College prepares for the Lord Mayor’s Show 2023

Each year the City of London elects a ‘Lord Mayor’ who becomes the UK’s principal ambassador for international financial and legal services and each year there is a very grand parade to inaugurate the new Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor’s Show is billed as: “the oldest, longest, least rehearsed and best loved civic procession in the world. It is an ancient statement of London’s independence, a mediaeval display of pomp and pageantry and a modern celebration of our strength and diversity”.

In 2023, subject to election, the new Lord Mayor will be Alderman Professor Michael Mainelli, a Fellow of Goodenough College! To help celebrate the occasion the College will be taking part in the huge televised procession through the City of London’s streets to St Paul’s Cathedral and the Royal Courts of Justice. The College Members taking part in the parade will be wearing academic gowns or national dress (to reference their home countries) and performing a choreographed routine with umbrellas in one of the College’s colours.

Professor Michael Mainelli has played the bagpipes since his youth and (in a reference to both The Burn, the College’s Scottish academic retreat, and the new Lord Mayor’s interest in the pipes) College Member Nathaniel Agnew (dressed in a kilt and the Lord Mayor’s Balmoral Bonnet, and playing the Lord Mayor’s bagpipes) will help to lead up to 40 College Members (from ca. 25 nations) in the procession. Also helping to lead the College Members will be Caroline Persaud (College Registrar) dressed as Maive Goodenough (who is credited with inspiring her husband Frederick Craufurd Goodenough to create the College).

In addition to being the College’s Dean, The Revd Dr Alan McCormack is also Chaplain to The Rt Hon The Lord Mayor. In that role Alan will accompany the new Lord Mayor in his golden coach.