Activity: External talk or presentation › Oral presentation
Description
Based on extensive research, Paul describes the evolution of the ritual and the oddities that entertained vast crowds both on and along the river. He details the growing sense of opposition of North Shields to the ritual in relation to its assertion of rights to the river and will share too his own familial connections to Barge Day.
He explains how every Tyneside community was involved in the Barge Day celebration. This was a grand civic occasion performed on Ascension Day that lasted from the sixteenth century until 1901.
The origins of the event lay within the assertion of jurisdictional rights over the River Tyne, making it an aquatic example of Rogationtide ‘Beating the Bounds’ ceremonies, and a source of controversy that agitated the sticky relations between North Shields and Newcastle for legal control of the river.
Foremost though, Barge Day was a spectacular ritual enjoyed by all classes and its survival into the early twentieth century even eclipsed the grand Mayoral flotillas that were witnessed on the River Thames by some fifty years.