Twentieth-century Britain was subject to regular bouts of 'pageant fever'. Communities of all sizes and character across England, Scotland and Wales staged theatrical re-enactments of events from local and national history with thousands of men, women and children involved as performers, organizers and spectators. This was national costume drama on a grand scale. Over the course of the twentieth century many hundreds of events were mounted by communities and institutions, ranging from small churches and village communities to large cities such as Liverpool and Manchester. In addition, institutions as diverse as the Army, the Church of England the Women's Co-operative Guild also staged historical pageants. The fever was especially intense at certain times, notably the Edwardian era, the 1930s and 1950s (encouraged by the Festival of Britain and the 1953 Coronation), but the tradition never fully died out and there were revivals in the 1970s and during the millennium celebrations. A distinctive feature of historical pageantry has been the involvement not only of communities but also of prominent individuals, such as G.K. Chesterton and G.M. Trevelyan. Drawing on oral and written evidence, this project is a landmark intervention. It will provide an authoritative treatment of a subject that has largely escaped academic scrutiny despite the rich insights that these apparently ephemeral events can give into popular understandings of the past. The project also offers key insights into the role of 'heritage' in leisure activities, the interaction between local, national and imperial identities, and the character of community life. Differences and similarities between the regions and nations of Britain, and continuities and changes over time, are central to the project and will be explored in depth. The comprehensive coverage of local events - based on geographically dispersed sources - will support, stimulate and publicize the activities of local historians and historical associations, and provide a useful resource for all those interested in the history of communities and institutions, including schools. It will recover the stories that communities and institutions told about themselves. It will result in a comprehensive database of historical pageants, a monograph envisaged as the key book on the subject, and an edited volume of essays situating the British movement in its international context. Every historical pageant for which any significant record exists comes under the scope of the study and the interactive publicly-accessible resource at its centre. The website will include general commentary on the pageant movement, representative images of pageant-related ephemera, and oral testimonies from witnesses to historical pageants. It will allow interaction between the public and the project, enabling individual users and local history societies - some of whom will be actively involved in the project - to contribute their own memories and memorabilia. It will feature interactive maps, allowing users to locate pageant venues and to track the incidence of performances and themes over time. The website will be an important tool for historians, as well as scholars of literature and drama, historical geography and cultural studies. Through the database, these users will be able to access and process a vast body of information relating to the content, organization and experience of historical pageants, allowing the exploration of, for example, the evolving depiction of specific historical events and themes, the authorship of pageant scripts, and constructions of popular memory. The database will also encourage wider use of pageant-related archival holdings by academic and other users. The project will thus enhance academic and non-academic understandings of an important twentieth-century phenomenon, drawing together a remarkably rich collection of visual, oral and textual resources, much of which is on the verge of being lost.

Informed by the original 'Ancient Identities in Modern Britain' (AI) grant (AH/N006151/1), this Follow-on project will support the development of tolerance in British society, in partnership with eight Iron Age and Roman Heritage (IARH) museums and sites located in both rural and urban areas of England, Scotland and Wales. Tolerance is defined as a three-dimensional concept entailing 'acceptance of, respect for and appreciation of difference' (Hjerm 2019). AI research exposed binary uses of Iron Age and Roman Heritages (IARHs) aimed at rejecting difference and forging hostile ideas of others framed on the basis of ethnicity, culture and race. It also showed how formal and informal education is frequently identified by people as the reference point for such exclusive uses of IARHs. It is therefore of particular concern that formal and free-choice learning environments across Britain frequently continue to present the Iron Age and Roman past through dichotomies and caricatures, for example by contrasting militarised and violent, but civilising, mobile and multicultural Romans to spiritual, peaceful, environmentally sustainable and indigenous, but barbaric and rebellious Iron Age people. When we shared these findings from the AI project, a number of heritage and education professionals and members of the public reported that the project results had prompted them to begin rethinking their everyday lives and work practices. Consequently, two clear needs for intervention emerged: (1) increasing public understanding of the repertoire of symbols that are leveraged to power divisive social narratives and proposing alternatives that can provoke attitudinal shifts; and (2) aiding heritage curators and educators to create learning experiences for current and future generations of children that contribute to building a tolerant society. The Follow-on project will address these needs and co-produce tolerant futures through ancient identities by pursuing two newly emerged pathways to impact, targeted at two new audiences. The first pathway consists of creating, displaying and widely disseminating a digital artwork to raise public awareness of the divisive ways in which IARHs have been mobilised in the public sphere over the past ten years, in order to challenge them and recognise opportunities for inclusivity and tolerance. During the lifetime of the project, this pathway will have impact on the new audience of at least 15,000 adults (18+) in Britain including those who do not visit IARH museums and sites as well as those who do, and at least 30,000 more in the two years following the end of the grant. The second pathway is aimed at generating impact on the new audience of 7-11 year old children in England, Scotland and Wales, both in the immediate and longer-term future. It consists of co-producing and widely disseminating digital storytelling resources that can help heritage and history educators to enable non-binary and nuanced early engagements with IARHs which encourage children to open up to and reflect on the themes of otherness and tolerance. The project's legacy will be ensured through the creation a cross-sector network of heritage and education professionals with capacity to support the future development of critical interpretations of IAHRs across England, Scotland and Wales. This will ensure that the two pathways live beyond the end of the Follow-on grant.

Informed by the original 'Ancient Identities in Modern Britain' (AI) grant (AH/N006151/1), this Follow-on project will support the development of tolerance in British society, in partnership with eight Iron Age and Roman Heritage (IARH) museums and sites located in both rural and urban areas of England, Scotland and Wales. Tolerance is defined as a three-dimensional concept entailing 'acceptance of, respect for and appreciation of difference' (Hjerm 2019). AI research exposed binary uses of Iron Age and Roman Heritages (IARHs) aimed at rejecting difference and forging hostile ideas of others framed on the basis of ethnicity, culture and race. It also showed how formal and informal education is frequently identified by people as the reference point for such exclusive uses of IARHs. It is therefore of particular concern that formal and free-choice learning environments across Britain frequently continue to present the Iron Age and Roman past through dichotomies and caricatures, for example by contrasting militarised and violent, but civilising, mobile and multicultural Romans to spiritual, peaceful, environmentally sustainable and indigenous, but barbaric and rebellious Iron Age people. When we shared these findings from the AI project, a number of heritage and education professionals and members of the public reported that the project results had prompted them to begin rethinking their everyday lives and work practices. Consequently, two clear needs for intervention emerged: (1) increasing public understanding of the repertoire of symbols that are leveraged to power divisive social narratives and proposing alternatives that can provoke attitudinal shifts; and (2) aiding heritage curators and educators to create learning experiences for current and future generations of children that contribute to building a tolerant society. The Follow-on project will address these needs and co-produce tolerant futures through ancient identities by pursuing two newly emerged pathways to impact, targeted at two new audiences. The first pathway consists of creating, displaying and widely disseminating a digital artwork to raise public awareness of the divisive ways in which IARHs have been mobilised in the public sphere over the past ten years, in order to challenge them and recognise opportunities for inclusivity and tolerance. During the lifetime of the project, this pathway will have impact on the new audience of at least 15,000 adults (18+) in Britain including those who do not visit IARH museums and sites as well as those who do, and at least 30,000 more in the two years following the end of the grant. The second pathway is aimed at generating impact on the new audience of 7-11 year old children in England, Scotland and Wales, both in the immediate and longer-term future. It consists of co-producing and widely disseminating digital storytelling resources that can help heritage and history educators to enable non-binary and nuanced early engagements with IARHs which encourage children to open up to and reflect on the themes of otherness and tolerance. The project's legacy will be ensured through the creation a cross-sector network of heritage and education professionals with capacity to support the future development of critical interpretations of IAHRs across England, Scotland and Wales. This will ensure that the two pathways live beyond the end of the Follow-on grant.