newly elected mayor went on horseback

to Westminster. In 1422 the trip was made by water and this practice lasted until 1857. For the middle of the sixteenth century an established feature of the procession to the waterfront was the pageant, including musicians, actors, dancers and tumblers. The lord mayor and sheriffs in the water procession were accompanied by the magnificent barges of the livery guilds. Formerly, the lord mayor took the declaration before the barons of the exchequer, but since the law courts in the Strand were opened in

1882 the lord mayor has always gone there to take the declaration before the judges of the Queen's Bench division.

The procession traditionally consists first of detachments from the armed forces from those units connected with the city, the pre-service organisations, the civil defence corps, and the British Legion and Old Comrades’ Association. Secondly, the pageant. Thirdly, the traditional civic procession consisting of the lord mayor and his escort, the former lord mayor, and the aidermen, sheriffs and high officers.