London’s Pearly Kings and Queens

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London’s Pearly Kings and Queens are a flamboyant celebration of cockney culture that epitomise British quirkiness. Marked every year in September at a Harvest Festival in Guildhall Yard, London.

The organisation began in 1875 when Henry Croft, a 13-year-old orphan working as a market sweeper, decided to raise money to help those left in the orphanage. Croft created the first ‘pearly suit’ – a creation so spectacular it spawned generations of followers (and the cover of a White Stripes album). When Croft died in 1930, 400 pearly-suited followers attended his funeral. Today Pearly Societies continue to raise money for charity.

Read more at www.pearlysociety.co.uk

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