Origins
The Gunpowder Plot in 1605 was commemorated from early on with effigies of unpopular figures. Towards the end of the 18th century, reports appeared of children in Britain begging for money with grotesquely masked effigies of Guy Fawkes, and 5 November gradually became known as Guy Fawkes Night, although many now prefer the term "Bonfire Night". The 1864 Chambers Book of Days stated that:
"The universal mode of observance through all part of England, is the dressing up of a scarecrow figure, in such cast-habiliments as can be procured (the head-piece, generally a paper-cap, painted and knotted with paper strips in imitation of ribbons), parading it in a chair through the streets, and at nightfall burning it with great solemnity in a huge bonfire..."
By the early 1980s, the cheap cardboard or paper "Guy Fawkes" masks sold to children in Britain each autumn, or given out free with comics, were becoming less widely used, being increasingly supplanted by Halloween masks. Writer Alan Moore later commented: ".... how interesting it was that we should have taken up the image right at the point where it was apparently being purged from the annals of English iconography."
Read more about this topic: Guy Fawkes Mask
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