David Clarke
David Clarke, 1977 
Pageants: Their History and Production, 1988
Pageant of England, 1968, leafletThis exhibition would not be possible without David Clarke and his wonderful collection.
Not only was David Clarke a pageant master within his own right, but he also built an extensive collection of materials documenting the pageants of the past, many of which have been featured earlier in this exhibition.
Clarke produced pageants in Carlisle, Farnham, and other locations, including many in Surrey, his home county.
These stuck to the traditional form of being large scale, outdoor productions, with considerable input from the local community.
It is a testament to Clarke, that even in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, when pageant fever seemed so far in the past, that he was so passionate and managed to pull off these productions.
Of course, with the massive rise of home entertainment over this period, it became harder and harder for these productions to be financially viable, and Clarke moved more towards researching and writing about pageants instead.
Within the contents of the collection in the Kings College London Archives is an unpublished draft of a book about pageant history, written before his death in 2014.
This, and the collection as a whole, provide an excellent resource for anyone who is interested in the history of pageants.
This exhibition featuring the David Clarke Collection, has been researched and compiled by Fraser Simpson, MA student History Department, King’s College London.