The explaination for the name Umbrella Fair is quite simple.

Back in 1990 Northampton had a small local Greenpeace group, Friends of the Earth group, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament group and Amnesty International group. There were a number of people who were part of more than one group, so there was a lot of crossover. Individually one group was not big enough to put on an event but collectively they could, so in 1991 a number of members from the groups came together and put on an event. As they were working together under one umbrella, they called in the Umbrella Fayre. It was a great success and the collective enjoyed working togther, so a new group was formed - the Umbrella Fair Organisation. To find out how it developed - see 1990-1994.