Should the Order of the British Empire be history?

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant in a personal capacity

 

Medal of an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). (Image from the internet)

 

I had been hoping to write this article earlier in the centenary year of the British Empire Exhibition, but the excellent recent guest post “An Afternoon with George the Poet: Refreshingly honest conversation about Empire”, reminded me that I had still not done so. I read that George the Poet had turned down the chance to be made a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2019. Like others before him, including Benjamin Zephaniah* and Professor Gus John, George did not want letters after his name that spoke of British imperialism. 

 

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, to give its full name, is one of a number of “orders of chivalry” under which titles and medals are awarded as part of the UK’s “honours” system. Some of them go back centuries, such as the Order of the Garter and the Order of the Bath. “Chivalry” goes back even further, signifying courtesy and valour – just think of the legends of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, or Saint George and the dragon (and those who wave the flag of England’s patron saint in protest against immigrants should remember that if he actually existed, he would have been Turkish now!).

 

15^th century painting of St George, rescuing a princess from a dragon. (Image from the internet)

 

Just as the British Empire is now history, although its legacy is still with us, and the focus for the “Becoming Brent” project, I believe that the Order of the British Empire, or at least that name for it, should also become history. But what is its history? I first started looking into that about 15 years ago, when I was researching the history of the Cox family of Sudbury, and their part in Wembley’s volunteer fire brigade.

 

Wembley’s volunteer fire brigade, with their fire engine, in 1920. (Courtesy of Carol Snape)

 

Edward Cox (standing on the right) was the brigade’s Chief Officer from 1920 until it was replaced by a full-time professional Wembley Fire Brigade in 1936. I found that he, and his brother Ernest (sitting on the running board next to him), had the letters O.B.E. after their names, and wondered how they had come to be awarded that honour.

 

A report from the “Middlesex County Times”, 10 February 1917. (Ealing Local History Library)

 

Research in local newspapers (on microfilm) took me back to a night in February 1917, when the Wembley Brigade were called out to a fire in Greenford, with Edward as the fire crew’s Captain and Ernest as the engine’s driver. [Luckily, this was during a three-month postponement to his army call-up, so that a new driver could be trained!] The Wembley firemen organised the effort to bring water from the canal, which stopped the fire at the Purex lead paint factory from spreading to the adjacent National Filling Station No.28. 

 

That “filling station” was not a petrol station, but a large complex of wooden huts used for filling 6-inch diameter artillery shells with high explosive charges and poison gas, for use against the German forces on the Western Front. If the fire had spread, it could have been disastrous for people and property over a very wide area! 

 

It was for honouring actions such as these that King George V established the Order of the British Empire in June 1917. The new Order was principally intended to recognise courageous acts by civilians during the First World War, as distinct from the medals which could already be awarded for distinguished military service. As I wrote in my first BEE centenary year article last January, the King had visited many parts of the British Empire, and considered it to be a family of nations (although not all of equal status), so the name of the Order did reflect that the honours could go to anyone within the Empire, not just to his British subjects.

 

The London Gazette list of OBE medals awarded, July 1920. (Image from the internet)

 

The Cox brothers’ awards of the Medal of the Order of the British Empire were made in July 1920 (‘For conspicuous courage and devotion to duty on the occasion of a fire at a munitions factory’). They were among the names listed alphabetically in the London Gazette, and as you can see from the image above, one of the first names was Ali Akbar Khan of the Indian Police, for his wartime work in the Straits Settlements (now Singapore and parts of Malaysia).

 

Thousands of these medals were awarded, and their holders were allowed to use the letters O.B.E. after their names. But the Order of the British Empire was expanded, to reward contributions to the arts and sciences, and for public service and charitable work. Although these were at first awarded in much smaller numbers, there were other classes of honours within the Order, from bottom to top being Member, Officer, Commander, Knight or Dame, and at the very top, Knight or Dame Grand Cross.

 

I don’t know whether it was because of class snobbery by Officers of the Order, but from 1922 the Medal of the Order of the British Empire was renamed the British Empire Medal. It is now awarded to anyone in Britain or the Commonwealth whose meritorious service ‘is considered worthy of the honour by the Crown’. Those, like the Cox brothers, who had already been awarded the medal could continue to use the letters O.B.E. after their names, but from then on BEM has been the lowest class of honour under the Order, still with “British Empire” in its name.

 

Why hasn’t that name changed, given that the former British Empire had been redefined as a Commonwealth of Nations as far back as 1949? I’m not the first person to ask that question. In fact, a cross-party House of Commons committee, the Public Administration Select Committee, considered it twenty years ago, and published a report “A Matter of Honour: Reforming the Honours System”, including this recommendation:

 

An important recommendation from the Select Committee Report in July 2004.

 

It wasn’t just politicians on the Left who thought this was a good idea. The report includes the views of a former Conservative Prime Minister on removing the word “Empire” and replacing it with “Excellence”, given as part of his evidence to the Committee:

 

‘Mr Major also backed the idea of an Order of British Excellence. This view was a direct reversal of his opinion of 1993, when he told the House that he could “see no advantage or purpose in changing the Order of the British Empire”. Today, he told us:

 

“Although that argument still has force, I believe it is now out of date. In order to remove one of the persistent criticisms of the system, I would now be inclined to propose an “Order of British Excellence” with Awards at the level of Companion (i.e. CBE), Officer (OBE) and Member (MBE). This is minimum change for maximum effect. It retains the familiar abbreviations whilst removing reference to an Empire that no longer exists. It does have an awkwardness with Northern Ireland, but no more so than now”.’ 

 

I don’t know why Tony Blair’s Labour Government did not follow this sensible advice from Parliament. The Order of the British Empire was already “past its sell buy date” then, and is even more so now. I hope that the current Government will look again at this suggestion, but the people with the greatest power to make that change are the “Sovereign” of the Order and its “Grand Master”. They are, respectively, King Charles III and Queen Camilla.

 

Do you agree that change is needed? Please feel free to add your comments below.

Philip Grant.

* Benjamin Zephaniah wrote this in 2003 about his reaction to the offer of an OBE: ‘“Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear that word ‘empire’; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality.”

An Afternoon with George the Poet: Refreshingly honest conversation about Empire

The conversation at Willesden Green Library (Credit:Omar Al-Badri)

 

Guest post by  Brent Resident, Farida James

 

George the Poet, world renowned spoken word artist, award-winning podcast host and author was in conversation with Nadia Khan from Golden Threads about his autobiography ‘Track Record: Me, Music and the War on Blackness’ 

 

The event took place at Willesden Green Library on Saturday 26 October to a packed room of community members and was part of the Becoming Brent project - the centenary moment of the 1924 British Empire Exhibition. Becoming Brent promises to decolonise the story of Empire, enable difficult conversations and explore how Empire has impacted the diverse communities in Brent.

 

George’s book speaks to these lofty aims perfectly. As a child of parents with Ugandan heritage, he grew up on St Raphael’s Estate which is nestled away behind the A406 in Neasden. In the book, George writes about his own story which is heavily centred in St Raph’s, his music career and the war on Blackness, and how it has directly impacted him and people of Afro-descended heritage.

 

The conversation was open and honest, discussing themes from the book of which Empire is an important thread. In 2019, George rejected the Member of British Empire (MBE) honour. In the book he said: “The choice was already made for me by the wording of this ‘honour’. I wasn’t necessarily anti-monarchy at this time, but I wasn’t about to co-sign the whole idea of empire by attaching those words to my name.” When asked about what feelings the British Empire conjured up for him, he said: “The British Empire was a system of extraction. In this country, there is such a hubris, there’s such an arrogance, there’s such a dismissal and denial of that history.”

 

The legacy of Empire continues to adversely impact people from the former colonies, and George mentions how Empire has a direct link to his estate, St Raph’s. The Empire stripped its colonies of wealth and resources, and when independence was granted, there was imposed debt, which kept these newly created nations tied to Empire indefinitely. This led to large-scale immigration to the west. In the book, George says: “Eventually, the threat of Black and Brown self-determination was crushed under the weight of crippling debt, imposed by the West on the rest. This debt caused much of the migration that led to St Raphael’s Estate becoming home to thousands of people from Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, Pakistan, and even a few Ugandans.”

 

As well as an insight into George’s life and music career, the book addresses the history of the war on Blackness. George explores the history of Empire, and the exploitation of Africa and its resources. He also talks about racist mainstream narratives, miseducation of the masses as well as the presence of racial superiority and injustice. George spoke about labels and identities like ‘BAME’* being imposed on Black people as if there was not a rich heritage and diversity amongst those of African heritage. The conversation went on to labels being imposed rather than genuine expressions of identity, and George said: “I came to realise that the racial categories we were put in were dreamt up by a group of elites once upon a time.” And he mentioned that when he went back to his parent’s home of Uganda, no such labels existed and that these narrow identities were very much part and parcel of the Empire’s tactic of control.

 

George’s book demonstrates that not much progress has been made in terms of equality and the fight against racism. The discussion centred around the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion industry which is designed to increase awareness and representation from people of global majority backgrounds. George said: “So I’m very suspicious of the DEI industry, of representation politics. Because a lot of the time it’s just tokenism.”

 

The attempts to diversify faces on TV, film and in politics has done nothing to stop systemic oppression, or the increasing racist rhetoric which contributed to the Far Right riots this summer. When speaking about the riots which targeted Muslims, immigrants and people of global majority backgrounds, George mentioned that: “The rhetoric started at the top, at the level of politicians, media pundits, public so-called intellectuals who would normalise the most racist talking points.”

 

Despite reaching the pinnacles of the UK’s higher education establishment at Cambridge University where he studies for his degree in Politics, Psychology and Sociology, George said he learned nothing about Blackness. In his book he mentioned that Cambridge was white privilege at its core. George had to ironically re-educate himself on history after he left university. That is why he states that self-education is important, away from mainstream prescribed reading lists, and George very much is an advocate for education. 

 

 

 

At the event, George’s mum said: “I have this memory of bringing George here (Willesden Green Library), quite literally in his pram and I pushed it all the way down from Gladstone Park. Money was so tight so we had to walk. The two little girls here today- I am so impressed- that is the way to go. Bring them to events like this. Bring them to the library. Me and George’s dad in our wildest dream didn’t know what it would lead to - we just knew that  children needed books and that children needed knowledge. We were not rich, but we brought them to the library. When George rang me to invite me to this event, he and I were quite emotional as this library was very much part of him growing up and our experience. I just want to give a shout out to this library.”

 

The book also goes into detail about how the music industry has become part of the war on Blackness as it exploits Black talent to control the voices of Black artists. George talks about his direct experience of being manipulated by the system and having his work controlled to suit a racist agenda.

 

The feedback from the event was really positive, and the community applauded the opportunity to hear from a respected local champion who has been consistent with his fight against injustice and oppression. The comments included:

 

“Thank you very much George and Nadia, It’s been really interesting informative and inspiring”

“Everybody appreciates George being here, you are fantastic.”

 

“Thank you so much for the event today both of you. Just one quick question, if we want to knowmore about our history and we are confused - how do I de-programme myself? Can you recommend one book that I can go and borrow from Willesden Library and start reading”

“I follow you on your socials and I applaud you for being unapologetically you and speaking your truth. Well done. Especially being a black man and black men’s voices aren’t heard.

“Hi George - it’s been amazing to watch your story.”

“How can we dismantle this view that blackness looks one way”?

 

“A powerful and amazing event…looking forward to more interviews”

 

“Thank you Nadia and George for an afternoon of inspiration and conversation. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to you both and can’t stop telling my nearest and dearest to look out for more like it.”

 

“Great event. George was fantastic. Left me with lots of thoughts and hopes for the future.”

The key takeaways were about the importance of education and not buying into mainstream narratives that are designed to push false truths, maintain an unjust power dynamic and oppress those of global majority backgrounds. The need to decolonise our minds from hundreds of years of oppression must be at the forefront of the fight, with an emphasis on telling our own stories as well as continuous learning from the cradle to the grave. George also gave an important message that Black History Month is bigger than just one month, and when he is invited to corporate events to give a five-minute speech to show that progress is being made, he finds it quite offensive.

 

You can purchase Track Record at mainstream book retailers.

 

*BAME – Black and Minority Ethnic

Some forthcoming British Empire Exhibition talks you may wish to enjoy

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant

 

Some images from Burma at the British Empire Exhibition

 

If you have found my recent articles about the Pageant of Empire in 1924 of interest, you might like to discover more about the British Empire Exhibition from one (or more) of the three illustrated talks I will be giving over the next few weeks, as part of its centenary.

 

The first, “The Jewel of Wembley – Burma at the BEE”, is on Friday 20 September, from 7.30 to 9pm, in St Andrew’s Church Hall, Kingsbury. This is at regular monthly meeting of Wembley History Society, but visitors are welcome [we just invite a contribution of £3 (£1 for students) towards the cost of the hall]. All the details you should need are here:

 

 

One of the aspects of the Exhibition’s history that I am most keen on is the perspective of people who came here from the countries of the Empire, rather than just the “official” British view. The album on which much of my talk is based contains dozens of newspaper cuttings and photographs. One of the most intriguing of which is an article by a female journalist of her interview with Ma Bala Hkin, the leading actress and dancer of the Burmese theatre troupe at the Exhibition.

 

One of the headlines from the “Evening News” article.

 

If you want to know what Ma Bala thought of the English women she saw in Wembley in 1924, you should come along to my talk!

 

The second of my talks, “A Harlesden Photographer at the B.E.E. – the West Indies at Wembley in 1924”, is a free coffee morning event at Harlesden Library, on Tuesday 8 October from 11am to 12noon. 

 

 

Back in the 1990s, Wembley History Society received a donation of photographs, together with some glass plate negatives, showing images of the Exhibition in 1924, especially from inside the West Indies Pavilion. They were the work of a little-known local photographer, whose stamp was on the back of some of the prints:

 

Harlesden Library seemed the ideal place to present this talk, and you can find more details and reserve your free place on the Brent Libraries, Arts and Heritage Eventbrite website. This talk is part of the Becoming Brent project, re-examining the British Empire Exhibition and its legacy.

  

The final talk I will be giving in the Exhibition’s centenary year is “When Wembley Welcomed the World”. This is being hosted by Preston Community Library on the afternoon of Sunday 27 October (exact time and further details will follow). It will be a free event, but with donations to the work of the community library invited from those who attend.

 

 

This illustrated talk is an introduction to the various nations which took part in the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Park in 1924, and their people who came here for the event, but then moves on to show how Wembley has continued to welcome people from across the world ever since the 1920s.

 

I hope that “Wembley Matters” readers will find something of interest in these presentations, and I look forward to welcoming you to any of these events.

 

Philip Grant.

The Pageant of Empire, 1924 – Part 2: Eastward and Southward Ho!

 Guest post by local historian Philip Grant

Extract from the programme cover for Part 2 of the Pageant. (Source: Brent Archives)

 

Welcome back to my second article about this Pageant, which took place during the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Park in 1924. If you have not read Part 1, you will find it here.

 

The Pageant was performed in three parts, and I have already dealt with the opening section of Part 2, “The Days of Queen Elizabeth”, which was played by local people from Wembley. Here are a few more pictures of that, which are screenshots from a British Pathé newsreel film. I found that on YouTube, incorrectly described as Wembley Exhibition Reel 3 (1925). It is definitely from 1924, and was almost certainly filmed at the matinee performance of Part 2 of the Pageant of Empire, on Saturday 16 August 1924.

 

More scenes from Wembley’s Elizabethan Episode. (Screenshots from a British Pathé newsreel film)

 

Part 2 continued with a scene from 1655, in which Admiral Blake and his naval squadron defeated Barbary pirates, making the Mediterranean safe for British ships and rescuing some sailors who had been captured and put to work as galley slaves. The commentary in the programme concludes: ‘The English flag has broken the power of the Corsairs’.

 

Although Part 2 was entitled “Eastward Ho!”, its next section was about, and staged by, the Dominion of South Africa. Its prelude depicted Phoenician sailors landing at the Cape, on a voyage around the coast of Africa on behalf of the Egyptian Pharoah Necho, around 606BC, ‘two thousand years before the first white man set foot in Africa.’ Scene 1 depicts the first Europeans to land on this coast, Portuguese sailors, including Vasco de Gama in 1496.

 

Scenes 2 and 3 show the first Dutch settlers arriving at Table Bay in 1652, and being joined by French Huguenot refugees, at the invitation of the Dutch East India Company, from 1688. It is not until scene 4 that South Africa’s first British settlers arrive, in 1820, under a Government financed scheme to claim “Cape Colony” for Britain. 

 

Two images from scene 4, showing British settlers arriving in South Africa.
(Screenshots from a British Pathé newsreel film)

 

It is this scene which helps to show the scale of the scenery used in the Pageant. It was all designed by the artist Frank Brangwyn R.A., and used 25,000 square feet (over 2,300m2) of Baltic timber. The full-size replica sailing ship did move across the scene, and the artificial sea at one end of the stadium, on which real boats were rowed, held 220,000 gallons of water.

 

Zulu warriors preparing to attack the Boers at Blood River. (Screenshot from a British Pathé newsreel film)

 

Scene 5 shows the British meeting the Zulu King Tchaka in 1824, and getting permission to start a small coastal colony in Natal. Moving on to 1886, scene 6 shows a breakdown in relations between the Dutch Boer community, who wish to move further inland, and a later Zulu leader, resulting in a staging of the Battle of Blood River (on Wembley’s “hallowed turf”!). The Boers defenders overwhelm the native warriors’ spears with gunfire, and ‘demoralise the Zulus and completely rout them. Thus the Boers are left to settle where they please.’

 

The British were also trying to settle where they pleased, and push north into what is now Zimbabwe. Scene 8 is described in this extract from the Part 2 programme, and it is this patriotic version of how our country treated the lands of other peoples that I find so distasteful.

 

Scene 9 shows Cecil Rhodes, a leading figure in the expansion of the British Empire in Southern Africa, travelling without an army to negotiate with the Matabele kingdom in 1896. He is successful in getting agreement for British settlers to come and start farming in their lands. The fruits of his success were seen at the Exhibition less than 30 years later, when the South African Pavilion included a section for Southern Rhodesia (a country named after him), showing the produce of its British-owned tobacco plantations.

 

Postcard showing Southern Rhodesia tobacco at the BEE in 1924. (Brent Archives online image 9961)

 

The final scene 10 of this section of the Pageant is entitled “An Allegory of the Union of South Africa”. It portrays the benefits of a federal state, in which both British and Boers can govern their own provinces, within the British Empire, and the scene ends with the choir and orchestra performing “Land of Hope and Glory”. The Pageant’s history of South Africa does not include the significant (but uncomfortable to the storyline!) episode of the Boer War, 1899-1902.

 

Part 2 of the Pageant, “Eastward Ho!”, ends with India. It has only one scene, “The Early Days of India”, but that puts on a spectacular show. It depicts the Mogul Emperor Jehangir receiving Sir Thomas Roe, an envoy from the British East India Company, in 1626, seeking to set up trading ties. The scene begins in a busy eastern bazaar, then a parade featuring seven elephants shipped in from the subcontinent, and camels from Egypt. We also see Sir Thomas having his audience with the Emperor.

 

Some scenes from the Indian section of the Pageant. (Screenshots from a British Pathé newsreel film)

 

Most readers will know that there was more to the history of Britain’s relations with India than trading between equal nations! Yet this is how the Pageant’s programme notes move on from this scene to sum up that history in two short paragraphs:

 

Extract from the Part 2 Pageant programme. (Source: Brent Archives)

 

You may recall that in an article at the start of this BEE centenary year I wrote: ‘It was an Act of Parliament in 1876, not any rulers of its many states, which awarded an additional title to Queen Victoria: Empress of India!’

 

Moving on, Part 3 of the Pageant was “Southward Ho!”, performed on Wednesday and some Saturday evenings between 27 July and 30 August. Its prologue shows King George III at Windsor Castle, sending Captain Cook on an expedition to “the Southern Seas”, where he has heard ‘there are great new lands there which may be added to our Realm’. Sure enough, the first scene of New Zealand’s section shows Captain Cook “discovering” the North Island of that country in 1769. After an initially hostile meeting with a Maori tribe there, his crew are allowed ashore to fill their water barrels. Cook takes the opportunity to stick a pole in the ground, hoist ‘the British Flag’, and take possession of the land ‘in the name of His Most Gracious Majesty’.

 

New Zealand’s scene 2 shows the first British settlers arriving in 1840, after ‘an attempt by French adventurers to establish a claim on the islands finally drove the British Government into a formal annexation.’ A New Zealand Land Company had been set up, which ‘bought a vast tract of land from 58 Maori chiefs.’ The programme notes record that this was soon followed with ‘the Treaty of Waitangi, by which the chiefs ceded the sovereignty of New Zealand to Queen Victoria, receiving in return a guarantee of the rights and privileges of British subjects.’

This section of the Pageant is quite frank in revealing that the Maori people of New Zealand did not understand the “bargain” they had made with the British. I will include the programme text for scene 3 in full, because it does show the reality of how the Empire treated the indigenous people of the lands they annexed, if they resisted.

 

Extract from the Part 3 Pageant programme. (Source: Brent Archives)

 

New Zealand’s final scene 4 is entitled “Peace and Prosperity”, and begins with these words: ‘The Maori rebellion died out after many years. Much of the land of the rebel tribes which had been confiscated was returned to them, and under tolerant and tactful administration their troubles were soon forgotten.’ That may be largely true, but when King George V visited the Maori house, beside the New Zealand Pavilion at the Exhibition in 1924, a Maori delegation complained to him that Britain had not honoured its side of the Treaty of Waitangi!

 

Postcard showing King George V, with Queen Mary and his officials, visiting the Maori house in 1924.
(Brent Archives online image 969)

 

The Maori’s had rebelled in the 1860s because of the growing number of emigrants from Britain settling on their land. But at Wembley Park in 1924, the New Zealand Pavilion was still handing out leaflets, like this one, encouraging more people to come!

 

Outside cover of a New Zealand promotional leaflet from 1924. (Source: Brent Archives)

 

The Australian section of the Pageant followed on from New Zealand, but I will not spend much time on it. It begins with the first settlement in the newly-created Colony of New South Wales in 1788, passes through an “era of development” in the 1800s, before ending with a great parade celebrating the produce and resources that Australia wants to trade with the rest of the British Empire, and the world. 

 

Unlike its New Zealand neighbour, there is not a single word in Australia’s Pageant about the aboriginal people of this southern continent, and how appallingly they were treated (and in some ways, continue to be treated). For an insight into their story, we have had to wait for programmes like The Australian Wars (still available on BBC iPlayer).

 

Part 3 closes with a finale, featuring all the nations taking part in the British Empire Exhibition, and the people from them. This is how the programme describes it, although history shows it would be a few more decades before there was a true ‘Commonwealth of Free Nations’:

Extract from the Part 3 Pageant programme. (Source: Brent Archives)

 

The Burmese contingent on their way to the Pageant finale. (Source: Brent Archives)

 

I am lucky that, in 1964, Wembley History Society received donations of several albums put together by people involved in the Exhibition forty years earlier. One featured Burma (above, now Myanmar), and another was from Mr Beck, who had been the Resident Superintendent of the Nigerian Village at Wembley. In his album were copies of photographs taken by a daily newspaper of the Nigerians rehearsing in the stadium for their part in the Pageant’s finale. 

 

The Nigerian “horse race” at the stadium rehearsal, with Mr Beck arrowed. (Source: Brent Archives)

 

Mr Beck had annotated some of the photographs, and in the one above he had marked himself (disguised in Nigerian robes) with a “x”, which I have replaced with an arrow, for clarity. His caption shows that he was meant to be leading the group of horsemen (plus a horsewoman in disguise, Mrs Cumberbatch – any relation of Benedict?) at a trot. Instead, Bala, a silversmith from Kano, led a charge down the stadium, just for fun, during the rehearsal!

 

There were other photographs showing the Nigerians in high spirits, but the “News Chronicle” chose to print just this one, showing Mamman, Bala’s young brother and apprentice, in a more docile pose from the Pageant rehearsal, with two donkeys.

 

Mamman and two donkeys, at the rehearsal in the stadium. (Source: Brent Archive – Mr Beck’s album)

 

In all, the Pageant made use of fifty donkeys, which when not taking part in performances were kept at the nearby Oakington Manor Farm (known locally by the farmer’s name, as Sherren’s Farm). Wembley’s police force became familiar with them, when every available policeman was called out to round them up, after they escaped from their field one night in August!

 

Article from “The Wembley News”, 14 August 1924. (Brent Archives – local newspaper microfilms)

 

On that lighter note, I will end my description of Part 3, and of the Pageant of Empire at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924. But what are we to make of that event? The “Daily Express”, at the time, described it as ‘the climax of centuries of British heroism, pride, endeavour and struggle.’ My own view is less glowing, as you will have gathered from reading these articles.

 

Yes, the history is important, but we need to look at it honestly, the bad as well as the good. We need wider education about it, seeking and listening to the views of people from the countries which were part of Britain’s Empire, in order to get a wider perspective and understanding of the past. This centenary year of the Exhibition at Wembley Park provides a good opportunity to start doing that.

 

You will have the chance to share your views, and your family’s stories of Empire, through the “Becoming Brent” project. You can find details of its events on the Brent Libraries, Arts and Heritage Eventbrite site, or read about it on the Museum and Archives blog. Or, if you prefer, add a comment below.

Philip Grant.