Attitudes to Empire Flashcards
Wembley Exhibition
1924-25
Amount promised to fund Wembley Exhibition
1921, £2.2 million
Half of which came from the British government
Aims of the Wembley exhibition
- Find new sources of imperial wealth
- Foster inter-imperial trade
- Strengthen links between Empire races
- Show the British people the potential of their colonies and dominions
West Africa students’ response to the Wembley exhibition
Complained about the stereotypical racist portrayal of Africans
Suggests that they believed the exhibition had an impact on popular attitudes
Number of people who attended the Wembley exhibition in 1924
17 million
Number of people who attended the Wembley exhibition in 1925
9 million
Reasons why the Wembley Exhibition was not so important
- Heavily satirised at the time
- Many implied that it was nothing more than a vast entertainment
- Wembley was chosen specifically - suggests that working class support was limited as they were actively trying to galvanise it
Glasgow Exhibition
1938
Glasgow Exhibition - number of visitors
12 million
Anti-imperial exhibition run at the same time as the Glasgow Exhibition
Run by the Glasgow Independent Labour Party
Empire Marketing Board
1926-33
Aims of EMB
- Support scientific research
- Promote economic analysis
- Gain publicity for Empire trade
Amount spent by EMB
£2 million on research and market services
£1 million on publicity
Empire shopping weeks (organised by EMB)
1930, 200 British Empire shopping weeks in 65 different towns
Peeps at the Colonial Empire
EMB exhibition held in Charing Cross station in 1936
Colonies Exhibition
1944
Sponsored by the Colonial Office and Ministry of Information
% of the workforce unemployed in 1933
22% - purchases = dictated by price rather than pride in Empire (undermines influence of EMB)
Mackenzie on EMB
‘Few people were untouched’
Imperial Institute first established
1887
Donations saved the Imperial Institute from being closed
1923
EMB funded a cinema for the Imperial Institute
1924
Number of visitors - Imperial Institute - in 1930s
1 million visitors annually
Modern exhibitions and strong advertising
British Broadcasting Company
1923
Founded by Sir John Reith (strong imperialist)
British Broadcasting Company became British Broadcasting Corporation
1927
Gained a royal charter
George V delivered the first Christmas Day broadcast
1932 - created a sense of collective identity and connection across the Empire
Millions listened every year
Number of wireless licences in 1939
9 million
BBC had unprecedented reach so its imperial ethos would have been absorbed by many
Radio Times sold X copies by Y
Radio Times sold nearly 3 million copies by the 1940s
Empire Exchanges
Broadcasts from across the Empire
Empire Service created
1932
BBC now broadcast to the whole Empire
Relays from the Palestinian mandate were so popular that…
An individual Palestine Broadcasting Service was set up in 1936
Gold Coast Ghana
1930
Sponsored by Cadbury
Men of Africa
1939
Sponsored by the Colonial Office
Ministry of Information’s films
49th Parallel and West Indies Calling
Beginning of WWII
Stressed the need to understand different cultures and races
Board of Education in 1918
Asserted that the ‘establishment of our position among nations’ was a necessary element of schooling
Board of Education in 1926
Stated that most schools taught syllabuses ‘too exclusively concerned with the story of Britain and the British Empire’
School of Oriental and African Studies established at UCL
1917
All elementary school education was free from
1918 - every British child would have been attending school until at least the age of 14
Bernard Porter on education and the empire
Argued that school curriculums actually focussed mainly on the Classics
G. A. Henty’s books remained popular
In 1950s, sold 25 million copies
New comics by D.C. Thomson
Each of his papers sold 600,000 copies to 1.5 million readers
Empire Annuals
New Empire Annual
The Empire Annual for Girls
Major feature of interwar publishing
Imperial adventures and factual accounts of settler life
Youth organisations unrelated to Empire failed
Kibbo Kift
Woodland Folk
Lord Beaverbrook
Continued to promote the empire through his Daily Express in 1920s and 1930s
Imperialist groups (2)
Royal Empire Society (RES)
British Empire Union (BEU)
More pro-imperial films (2)
Sanders of the River (1935)
The Four Feathers (1939)
‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’
1931
Noël Coward song
Gently self-mocking
Elgar died
1934
Elgar conducted mass choirs, singing Land of Hope and Glory
1924 Empire Exhibition
Co-operative Wholesale Society
Large trader within the Empire
Used images of Empire in their marketing
Tea packets contained collectible cards depicting places across the Empire
Empire Day celebration in 1925
90,000 people attended an event in Wembley
