Sir Benjamin Stone
'May-day Festivities, Knutsford. Crowning the May-Queen. Cheshire. 1902'
Knutsford, Cheshire
1902
Platinum print
Museum no. E.1875-2000

Revived in the early 1860s, the Knutsford May Day celebration is said to originate in the ancient pagan festival of Maia and Flora. This scene shows the May Queen of 1902, Julia Wragg, enthroned and crowned. The boy kneeling in the foreground is the Crown Bearer, who bears the crown on a purple cushion and places it on the May Queen's head.