Great Horwood School Children Maypole dancing to entertain visitors from the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge at the Rectory in July 1908.
May Day celebrations were undoubtedly held in the village for centuries before we have any actual record of them but the Great Horwood schoolmasters’ records chart the popularity and decline of the celebrations in the late nineteenth century.
These celebrations were definitely popular in 1872 when the schoolmaster, James Linnell, recorded:
On Wednesday the attendance was very bad owing to it being May Day, there being only 23 [school pupils] in the morning, the others having gone with the garlands.
The following year, Mr Linnell gave everyone a whole-day holiday on 1st May because he knew that most of the children would be absent anyway. The tradition of granting a day’s holiday on May Day also continued throughout the 16 years that Edward Wood was schoolmaster. In 1881 he explained:
Monday the 2nd May kept as May Day, the children parading the village the whole day with garlands.
When Alfred Rich took over in 1893, he didn’t grant a holiday for May Day and reported poor attendance that day. As head of a Church of England school, Mr Rich was probably under pressure not to encourage the children to celebrate a pagan festival but there wasn’t any objection to flower garlands or maypole dancing themselves. These could still be enjoyed as traditional English activities on other special occasions, such as the visit by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in July 1908 (pictured).
By the end of the nineteenth century, May Day celebrations were becoming less popular. On 1st May 1899, Mr Rich reported, ‘Very poor attendance in the morning. The custom of going “garlanding” is certainly dying out, but very slowly’ and three years later, in 1902, only 8 out of 90+ pupils missed school to go garlanding.
May Day had been a public holiday in Scotland since 1871 but in 1978 it became a public holiday for the rest of the UK. Great Horwood School Headmaster, Nelson Collins, immediately embraced the new holiday and, for some years, the schoolchildren were at the centre of traditional May Day celebrations for all the village to enjoy, with the crowning of the May Queen, a procession with flower garlands, maypole dancing and Morris dancing.
These celebrations were definitely popular in 1872 when the schoolmaster, James Linnell, recorded:
On Wednesday the attendance was very bad owing to it being May Day, there being only 23 [school pupils] in the morning, the others having gone with the garlands.
The following year, Mr Linnell gave everyone a whole-day holiday on 1st May because he knew that most of the children would be absent anyway. The tradition of granting a day’s holiday on May Day also continued throughout the 16 years that Edward Wood was schoolmaster. In 1881 he explained:
Monday the 2nd May kept as May Day, the children parading the village the whole day with garlands.
When Alfred Rich took over in 1893, he didn’t grant a holiday for May Day and reported poor attendance that day. As head of a Church of England school, Mr Rich was probably under pressure not to encourage the children to celebrate a pagan festival but there wasn’t any objection to flower garlands or maypole dancing themselves. These could still be enjoyed as traditional English activities on other special occasions, such as the visit by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge in July 1908 (pictured).
By the end of the nineteenth century, May Day celebrations were becoming less popular. On 1st May 1899, Mr Rich reported, ‘Very poor attendance in the morning. The custom of going “garlanding” is certainly dying out, but very slowly’ and three years later, in 1902, only 8 out of 90+ pupils missed school to go garlanding.
May Day had been a public holiday in Scotland since 1871 but in 1978 it became a public holiday for the rest of the UK. Great Horwood School Headmaster, Nelson Collins, immediately embraced the new holiday and, for some years, the schoolchildren were at the centre of traditional May Day celebrations for all the village to enjoy, with the crowning of the May Queen, a procession with flower garlands, maypole dancing and Morris dancing.