The English socialist classical composer Rutland Boughton and his librettist Lawrence Buckley dreamed of an English cultural revival, perhaps including the establishment of a 'national' theatre, certainly an annual festival in the countryside that might become an English Oberammergau or Bayreuth. Letchworth was considered as a venue given the potential support there, but Glastonbury with its Arthurian and spiritual associations was favourite from the start. Alongside the festival Boughton and Buckley envisaged a permanent group of artists who would share the running of a collective farm as a base for the festival. Encouraged by the likes of George Bernard Shaw and Edward Elgar and with financial support from the Clarks, Quaker shoe manufacturers at nearby Street, they set about trying to find a home for the festival and artists' colony. A festival venue proved easier to find than a collective farm and in 1914 the first Glastonbury 'festival' kicked off with a summer school and a performance of Boughtons opera The Immortal Hour based on the book by 'Fiona Macleod' at the Glastonbury Assembly rooms. Boughton's work was part English Romantic part Celtic revival, drawing heavily on Arthurian legend. From this beginning a series of festivals developed along with help from Alice Buckton's Guild of Glastonbury & Street festival players who performed their own series of masques and mystery plays. The festivals lasted with a wartime hiccup until 1925.