Queen Victoria’s children in a tableau entitled ‘The Seasons’, photographed in 1854 at Buckingham Palace by Roger Fenton. Even royalty, it seems, loved dressing up for the camera.
Gorleston-on-Sea Pageant, 1908, with the vicar in his role of ‘The Master of Knights’.
Bury St Edmund’s Pageant in 1907, from locally produced picture postcards.
Pageantry has been an established part of the British tradition for centuries, and was a regular subject for the artist’s brush throughout Victorian times. For much of photography’s first halfcentury, however, the camera was only very rarely turned towards the many pageants held up and down the country, as the long exposures necessary made spontaneous pictures impossible.
Until then, the constructed ‘tableaux’ (opposite page top left) had to suffice. But once the sensitivity of films had reached a level where ‘instantaneous’ pictures could be taken, the animated scenes at annual pageants were obvious subjects.
Local pageants involved people from all walks of life, and while some pageants continued to produce postcards based on artists’ interpretations of the festivities, others, like Bury St Edmunds, enthusiastically embraced the new medium, giving the participants their moment of fame.
As the postcards, published annually within just a few days of the event, were printed in limited numbers for local use and had a relatively short shelf life, most were in black and white. Topicality was of the essence, and getting the cards printed quickly was an important issue if maximum sales were to be realised. Some towns, however – like Gorleston on Sea – went to the additional time and expense of having the cards printed in colour to celebrate the annual dressingup festival.