Welcome to our Pageants on the Thames history section. You can skip to subsequent pages using the links below or simply continue reading to start at the beginning.
PAGEANTS OF THE THAMES.
Lord Mayor's Day, 1827, saw a departure from custom. It had been the rule for the civic procession to go from Guildhall to Blackfriars Bridge, and there embark in the State barges for Westminster.
In the past, however, the Lord Mayor was the Alderman for the Tower Ward; he had a natural desire that his own people should witness his grandeur; and therefore the procession went eastward to embark at the Tower Stairs. This was said to be the first time a Lord Mayor's Show had passed under London Bridge, above which it was joined by "a vast number of boats and barges."
It is difficult nowadays to imagine the scene; more difficult still to think of the Thames entering so closely into the civic life that from 1452 until 1858 the greater part of the Lord Mayor's annual progress was by water.