Home to the largest and most elaborate Bonfire Night celebration in England. Six rival societies, thousands of participants, and a tradition that has survived every attempt to suppress it since the 17th century.
Lewes Bonfire Night is not Guy Fawkes Night as the rest of England knows it. It is a town-wide event involving six competing bonfire societies, each with its own procession, its own costumes, its own fireworks, and its own fierce independence. The event commemorates not only the Gunpowder Plot but the seventeen Protestant martyrs burned in the town during the Marian persecutions - a local specificity that gives the celebration its particular intensity.
The Archive documents the captains and organising committee members whose year-round commitment makes the event possible. A bonfire society captain is a volunteer who spends eleven months of the year preparing for one night. They manage logistics, finances, safety, costume-making, float-building, and the complex negotiations between societies. Their role is unpaid and all-consuming. When a captain steps down, the society must find someone willing to take on the same burden - or the tradition, centuries old, simply stops.
On the fifth of November, Lewes burns. Six bonfire societies process through the streets with flaming torches. One person leads each society - and the weight of that role is heavier than it looks.