CROYDON CHRONICLES: With summer fairs being planned and organised across the borough, this week DAVID MORGAN looks back more than 100 years at the stalls and events staged for the church fête of 1921
The bunting’s up. The marquee is being hauled into place. The competition cake is in the oven. The annual summer season of fairs and fayres, of carnivals and festivals, is well underway, as the advertising pages of Inside Croydon demonstrate.
A delve into the Croydon Minster archive has provided a glimpse into what was organised a little more than 100 years ago, for the then Parish Church’s 1921 summer fête.
The lists of the stalls and entertainments give a picture of life in the 1920s, together with a rich source of names for those studying 20th Century genealogy.
Described as an “Olde English Fayre”, the event was held in the grounds of Nos 1 and 2 Duppas Hill Terrace by kind permission of Mrs Williams and Miss Blake. The vicar, Rev Pat McCormick, DSO, was especially thankful, as the two ladies were not parishioners of his.
Making headlines: the local newspaper covered the event in some detail
The fayre was held on Wednesday July 20 – Wednesdays being Croydon’s half-day closing in those days. Proceedings were declared open at 2pm by Mrs Smith, the wife of the youngest curate in the clergy team at the Parish Church, because Mrs McCormick, the vicar’s wife, had been ordered to stay at home by her doctor.
With a feat of mammoth organisation, led by the fayre secretaries, Thomas Gue and Charles Major, the activities included sideshows, stalls, sports events, dance and drama presentations, with musical entertainment held throughout the proceedings and into the evening.
Some of the stalls and sideshows listed might be familiar to us today. The coconut shy, run by Mr WS Mountfield with the aid of a large megaphone, attracted a great many customers to try their luck in knocking over the “milkies”, as they were described.
Old favourite: Punch and Judy was a big attraction for children
There was a Punch and Judy show, too, which was a real attraction for all the children to shout, cheer, boo and hiss at the puppets as they told their familiar stories.
Another popular sideshow, but one which is rarely, if ever, found in fêtes today, was “the moving hat”.
This involved someone walking behind a canvas barrier which came up to the level of their head.
The top hat was the target for customers to try and hit by throwing a tennis ball as the figure moved back and forth. The hat wasn’t knocked off very often.
“Only rarely did the gentleman who walked behind the barrier with an air of nonchalance had to stoop to pick up the hat after it had been dislodged from his cranium by a well-aimed tennis ball,” a newspaper reported.
This stall was organised and run by Messrs PF Graham, Brown, LG Williams and G Bravery. The report didn’t reveal whose top hat was used for the show.
The list of other sideshows was as follows: fishing pond, clock golf, rifle range, joy wheel and seesaw, hoop-la, adding machine, glass-blowing, model yacht, lightning sketches and guessing the weight of the cake.
Opening ceremony: there was still an air of formality to be observed in 1020s Croydon
The winner of guess the weight of the cake was Mrs Mountfield. Other competitions were held during the day, too. Ruth Garraway won the prize for guessing how many cigarettes were in a box. Mrs Frank Harland correctly guessed how many sugar cubes were in a bottle. Guessing the number of fronds on a pineapple was won by Miss J Warner.
Hat trimming or decorating was well supported with the overall winner being Mr Williams. There was also a memory test stall and a mystery pie stall.
Eleven sports events were held in the afternoon for the youngsters, with amusement galore for the onlooking adults. The hopping race and three-legged race were highly entertaining. They also had a wheelbarrow race, an egg-and-spoon race, a potato race, a blindfold dash as well as a flowerpot and a thread-needle race. Only readers of a particular vintage will ever have experiences of these.
“Much amusement” was derived from the bun and cigarette races, so reads the report. Perhaps there are readers who can explain the form of these events?
Music at certain times through the day was provided by the Shirley Boys’ Band under the baton of Mr James Machall.
Back in 1921, Old Palace School was run by the Community of the Sisters of the Church and so, by kind permission of the sisters, some of the girls performed two scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and two scenes from the fairy play The Blue Bird by the Belgian Nobel Award-winning playwright Maurice Maeterlinck. The performances were directed by Miss Alice Reeve.
The extracts were very well received by the audience who gave the girls a great ovation. For some this was the highlight of the day.
Pupils from the girls’ department of the Parish Church School, together with some members of the infants classes, performed several “good old fashioned” country dances. Sellinger’s Round, Old Roger, Milkmaid’s Dance and the Maypole Minuet were among the dances which were described as “graceful and dignified, with movements which far surpassed the current day dances”, a reference, perhaps, to jazz music, which was growing in popularity in the “Roaring Twenties”.
In a packed programme for the visitors, there were two concerts performed by current and former students of the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music from Norwood, by permission of Mr Guy Campbell, the principal. The blind and partially sighted students excelled in music and performed madrigals, glees, piano solos and other choral items from their repertoire.
They were supported in their singing by the Westminster Glee Club.
Palace performers: acting by the girls from the nearby school was well-received
There was an evening musical programme organised by the organist of the Parish Church Mr H Leslie-Smith. Rupert O’Hea sang some humorous songs and Harry Barber, Henry Waller and Volney Savage joined Leslie-Smith for some close harmony items.
Other contributors to the entertainment were Miss Elsie Short, Mr Byfield, Mr Alan Richards and Mr Frank Hicks.
Dancing took place on the lawn in the evening, too. Mr AR Goddard’s orchestra provided the music and Gwen Rayner and Betty Bream performed a Spanish Dance, a Jester and an Old English Gavotte, before the visitors were able to join in.
There were several different stalls where people to spend their money. The ladies of the church ran the refreshment stall led by Mrs Parr and Mrs Vaughan. In addition to this, there was a separate lemonade and ices stall where you were served by Mrs Read and Miss Edith Major. There was also a sweets and cake stall run by Mrs Brian Harland and Miss Collyer.
A fruit and flowers stall was run by Mrs. G Laing together with Mrs Whealer and her daughter Till.
A bargains stall, with clothes, toys and other items, was organised by Mrs Colchester and Mrs Wayte. This complemented the Marine and Household stall run by Mrs Cortazzi and Mrs Warner.
A novelty stall, “Curiositie Store”, was advertised as being for “ye delectation of ye people of taste”, though no further details about the curiosities were provided.
The amount of money raised on the day was not included in the archived report. The vicar explained to those who were still around at the close of the fayre in the evening that the monies raised were to go towards Nursing, the Sunday School, the parish day schools and the parish magazine.
Rev McCormick also gave a vote of thanks to Charles Major and his team of helpers who ensured that the fayre ran smoothly and everything was properly tidied up and cleared away.
Councillor Francis Allen, JP, who chaired the organising committee, must have been satisfied with the packed programme on the day as well as the large number of people who came along to support it.
In the life of Croydon in the 1920s, the Parish Church summer fête was one of the key events which people would try to attend. It took a great deal of organising but it did include events for young and old and a time for the community to come together.
Held just three years after the end of the Great War, many people were still coming to terms with the consequences of grief and change. The church fête provided gentle entertainment in a familiar and local setting.
More than a century later, communities across Croydon, from Norbury to Old Coulsdon to New Addington, all have plans for their own summer festival, still an opportunity for people to come together and enjoy a little summer fun.
David Morgan, pictured right, has been chronicling Croydon’s history for Inside Croydon for a decade. Morgan is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster, who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- Biggles and the curious case of the curate from Croydon
- When ‘Race Around The World’ was a tea shipper’s business
- Grave error in the failure to reconstruct great Grindal’s tomb
- Here’s Croydon’s election results – from Coronation year 1953
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
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The most enduring legacy of one of the 1921 Fayre Secretaries, Charles Major, who was a local philanthropist, is that he also set the Old Town Youth Club, which is still in a building called the Charles Major Centre, in Duppas Hill Terrace.