Alice Buckton

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Alice Mary Buckton
Born9 March 1867
Died1944

Alice Mary Buckton (1867-1944) was an English educator, poet, community playwright, feminist and mystic.

In 1899 Buckton established a Froebelian educational institution, Sesame House, in London. Her mystery play Eager Heart, first performed in 1903, was the first of several pageant plays written or stage-managed by Buckton. A Bahá'í convert, she recited an ode to open the 1911 First Universal Races Congress. After buying the Chalice Well in Glastonbury, she established it as a hostel in Glastonbury, helping to establish Glastonbury as a site of pilgrimage.[1]

Early life[edit]

Alice Buckton was born in Haslemere, Surrey on 9 March 1867. She was the eldest of seven daughters of the entomologist George Bowdler Buckton,[2] and his wife Mary Ann Odling.[3] She came to know Alfred Tennyson, who lived nearby, and years later still wore a cloak given her by Tennyson.[2]

Settlement and educational activity[edit]

As a young woman Alice Buckton was involved with the Women's University Settlement which grew out of the work of Octavia Hill.[4][5] She then became interested in the educational ideas of Friedrich Fröbel,[1] and traveled to Germany to visit the Pestalozzi-Fröbel House. She managed to persuade the Principal there, Annet Schepel, to come to England and help set up a similar institution in London, the Sesame Garden and House for Home Life Training in St John's Wood.[4] In an 1898 lecture Buckton outlined a plan for this new institution.[6] Buckton emphasised the importance of motherhood in the thought of Pestalozzi and Fröbel, and declared the kindergarten to be part of the "woman's movement".[7] Sesame House opened in 1899, with Patrick Geddes on the committee.[2] One woman trained at Sesame House was Lileen Hardy, who went on to open the free kindergarten St. Saviour's Child Garden in Edinburgh.[8] By 1902 the school at Sesame House had sixty-five students.[9] Buckton and Schepel became lifelong partners, living together until Schepel's death in Glastonbury in 1931.[4]

Poetry and pageant plays[edit]

In 1901 Buckton published her first poetry collection, Through Human Eyes. Verse from the collection was later set to music by Gustav Holst as The heart worships.[10]

Buckton's mystery play Eager Heart was first performed in Lincoln's Inn Hall in 1903.[11] The play was an immediate success. Three decades later there had been hundreds of performances and over 41,000 published copies of the play sold.[12]

Bahá'í conversion[edit]

Buckton (standing second from right) as a delegate to the first Universal Races Congress, 1911

In 1907 Buckton became drawn into the Baháʼí Faith.[citation needed]

Buckton attended the First Universal Races Congress in London in 1911,[13] opening proceedings with an 'Ode of Salutation' from Europe, alongside T. Ramakrishna Pillai speaking for the East and W. E. B. DuBois speaking for Africa.[14]

Glastonbury[edit]

In 1912 Buckton bought the Chalice Well in Glastonbury.[15] She and Schepel opened a hostel there which drew pilgrims from around the world, and Buckton continued to live in Glastonbury for the rest of her life.

In August 1913 Buckton stage-managed Caroline Cannon's Pageant of Gwent at the National Eisteddfod of Wales.[16] The following year she supported an Arthurian festival at Glastonbury, centered around the performance of a music drama by Reginald Buckley, 'The Birth of Arthur'.[17] She herself wrote and produced The Coming of Bride, first performed in Glastonbury on 6 August 1914.[16] The Coming of the Dawn was written to be produced at Christmas 1918 by the YWCA.[18]

In 1919 Buckton spoke at a Leisure of the People Conference in Manchester, describing the way in which everyday people in Glastonbury threw themselves into performance of pageant plays. As a result, the University Settlement organized a May festival in Ancoats, for which Buckton wrote an allegorical play around the figures of Labour, Beauty and Joy.[19]

In 1925 she wrote a series of six radio sketches based on the Arthurian legends, performed by the Cardiff Station Radio Players with music by Warwick Braithwaite.[20]

In 1938 she received a civil list pension "in recognition of her services to literature and of the services rendered by her father".[21]

Works[edit]

  • 'Sesame Child Garden and House for Home Training', Child Life, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1899), pp. 32–36
  • Through human eyes: poems. Oxford: Daniel Press, 1901. With an introductory poem by Robert Bridges.
  • Eager heart: a Christmas mystery-play. London: Methuen, 1904.
  • The burden of Engela: a ballad-epic. London: Methuen, 1904.
  • The pastor of Wydon fell : a ballad of the North Country. London: E. Mathews, 1905.
  • Kings in Babylon: a drama, London: Methuen, 1906.
  • Garden of many waters, a masque. London: Mathews, 1907.
  • Songs of joy. London: Methuen, 1908.
  • 'Order of Service for Saint Bride's Day Gathering', The Forerunner, No. 4 (July 1909)
  • Ode to the First Universal Races Congress, Star of the West, Vol. 2, No. 9 (20 August 1911)
  • A catechism of life. London: Methuen, 1912.
  • The coming of Bride: a pageant play. Glastonbury: Elliot Stock, 1914.
  • The meeting in the gate. A Christman interlude. London: E. Stock, 1916.
  • Daybreak, and other poems. London: Methuen, 1918.
  • The dawn of day: a pageant. London: Blue Triangle, 1919.

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Stephanie Mathivet (2006). "Alice Buckton (1867–1944): The Legacy of a Froebelian in the Landscape of Glastonbury". Journal of the History of Education Society. 35 (2): 263–281. doi:10.1080/00467600500528628. ISSN 0046-760X. OCLC 425087093. S2CID 145129082.
  2. ^ a b c Lil Osborn (2014). "Alice Buckton: Baha'i Mystic".
  3. ^ Robert Steele; Yolanda Foote. "Buckton, George Bowdler". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32160. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ a b c L. C. G. Abdo (2003). The Baha'is in Britain 1899-1930 (PDF) (PhD). School of Oriental and African Studies. pp. 59, 74, 83, 98–99. Retrieved 18 July 2021.
  5. ^ Abdo identifies her with an Alice Mary Buckton who married the Unitarian clergyman J. Estlin Carpenter. However, that Alice Mary was the daughter of a George Buckton of Leeds, and her dates were 1854-1931.
  6. ^ Pam Hirsch; Mary Hilton (2014). Practical Visionaries: Women, Education and Social Progress, 1790-1930. Routledge. p. 187. ISBN 978-1-317-87722-6.
  7. ^ Kevin Joseph Brehony (1988). The Froebel movement and state schooling 1880-1914: A study in educational ideology (PhD). The Open University.
  8. ^ Susan Gardner (9 March 2018). "The story of Kindergarten pioneer Lileen Hardy".
  9. ^ Evelyn Lawrence (2012). Friedrich Froebel and English Education (RLE Edu K). Routledge. p. 79. ISBN 978-1-136-49215-0.
  10. ^ "The heart worships". WorldCat.org. Retrieved 11 May 2023.
  11. ^ ""Eager Heart": Christmas Mystery Play at Church House". The Times. 26 November 1921. p. 8.
  12. ^ Allardyce Nicoll (2009). English Drama, 1900-1930: The Beginnings of the Modern Period. Jones & Bartlett Learning. pp. 230–1. ISBN 978-0-521-12947-3.
  13. ^ "The Universal Races Congress". The Manchester Guardian. 18 July 1911. p. 5.
  14. ^ Marilyn Lake; Henry Reynolds (2008). Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men's Countries and the Question of Racial Equality. Melbourne Univ. Publishing. p. 252. ISBN 978-0-522-85478-7.
  15. ^ Ian Bradley (2012). Water: A Spiritual History. A&C Black. pp. 203–. ISBN 978-1-4411-1173-9.
  16. ^ a b Roger Simpson (Spring 2018). "Arthurian Pageants in Twentieth-Century Britain". Arthuriana. 18 (1): 63–87.
  17. ^ ""Dancing scenery" in folk drama". The Manchester Guardian. 11 January 1914. p. 6.
  18. ^ "Court Circular". The Times. 23 September 1918. p. 11.
  19. ^ "May Day in Ancoats: A new festival for the maean streets". The Manchester Guardian. 30 March 1920. p. 12.
  20. ^ "Broadcasting: the programmes". The Times. 25 June 1925. p. 8.
  21. ^ "Civil List Pensions". The Times. 16 April 1938. p. 8.

Further reading[edit]

  • Tracy Cutting, Beneath the Silent Tor: The Life and Work of Alice Buckton. Glastonbury, 2004.

External links[edit]

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