Guest post, by local historian Philip Grant. Look out for Part 2 on Saturday July 27th.
1.
The Empire Pool in 1934.
(Source: Brent Archives – Wembley History Society
Collection)
I’ve been writing and speaking about the British Empire Exhibition
(“BEE”) in this, its centenary year, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that
the Empire Pool (now better known as Wembley Arena) was built for that event.
But it was actually constructed ten years later, and 25 July 2024 is the 90th
anniversary of its opening. Why and how it was built, and the variety of events
that have taken place there since it opened, are a story that deserves to be
told. That is what I aim to do in this short series of articles.
2.
Arthur Elvin. (Image from the internet)
Arthur Elvin had already earned his place in
Wembley’s history by buying, and saving from
demolition, the former Exhibition’s Empire Stadium. By 1929, as Chairman and
Managing Director of the Wembley Stadium and Greyhound Racecourse Company Ltd,
he was welcoming large crowds to the stadium to watch regular greyhound racing
and motorcycle speedway meetings, as well as hosting the annual F.A. Cup and
Rugby League Challenge Cup finals. The company had also acquired much of the
former Exhibition site.
Elvin wanted to expand Wembley’s sporting attractions, and by 1932 was
planning to use part of that land for an indoor sports stadium. In order to pay
for itself, this facility would need year-round use, which would also help to
provide full-time employment for the company’s 400 staff. One of his team
suggested that he should go and see a new sport for this country, introduced
from Canada. Having watched an England v Canada ice hockey match, Elvin was
determined that Wembley would have its own team, skating on its own rink.
3. The site chosen for the indoor stadium, marked on a 1924 BEE plan.
The ambitious plans for the new building included a large swimming pool,
which could be floored over for indoor sports, including an ice rink during the
winter months. The designer chosen for the project was Sir Owen Williams, the
expert on reinforced concrete who had been behind the construction of the Stadium and Palaces of Industry and Engineering for the 1924 Exhibition. Concrete
provided both speed of construction, and the ability to span a building that
would be 240 feet wide, without supporting pillars.
4.
An article by Sir Owen
Williams from the 1925 booklet “Wembley: The First City of Concrete”.
(Source: Brent Archives)
The company had no trouble raising the £170,000 it needed to finance the
project, and work got underway in November 1933. Even though Sir Owen’s plans
took advantage of the western end of the BEE’s lake, they still needed to dig
out 30,000 tons of clay, before they could actually start constructing the
building. It was 15 February 1934 before Lord Derby could “lay the foundation
stone” – but because of the building’s design, it had to be cast with liquid
concrete!
5. Lord Derby “laying the foundation stone”, 15 February 1934. (From an old book)
6.
The Empire Pool under
construction in 1934. (From an old book)
Soon there were 800 men working on the site, erecting a mass of
scaffolding and the formwork, in which to pour 20,000 tons of concrete. The
design of the beams across the roof of the building enabled the weight of the
roof to be balanced out by heavier sections beyond the side walls, with
vertical columns holding the ends in place. In between the beams was space for
56,000 square feet (5,200 square metres) of glass, which along with huge
windows at the end of the building allowed the pool to be lit by natural light
during the day.
The pool itself was 200 feet (61 metres) long and 85 feet (26 metres) wide,
with a maximum depth, at the diving board end, of 16½ feet (5 metres). When
finished, it needed 700,000 gallons of water to fill the pool, which was pumped
direct from the Colne Valley over the space of ten days, then passed through
the pools own filtration and purification system. Incredibly, the whole building
and its facilities were ready to be opened by July 1934.
7.
Arthur Elvin (right) and Sir
Owen Williams (centre) taking the Duke of Gloucester (tall man!) on a tour of the building on 25 July 1934. (From an
old book)
The official opening was carried by the Duke of Gloucester (the third
son of King George V and Queen Mary) on 25 July 1934. The building was named
the Empire Pool and Sports Arena, at least partly because the swimming events
for the 1934 British Empire Games were about to be held there, between 4 and 10
August, although there was just time before that for an opening event to test
the facilities.
8.
Leaflet publicising the
Pool’s Opening Meeting, 27 July 1934. (Courtesy of
Geoff Lane)
The Games had first been held in Hamilton, Ontario, in 1930. The British
Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1924 had brought people from over 50 nations
together, ‘to meet on common ground and learn to know each other’. A
Canadian journalist, covering the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, had the idea
that a similar event for people from across the Empire, again at four-year
intervals, would help to further that aim through sport. He helped to organise
the first British Empire Games in his home city, when 11 nations sent
competitors.
The second edition of the British Empire Games in 1934 was originally
planned to take place in Johannesburg, but some countries protested that their
competitors would be excluded because of South Africa’s apartheid policies.
London stepped in, hosting 16 nations, with the athletics events staged at the
White City Stadium (where the 1908 Olympic Games had been held). Wembley’s
brand-new Empire Pool, with seating for 5,000 spectators, and a wooden pontoon
across the shallow end to create the correct length of 55 yards (50 metres),
was ideal for the aquatic competitions.
9.
Advert for public swimming
at the Empire Pool (from the back cover of a
1934 Games programme). (Courtesy of Geoff Lane)
10. Public swimming at the Empire Pool, 1930s. (From an old book)
The Empire Pool was up and running, with public swimming proving very
popular for the rest of the summer, but come the autumn it was time for a
change. It took twelve days to drain the pool, install a scaffolding structure
to fill the void and a thick wooden flooring over it to create an indoor sports
arena, ready for Elvin’s ice hockey team, given the same name as the Stadium’s
speedway team, the Wembley Lions.
11. The Wembley Lions ice hockey team, 1930s. (Courtesy of Geoff Lane)
In fact, from October 1934 the Empire Pool had two national ice hockey
league teams, playing matches on Thursdays and Saturdays. The rink where the
Grosvenor House Canadians used to play had just closed, so they became the
Wembley Canadians, with their name soon changing to the Wembley Monarchs. And
when the ice rink was not being used for hockey matches or practice, it was
available for skating, with 600,000 payments for public use of the ice during
the first winter alone!
12. A public skating session at the Empire Pool, 1930s. (From an old book)
Swimming and ice hockey/skating were far from the only sports that the
Empire Pool and Arena catered for, and I will share more of these with you in the
next part of its story. I hope you will join me again for that.
Philip Grant.
Part 2 will be published on Saturday July 27th 2024.
