Event    From /1/1959 

Notting Hill Carnival

1959, 30 January: a "Caribbean Carnival" was held in St Pancras Town Hall. This annual event was organised by Claudia Jones and directed by Edric Connor (husband of Pearl Connor). It featured calypso, steel bands, and a beauty contest. Jones organised a similar event every year until her death in 1964.

1966, August: The first outdoor multi-day event was held in Notting Hill.  This was organised by Rhaune Laslett and others from the London Free School.  Not being restricted to the Caribbean culture, it promoted cultural unity in the area. A street party organised for the local children turned into a carnival procession.

1973-5: Leslie Palmer was director and introduced many significant changes.

The origin story of the Carnival has caused some friction in the past. The Rhaune Laslett-O'Brien website (2025: a dead link) summarised some of the difficulty: “Ask anyone involved who owns carnival and they will say the same thing: the people. The trouble is, which people? Since Rhaune Laslett handed over responsibility for the carnival, the primary body organising the event has split, reinvented itself, then split again several times. It has been called the Carnival Development Committee, the Carnival Arts Committee, the Carnival Enterprise Committee and, at present, the Notting Hill Carnival Trust, which is itself riven by internal rows. Each group has its own version of the carnival's history and development.”

The London Museum's Origins is, one hopes, an even-handed telling of the story.

Mas (masquerade) is an important element of Carnival. mas bands work together to create coordinated themed costumes in which they parade and competing for prizes.

Sources include: Wikipedia.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Notting Hill Carnival

Commemorated ati

Claudia Jones

Unveiled during the Notting Hill Carnival, 2008.

Read More

Claudia Jones - Carnival Village

Carnival Village honours Claudia Jones, 1915 - 1964, publisher, political act...

Read More

Leslie Palmer

Leslie Palmer, 1943, pioneered the template for the modern Notting Hill Carni...

Read More

Rhaune Laslett-O'Brien

Unveiled during the Notting Hill Carnival, 2011.

Read More

Russell Henderson

A 'pan artist' plays the traditional West Indian steel drums.

Read More

Other Subjects

Rick "Trixy" Hunter

Rick "Trixy" Hunter

Popular man at the Cricketers.

Person, Community / Clubs

1 memorial
Japan-British Culture Memorial Club

Japan-British Culture Memorial Club

We can find no information about this group so we guess it was short-lived and dis-banded once the memorial was unveiled.

Group, Community / Clubs, History, Japan

1 memorial
Fawcett Association

Fawcett Association

Trade union of postal sorting clerks.  Founded by Wallace Cheesman and named after Henry Fawcett.  The Women Sorters' Association and the Postal Bagmen's Association affiliated in 1908.  In 1919 it...

Group, Community / Clubs, Politics & Administration

1 memorial
Noel Falconer Filmer

Noel Falconer Filmer

Noel Falconer Filmer is 2nd from the right of the nine boys standing in the photograph of the scout troop. He was born on 13 December 1897, the seventh of the eleven children of John Apps Budds Fi...

Person, Children, Community / Clubs, Tragedy

2 memorials