Description:Aethelfleda Founds Stafford, 913. The second Episode of the Pageant portrays the founding of the ‘burh’ of Stafford. In 913 Aethelfleda, daughter of Alfred the Great, came to the site and drew together local people for protection on a hillfort. It shows how many of the people grown used to the depredations of the Danes had come to recognise them as good neighbours, and how the ‘Lady of the Mercians’ wins to her cause those who had wavered and those who had opposed. An unknown monk ties the first Stafford Knot and gives it to her as the bond that binds the five hundreds of the town.
This picture portrays the Clergy at the time of Aethelfleda. The Bishop of Lichfield was played by Rev. Norman Henry Theodosius, born in 1863. In 1881 Norman was Classics Master at a school in Eastbourne. He was Curate of St. Chad's in Stafford from 1885 to 1887 before becoming curate at St. Paul's, Burton-upon-Trent. He returned to Stafford to become Vicar of St. Paul’s Forebridge 1908 to 1916. He retired to Rusthall, Kent where he died in February 1926.
His Chaplain was played by Rev Richard Vernon Higgins Burne. Born in Norbury 1882, son of the Vicar. He was ordained in 1907 and worked for a time in Eton. He was appointed Chaplain to the Bishop of Singapore from 1913 to 1915 and then served as a Royal Army Chaplain from 1915 to 1920. In 1937 he became Archdeacon of Chester. He was the brother of Margaret Burne, who played Attendant to Ethelfleda.
The Dean of Lichfield was played by Rev Thomas Storey Busher, Vicar of Berkswich. In 1914 he married a local girl May Twigg, and moved to the Isle of Wight. He and his wife became great friends with Princess Beatrice, the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria who was living at Carisbrook Castle. Thomas had been brought up by his grandfather, a tobacco merchant in Kendal, where he attended the Friends (Quaker) School before winning a scholarship to Oxford.
Four Canons of Lichfield:
Rev. Arthur Richard Alsop, born 1854 in Lancashire. His father was vicar of Acton Trussell with Bednall and in 1877 Arthur joined him as his Curate. On his father's death in 1880 Arthur became Vicar, a post he held until his own death in 1928.
Rev Thomas Tibbits Whittaker.
Rev John Pauli, Vicar of Audley from 1874 until his death in 1918. He was born in Oxford, the son of a Hebrew Lecturer at the University.
Rev Cyril Wilberforce d’Ombrain, Curate at Berkswich. Born on 23 August 1874 with a twin sister, the children of the Vicar of Oldham. He left Berkswich in March 1917 to become Vicar of Saxelby, Leicestershire
Lay Clerk plaued by Arthur Rawdon Spinney, born 1890, the son of the Vicar of Newborough. He was organist at St Chad's, Stafford, a post that had previously been held by his brother Montague. He enlisted in the army on 28th October 1915 whilst he was working as a secretary at the Inns of Court. Spinneys is a supermarket chain similar to many others established 1924 in Alexandria, Egypt by Arthur Rawdon Spinney. Mr Spinney is reported as having seen a market opportunity for imported goods which, as a British Army Officer stationed in Egypt at that time, he would have been well placed to do. Historically Spinneys supplied Allied forces during World War II. He died in Littlehampton in 1973
An Unknown Monk played by Mr Frederick Woodcock, born in 1886. He worked with Mr Burckhardt at the Post Office as an official sorter.