CARDIFFREMEMBERED

THE 1909 National Pageant of Wales held at Cardiff’s Sophia Gardens was described “the greatest event in the annals of Wales” in a report from the time.

The pageant was held from July 26 to August 7. A makeshift grandstand was erected in Sophia Gardens to seat 7,500 spectators with another 17,000 seated in stands provided by Cardiff RFC. People from all backgrounds took part.

The cast included rugby players and teachers, and the actors included the Lord Mayor of Cardiff as Hywel Dda, the city librarian as Merlin The Wizard and the Chief Constable of Glamorgan as Chief Ruffian.

The official souvenir of the National Pageant of Wales tells us that the closing scene was “the most magnificent spectacle of any kind attempted in modern pageantry, and represents a glowing mass of between 4,000 and 5,000 persons – all performers in all the foregoing processions and episodes – marshalled together, as in some gigantic ballet scene, on the broad field of the pageant.

“Dame Wales (the Marchioness of Bute) and her attendant Counties come forward and take up their places, while the hundreds of tiny fairies dance in front of the thousands of kings and queens, knights and cavaliers, Roman legionnaires and wild Siluriars, and all the bishops, saints, druids, bards and peasant folk that helped the personnel of all the other tableaux.

“At a given signal the fairies join hands and form a map of the counties of Wales, with the lady representing each county in the centre of each group of fairies of that county’s colour.