Guest post by local historian Philip Grant
The event at Willesden Green Library on Saturday 16 August. (From Eventbrite)
The eighteen month “Becoming Brent” project, using the centenary of the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Park in 1924/25 as a starting point for re-examining how we see this part of our history from different perspectives, comes to a conclusion next weekend.
Extra tickets have been made available for “Come See the Empire”, at Willesden Green Library on Saturday 16 August from 2pm to 3.30pm. The session will be led by local historian Lisa Lu, who writes:
‘The talk will serve as a continuation of the conversation around this historic event, exploring its origins, goals, and how former colonial nations present themselves today. By comparing the Exhibition's narrative with contemporary perspectives, the talk aims to encourage reflection on Britain's colonial legacy, its impact on Brent, and broader global implications.’
You can reserve your free place for this event by “clicking” on the Brent Libraries, Arts and Heritage Eventbrite website.
Sunday 17 August will be the final day when you can see “Revisiting the British Empire Exhibition 100 Years On”, in the second-floor gallery at Willesden Green Library. This community-led exhibition looks at a variety of pictures and objects from 1924/25 in the Brent Museum collection, and invites you to share your own experiences and impressions of former British colonies, promoting dialogue and critical thinking around the concepts of decolonisation, migration, and heritage.
Back on 1 January 2024, Martin published my guest post on Why we should commemorate the British Empire Exhibition in 2024. I felt it was important that we used the centenary of a major local history event, which has helped to shape Wembley’s progress ever since, as a chance to learn more about Britain’s former Empire, to understand it and its consequences, and to acknowledge its wrongs. The “Becoming Brent” project has helped to do that, and we need to continue to educate ourselves, for the benefit of mutual respect across our wonderfully diverse community.
Park Lane School’s Empire Day celebration, May 1920.
(Brent Archives – Wembley History Society
Collection)
Things have moved on since local schoolchildren were taught what a wonderful thing the British Empire was, and were marched to the recently built Empire Stadium to watch the pageantry of the Exhibition’s opening ceremony on 23 April 1924. Several thousand local people were encouraged to take part in the Pageant of Empire at the Stadium in July and August 1924. They were part of a scene about Queen Elizabeth I, and the celebration of England’s victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588. But the sections of the Pageant dealing with how Britain came to own many other lands either distorted, and sometimes glorified in, the darker side of the Empire’s story. Unfortunately, that was the way in which the British establishment wanted people to see our history then!
The British Empire Exhibition logo.
Hopefully, we have learned some lessons from the British Empire Exhibition’s centenary which will help to make Brent a better place in future.
Philip Grant.
