London’s Screen Archives enables Londoners see their past come alive on film. Managed by Film London, we are a unique network of historic film collections that cares for, collects and screens heritage film across the city. Together we preserve London’s rich film heritage from feature films to home movies, public information films, newsreels, and records of the capital’s many different industries.
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Prettiest May Queen
Short film showing a parade featuring the new May Queen of London, anointed in an annual ceremony at Hayes Common.
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Overview
The annual May Queen festival was a very popular event in the 1920s. This newsreel footage begins with various local May Queens – one carries a banner for Mitcham – and pages marching past, before we are introduced the May Queen of London. She is shown leaving the church after a ceremony with bells being rung, and then anointed with garlands of flowers as she giggles shyly.
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