Guest post by local historian Philip Grant in a personal capacity
The front page header for Wembley’s local newspaper, reporting the
event. (Source: Brent Archives)
Wembley had made front page news in April 1923, when its new stadium had hosted an F.A. Cup Final amid chaotic scenes. One year on, crowds again descended on Wembley,
but this time for a much more organised event. The stadium had been built for
the British Empire Exhibition, and on 23 April 1924 (Saint George’s Day) the
exhibition itself was to be opened.
One week earlier, the press had been allowed to share the details for
the opening with the public. It would be conducted by King George V, and would
be preceded by a royal carriage drive through Wembley itself. Even though the
procession would not take place until after 11am, there were apparently large crowds
of people lining the route two hours earlier, with several hundred police
officers drafted in to control them.
Timetable for the procession, from “The Wembley News”, 17 April 1924.
Members and Officials of Wembley Council, from “The
Wembley News”, 24 April 1924.
(Both
images from Brent Archives – local newspaper microfilms)
Among those looking forward to the event were the members of Wembley
Urban District Council (what a contrast they look from the councillors and
Senior Officers of Brent, 100 years later!). It had been agreed that they could
give a brief welcome to the King on his way to the stadium. Wembley had only
been set up as a separate local authority thirty years earlier, now they would
have the chance to be part of a famous occasion.
The Council had decorated the High Road with flags and bunting, and had
asked the residents of Swinderby Road and Ranelagh Road to decorate the fronts
of their houses as well. There was a small crowd waiting to see the King and
Queen arrive by car from Windsor, and transfer to an open carriage at the junction
of Eagle Road. Seventy years later, a lady who had been there as a local
teenager remembered Queen Mary instructing her husband as to what he had to do
(or, as she put it, ‘giving him earache’!).
Wembley Town Hall in the High Road, decorated for King George V’s silver
jubilee in 1935.
All the shops in the High Road were closed for the day, so that staff
and shoppers could witness the Royal visit. The procession did not stop at the Town
Hall (demolished in 1962, and replaced by a department store – now Primark), as
the Council had built itself a decorated platform at Wembley Green (now
commonly known as Wembley Triangle, where the High Road joins Wembley Hill
Road).
The Council and the King, from “The Wembley News”, 24 April 1924.
(Brent Archives – local newspaper microfilms)
Typical of attitudes to the Royal family at that time, “The Wembley
News” reported that: ‘Their majesties had consented to break the great
procession at the Green and to receive the homage of their local subjects.’
Three minutes was allowed in the procession timetable for this stop, which saw
the Home Secretary introduce the Chairman of Wembley Council, Mr Hewitt, to ‘their
majesties’.
The Chairman handed an illuminated address to the King, having to stretch
across as the carriage had not stopped close enough to the Council’s platform.
Then a girl, Betty Soilleux, had to climb onto a chair to present a bouquet to
the Queen. The King’s only recorded words during his encounter with Wembley
Council were to ‘express his disappointment at the weather’, which was grey and
chilly.
A paragraph from “The Wembley News”, 24 April 1924. (Brent Archives – local newspaper microfilms)
The procession then passed on and into the stadium, where invited
guests, and up to 100,000 members of the general public, who were allowed to
stand on the terraces free of charge, had already been entertained with music
from military bands. Among the crowds were all the pupils of Wembley’s
Elementary schools (for children aged five to thirteen), who had been brought
there to witness the ceremony.
The royal carriage inside the stadium. (From a coloured newsreel film)
The King was welcomed onto an ornate royal dais by the Prince of Wales,
as President of the Exhibition. Dressed in naval uniform, the Prince gave a
short address, inviting his father to open ‘a complete and vivid representation
of all your Empire’. He hoped that the result of the Exhibition would be:
‘to impress upon all the peoples of your Empire …
that they should work unitedly and energetically to develop the resources of
the Empire for the benefit of the British race, for the benefit of those other
races which have accepted our guardianship over their destinies, and for the
benefit of mankind generally.’
[Personally, I find the sentiments in that statement offensive, although
they do reflect the views held by the British elite at that time!]
The royal dais at the east end of the stadium, 23 April 1924. (From a coloured newsreel film)
The King’s opening address was broadcast via wireless across the country
by the new BBC, the first time that his voice had been heard on radio. This extract
from his speech gives a flavour of how he viewed the British Empire:
‘The Exhibition may be said to reveal to us the
whole Empire in little, containing within its 220 acres of ground a vivid model
of the architecture, art and industry of all the races which come under the
British Flag. It represents to the world a graphic illustration of that spirit
of free and tolerant co-operation which has inspired peoples of different
races, creeds, institutions, and ways of thought, to unite in a single commonwealth
and to contribute their varying national gifts to one great end.
This Exhibition will enable us to take stock of the
resources, actual and potential, of the Empire as a whole; to consider where
these exist and how they can best be developed and utilised; to take counsel
together how the peoples can co-operate to supply one another’s needs, and to
promote national well-being. It stands for a co-ordination of our scientific knowledge
and a common effort to overcome disease, and to better the difficult conditions
which still surround life in many parts of the Empire.’
King George V reading his opening address. (From a coloured newsreel film)
As I wrote in a guest post at the start of this year, King George V had visited most parts of what would become “his Empire”
when he was younger. He saw himself as a father figure, and had some concern
for the needs of people in other nations within his “family”. But he still had
the blinkered, British-centric, view that the Empire was “a good thing”. If he
had been taught the history of how the British Empire had come about, and the
various atrocities committed in the course of British imperialism (some very
recent then, like the Amritsar, or Jallianwala Bagh, massacre just five years earlier), he was ignoring those facts, or at least
keeping quiet about them.
The world-wide spread of the Empire was demonstrated when, after King George
had spoken the words: ‘I declare the British Empire Exhibition open’, they were
sent by telegraph through under-ocean cables to Canada, then via Pacific
islands, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and St Helena, arriving back at
Wembley in just 80 seconds. A Post Office telegram boy then delivered the
message in an envelope, and handed it to the King.
Postcard showing the telegram being delivered to the King. (Source; Brent Archives)
The telegram boy was 17-year old Henry Annals. Seventy years later, and
still living in Wembley, he said that he had been delivering messages to the Exhibition
site for over a year, including during the 1923 F.A. Cup Final. For most of
that time it had been a muddy building site, so he was given a new uniform to
wear on the morning of 23 April, and had to quickly sew on a light blue arm
band, as a sign that he was allowed access to all areas of the ceremony.
The Post Office also took advantage of the occasion to issue Britain’s
first ever commemorative postage stamps. They featured a lion, which was meant
to represent the strength of the Empire, although it was not the lion design
chosen as the symbol for the exhibition itself.
The two 1924 British Empire Exhibition commemorative stamps.
Some people may have been satisfied with a First Day Cover of the new
stamps as a souvenir of the opening of the Exhibition, but the Vicar of Wembley
asked for more. John Silvester (father of the ballroom dancer and band leader, Victor Silvester), who was also attending the ceremony in the stadium as a Wembley
councillor, asked the exhibition organisers to give him the thrones used by the
King and Queen!
They said “yes”, he could have them for his church, after they had been
used for the closing ceremony for the 1925 edition of the exhibition, as the
organisers were not sure what to do with them after that (they were large and
heavy - made of Canadian pine and English oak). One hundred years later, they
are still in St. John the Evangelist Church, at the western end of Wembley High
Road.
The Royal Thrones, in the north aisle of St John’s Church.
I’ve commemorated the centenary of the British Empire Exhibition’s
opening, and there will probably be other articles relating to the exhibition
later in the year. The centenary of this major exhibition at Wembley Park gives
us the opportunity to learn more about the history of the former British Empire,
which has many dark sides as well as the benefits claimed by the speeches at
the opening ceremony.
I would also repeat my (and Martin’s) earlier invitation to anyone whose
roots are in one of the nations represented at the 1924 exhibition, to share
their views on “Empire”, or their family’s stories of how they came to Wembley (or
Brent). Please do that in a comment below, or in your own guest post. Your
voices deserve to be heard, and learning more about the past, from different
perspectives, should be one of the legacies of this centenary year.
Philip Grant.
(With thanks to Mike Gorringe for the notes of his meeting in 1994 with
Henry and Mrs Annals.)
