Festival of Empire

The tradition & historical record

Festival of Empire was a major imperial exhibition held at London's Crystal Palace from 12 May to 1 October 1911, organized to celebrate the coronation of King George V and to showcase the cultural, industrial, and military accomplishments of the British Empire. It was the largest single event held at the Crystal Palace in London since its opening. The original intention had been that Edward VII would open it in 1910, however, this was postponed after his death shortly before the planned opening day. The Festival contained a display of landscapes and exhibits from the British Empire, mainly the dominion countries, to encourage emigration to those nations; and it contained a large scale pageant dramatising British history. It was described at the time as 'a social gathering of the British family' encouraging the 'firmer welding of those invisible bonds which hold together the greatest empire the world has ever known'. ¹

Robert George Windsor-Clive, first Earl of Plymouth, Conservative government minister managed and promoted the Festival as a sub contracted event; it was nothing to do with the Crystal Palace company which was in receivership at the time. The 1911 Festival of Empire was one of many imperial events staged in the early twentieth century in Britain and around the Empire, following the 1909 Imperial International Exhibition at London's White City and running parallel to the 1911 Delhi Durbar in India and following the 1895 African Exhibition and 1905 Colonial and Indian Exhibition which also took place in Crystal Palace Park. The 1911 Festival of Empire was staged at the Crystal Palace at Sydenham Hill and had similar characteristics to the Great Exhibition, for which the palace was initially built, in that it displayed an array of products and exhibits from countries around the world and promoted a western industrial culture and pro-Empire view of the world. ¹

The 1911 Festival of Empire was a considerable logistical exercise and it exploited much of the latest technology of the time to create a simulation of the landscapes around the British Empire for the British public to experience on home ground. This involved masses of painted canvas and re-landscaped parts of the park. ¹

At the 1911 Festival of Empire, exhibitions of products from the countries of the Empire were displayed in three-quarter size models of their Parliamentary buildings erected in the grounds, which were: ¹

Australia – based on Parliament House, Melbourne c. 1855 Canada – based on Centre Block with Victoria Tower, 1866 Newfoundland – based on Colonial Building, c. 1850 New Zealand – based on New Zealand Parliament Buildings, pre-1907 South Africa – based on Houses of Parliament, Cape Town c.1884 The buildings were constructed of timber and plaster as they were meant to be temporary. They were linked by an electric tramway called the 'All-Red Route' on which open-sided cars took the visitor on a circular tour of the dominions with typical scenery of each country around the buildings listed above. There were also many other exhibits within the Palace itself. In all, there were 300 ornate buildings constructed by 7,000 workers, one and half miles of track line laid, a mix of stuffed wild animals and real ones (1,000 real wild Australian rabbits and many Newfoundland fish). Leolyn G Hart, theatre designer, oversaw the whole construction, engaging over 100 painters. The panorama building was adapted into an Indian pavilion, which included displays about Indian history and daily life and an exhibition of new Bengal art works curated by the India Society. It also included an Irish cottage village and an attraction named 'Empire Caves'. ¹

The buildings of the 1911 Festival of Empire were linked by an electric tramway called the 'All-Red Route' on which open-sided cars took visitors on a circular tour of the 'dominions' with typical scenery of each country. There were displays of so-called "natives at work", including African tribesmen, Malay people constructing houses and Maori villagers. These were people invited to London to act out scenes from their life and work in mocked up environments. Most Festival visitors would know little or nothing of such people and would not have seen such demonstrations. Some scenes included mannequins to represent some of the people of those colonies, seen by critics today as reinforcing notions of primitivism. The route is shown in red on the map; the colour red and pink were used to denote the British Empire and its dominions on maps at that time. Bridges over small lakes represented sea voyages between the countries. Some of the cars may be seen in pictures included on this page. Scenes along the route included a South African Diamond Mine and an Indian Tea Plantation, photos of which are included below. There was also "a Jamaican sugar plantation, an Australian sheep farm" and "a jungle 'well stocked with wild beasts'". ¹

A pageant, organised by 'Master of the Pageants' Frank Lascelles, dramatising the history of London, England and the Empire was held. The first performance of the pageant was on 8 June 1911; in four parts, performed on separate days, it celebrated the 'magnificence, glory and honour of the Empire and the Mother Country'. Music was provided for The Pageant of London by 20 composers including Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, Frank Bridge, Cecil Forsyth, Henry Balfour Gardiner, Edward German and Haydn Wood. This was performed by a military band of 50 players and a chorus of 500 voices, directed by W.H. Bell. The best architects and designers of the day were also engaged in the orchestration of the Pageant, such as Edward Poynter and Aston Webb. The Pageant was so successful that performances were extended from July, when they were due to end, to 2 September, and a number of days were lost or spoilt due to bad weather. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Festival of Empire”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Festival of Empire is festival in the UK, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation. ²