A flotilla of boats set sail on the river Thames on 7th July to mark the 150th anniversary of the first telling of ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’, the novel by Lewis Carroll.
Carroll, actually named Charles Dodgson, was a mathematician and Deacon at Christ Church College. Carroll dreamt up the tale during a boat trip on the Thames, as he told it for three young sisters as they travelled from Christ Church to Godstow on a river picnic.
The girls were so impressed by the story that they urged him to write it down, which he did, in the book which is commonly known as ‘Alice in Wonderland’. It is this moment that the organisers from The Story Museum in Oxford and the Lewis Carroll Society based the weekend’s celebrations around.
The flotilla was crewed by members of the rowing club Club Barge and headed by a boat carrying stand-ins for Carroll himself, the three Liddell sisters, and Carroll’s friend Robinson Duckworth. Behind this vessel were a selection of Venetian barges. Although a substantial attraction itself, with organisers estimating attendance as “thousands of people”, the voyage was just one part of a much larger event commemorating Carroll’s works.
The whole celebration spanned both Saturday and Sunday and involved around twenty separate events, including a giant chess board and an international exhibition based at The Story Museum. The celebration culminated on Sunday evening with a mass Caucus Race on Christ Church Meadow.
According to organiser Cath Nightingale the weekend was a great success despite the rain, describing it as describing The Story Museum’s participation in the weekend as “one of the most exciting additions to Oxford’s cultural scene”.
