'Come and see the empire by the all red route!': Anti-imperialism and exhibitions in interwar Britain

History Workshop Journal

Volumn 69, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 68-89

  Britton, Sarah ^a  

^a Faculty of Engineering and Computing   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77952825646     PISSN: 13633554     EISSN: 14774569     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/hwj/dbp025     Document Type: Article

References (138)

1. See for example Peter Hoffenberg, An Empire on Display: English, Indian and Australian Exhibitions from the Crystal Palace to the Great War, California, 2001.
2. Benedict Burton, 'Rituals of Representation: Ethnic Stereotypes and Colonised Peoples at World's Fairs', in Fair Representations: World's Fairs and the Modern World, ed. Robert W. Rydell and Nancy Gwinn, Amsterdam, 1994.
3. On propaganda see John M. MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire: the Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880-1960, Manchester, 1984.
4. Other important work includes Alexander Geppert, 'True Copies: Time and Space Travels at British Imperial Exhibitions, 1880-1930', in The Making of Modern Tourism: the Cultural History of the British Experience, 1600-2000, ed. Hartmut Berghoff, Barbara Korte, Ralf Schneider and Christopher Harvie, London, 2002.
5. Becky E. Conekin, Autobiography of a Nation: the 1951 Festival of Britain, Manchester, 2003.
6. The Great Exhibition of 1851: New Interdisciplinary Essays, ed. Louise Purbrick, Manchester, 2001.
7. Paul Greenhalgh, Ephemeral Vistas: the Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World's Fairs, 1851-1939, Manchester, 1988.
8. Shanny Peer, France on Display: Peasants, Provincials, and Folklore in the 1937 Paris World's Fair, New York, 1998.
9. Patricia Morton, Hybrid Modernities: Architecture and Representation at the 1931 Colonial Exhibition, Paris, Cambridge MA, 2000.
10. Robert W. Rydell, All the World's a Fair: Visions of Empire at the American International Expositions, 1876-1916, Chicago, 1984.
11. Robert W. Rydell, World of Fairs: the Century of Progress Expositions, Chicago, 1993.
12. Fair America: World's Fairs in the United States, ed. Robert W. Rydell, John E. Findling and Kimberly D. Pelle, Washington DC, 2000.
13. Jennifer Robinson, 'Johannesburg's 1936 Empire Exhibition: Interaction, Segregation and Modernity in a South African City', Journal of Southern African Studies 29: 3, autumn 2003.
14. Paul Young, 'The Great Exhibition of 1851: Making Sense of the World?', Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Manchester, 2002.
15. Manon Niquette and William J. Buxton, 'Meet Me at the Fair: Sociability and Reflexivity in Nineteenth-Century World Expositions', Canadian Journal of Communication 22: 1, 1997.
16. Bernard Schiele, 'Creative Interaction of Visitor and Exhibition', in Visitor Studies: Theory, Research and Practice: Conference Papers, Jacksonville, 1994.
17. See MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire, pp.96-120.
18. On the 1924 British Empire Exhibition see: Geppert, 'True Copies'.
19. Scott Cohen, 'The Empire from the Street: Virginia Woolf, Wembley, and Imperial Monuments', Modern Fiction Studies 50: 1, spring 2004.
20. Kenneth Walthew, 'The British Empire Exhibition of 1924', History Today 31: 8, summer 1981.
21. Donald Knight and Alan Sabey, The Lion Roars at Wembley: British Empire Exhibition 60th Anniversary, 1924-1925, London, 1984.
22. Only three colonies - Gambia, British North Borneo and Ascension Island - were not represented at the Wembley Exhibition.
23. On the 1938 Glasgow Empire Exhibition see: Robert Crampsey, The Empire Exhibition of 1938: the Last Durbar, Edinburgh, 1988.
24. Perilla and Juliet Kinchin, with a contribution by Neil Baxter, Glasgow's Great Exhibitions: 1888, 1901, 1911, 1938, 1988, Wendlebury, 1988.
25. Anita Stevens, 'Visual Sensations: Representing Scotland's Geographies in the Empire Exhibition, Glasgow, 1938', Scotlands 3, 1996.
26. Colin McArthur, 'The Dialectic of National Identity: the Glasgow Empire Exhibition of 1938', in Popular Culture and Social Relations, ed. Tony Bennett, Colin Mercer and Janet Woollacott, Milton Keynes, 1986.
27. Wembley News, 22 May 1924.
28. Wembley News, 22 May 1924.
29. On the Great Exhibition of 1851 and its voices of opposition see Jeffrey Auerbach, The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on Display, New Haven, 1999.
30. On critical commentary in nineteenth-century exhibitions see: Annie Coombes, Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination, New Haven, 1994, pp. 85-108.
31. Ben Shepherd, 'Showbiz Imperialism: the Case of Peter Lobenula', Imperialism and Popular Culture, ed. John M. MacKenzie, Manchester, 1986.
32. Felix Driver, Geography Militant: Cultures of Exploration and Empire, Oxford, 2001, pp.146-69.
33. Anti Slavery Reporter, Jan.-Feb. 1909, p. 24.
34. Milton Brown, An African at the Colonial Exhibition, London, 1949
35. My thanks to Marika Sherwood for sharing this document with me
36. Evening News, 5 March 1924
37. Real name Oladipo Felix Solanke: Solanke was born in Nigeria in 1886. He travelled to England in 1922 to complete his legal training at University College, London. His experiences of poverty and racism prompted him to organize other African students in Britain and he founded the West African Students Union in 1925: Hakim Adi, 'Solanke, Oladipo Felix [known as Ladipo Solanke] (c.1886-1958)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004.
38. 'An Outrage', West Africa, 22 March 1924
39. 'An Outrage'
40. West Africa, 17 May, 1924
41. 'When West Africa Woos', Sunday Express, 4 May 1924
42. Also considered distasteful and offensive was an article in the Saturday Review that mocked the activities and the attire of the African Village residents: 'A Day at Wembley', Saturday Review, 17 May 1924
43. Copy of resolution sent by the USAD to West Africa, printed in the journal on 17 May 1924
44. West Africa Original Correspondence, The National Archives (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO) CO 554/64
45. Letter from the Colonial Office to the USAD reads: 'Dear Sir, Mr Thomas desires me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 14th instant and to say that the governor of the Gold Coast has now issued instructions that press representatives can no longer be admitted to the Gold Coast Village at the exhibition.' TNA: PRO CO 554/64.
46. See also Hakim Adi, West Africans in Britain 1900-1960: Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Communism, London, 1998, p. 26.
47. Geppert, 'True Copies', p. 231.
48. This information comes from an article on the history of the journal in Nigerian news- paper the Daily Sun, accessed at http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/mediapeo- ple/2005/july/20/mediapple-20-07-2005-001.htm
49. see also 'The Story of Africa Between World Wars (1914-1945)' on the BBC's World Service website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/13chapter7.shtmlWEST AFRICA MAGAZINE (both sites accessed August 2005).
50. 'Manners Makyth-Empire', West Africa, 10 May 1924.
51. Some of these attempts at social control are documented by Paul Rich in his article: 'The Black Diaspora in Britain: Afro-Caribbean Students and the Struggle for a Political Identity, 1900-1950', Immigrants and Minorities 6: 2, 1987
52. Papers of the Committee for the Welfare of Africans in Europe, Anti-Slavery Society archive (ASS), Rhodes House, MSS.Brit.Emp.S23. H1/5.
53. On the political activities of West African students see: Hakim Adi, 'Pan-Africanism and West African Nationalism in Britain', African Studies Review 43: 1, spring 2000
54. Hakim Adi, 'West African Students in Britain, 1900-1960: the Politics of Exile', Immigrants and Minorities 12: 3, 1993
55. Philip Garigue, 'The West African Students' Union: a Study in Culture Contact', Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 23: 1, winter 1953
56. Ahmad Aminu Yusuf, 'The West African Students Union and its Contribution to the Anti-Colonial Struggle', Africa Quarterly 38: 4, 1998
57. Gabriel Olakunle Olusanya, The West African Students Union and the Politics of Decolonisation, Oxford, 1982
58. Adi, West Africans in Britain, p. 26.
59. On race, empire and colonial immigration see: Essays on the History of Blacks in Britain: from Roman Times to the Mid-Twentieth Century, ed. Jagdish S. Gundara and Ian Duffield, Aldershot, 1992
60. Barbara Bush, Imperialism, Race, and Resistance: Africa and Britain, 1919- 1945, New York and London, 1999
61. Peter Fryer, Staying Power: the History of Black People in Britain, London, 1984
62. Penelope Hetherington, British Paternalism and Africa 1920-1940, London, 1978.
63. Adi, West Africans in Britain, p. 24.
64. Cedric J. Robinson, 'Black Intellectuals at the British Core: 1920s-1940s', in Essays on the History of Blacks in Britain, ed. Gundara and Duffield, pp. 175-6.
65. Garigue, 'The West African Students' Union', pp. 57-8.
66. Keith Laybourn, A History of British Trade Unionism c.1770-1990, Stroud, 1992, p. 122.
67. On trade unionism see also: Henry Pelling, A History of British Trade Unionism, London, 1992.
68. Trade Unions in British Politics: the First 250 Years, ed. Ben Pimlott and Chris Cook, London, 1991.
69. W. Hamish Fraser, A History of British Trade Unionism 1700-1998, London, 1999.
70. The British Empire Exhibition and Labour Conditions: Statement Submitted to Special Conference, 14 April 1924, Trades Union Congress Archive, Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, MSS.292/508/3.
71. MSS.292/508/3.
72. MSS.292/508/3.
73. Report of Conference held 30 May 1924 at the British Empire Exhibition, MSS.292/508/3.
74. MSS.292/508/3.
75. MSS.292/508/3.
76. Patrick Renshaw, 'The Depression Years 1918-1931', in Trade Unions in British Politics, ed. Pimlott and Cook, p. 92.
77. Fraser, British Trade Unionism, p. 152.
78. Daily Herald, 14 May 1924.
79. Workers Union Record 127, June 1924
80. This is taken from one of many emotive headlines in the Daily Herald - 'Inhuman Wembley Conditions. Pitiful Tales', Daily Herald, 14 May 1924.
81. Hansard records questions relating to the issue throughout May and June 1924: see particularly 14 May (vol. 173, cols. 1,423-8), 19 May (vol. 173, cols. 1,821-2), 26 May (vol. 174, cols. 32-4) 4 June (vol. 174, cols. 1,252-5), and 16 June (vol. 174, cols. 1,721-2): Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 5th series, 1924.
82. Stephen Howe, Anticolonialism in British Politics: the Left and the End of Empire, Oxford, 1993, p. 79.
83. Howe, Anticolonialism in British Politics, p. 77.
84. Peter Weiler, 'Forming Responsible Trade Unions: the Colonial Office, Colonial Labor, and the Trades Union Congress', Radical History Review 28-30, summer 1984, p. 387.
85. Report of Conference, 30 May, MSS.292/508/3.
86. William Lunn, speech to the House of Commons, 10 Dec. 1925, Parliamentary Debates, Commons, 5th series, vol. 189 (1925), col. 809.
87. According to an article in International African Opinion, the journal of the International African Service Bureau, the ILP took the lead in organizing the event: International African Opinion, July 1938, p. 16.
88. 'Another Empire Exhibition', Scots Independent 4: 1, summer 1938.
89. Well-known contemporary author Ethel Mannin joined the ILP in 1935. She was a high-profile spokesperson for the party and contributed regular articles to The New Leader: Beverly E. Schneller, 'Mannin, Ethel Edith (1900-1984)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004.
90. James Maxton was 'one of the most charismatic figures in twentieth century British public life'. He became a member of the ILP in 1904 and served as its chairman 1913-19. In 1922 he became MP for the Glasgow constituency of Bridgeton. He was a left-leaning politician who sought to push the mainstream Labour Party away from its policy of 'gradu- alism'. This resulted in a gulf between Maxton and the moderate Labour leadership that widened throughout the 1920s. In 1932 he was one of the main advocates for ILP disaffiliation from the Labour Party. Maxton has become something of a Scottish socialist folk-hero: Graham Walker, 'Maxton, James (1885-1946)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004.
91. According to an article in Forward, 18 Aug. 1924: 'Nehru, in a message to the Exhibition, gives it his utmost support'.
92. On the Surrealist exhibition see: David Bate, Photography and Surrealism: Sexuality, Colonialism and Social Dissent, London, 2004.
93. Elizabeth Ezra, The Colonial Unconscious: Race and Culture in Interwar France, London, 2000, pp. 26-9.
94. Catherine Hodeir, 'Decentering the Gaze at French Colonial Exhibitions', in Images and Empires: Visuality in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa, ed. Paul S. Landau and Deborah D. Kaspin, Berkeley, 2002, pp. 245-8.
95. Hodeir, 'Decentering the Gaze', p. 247.
96. 'Empire With the Lid Off', Forward, 12 Aug. 1938.
97. Forward, 13 Aug. 1938.
98. New Leader, 3 June 1938.
99. New Leader, 12 Aug. 1938.
100. 'Empire With the Lid Off', 1938
101. New Leader, 3 June 1938
102. Forward, 13 Aug. 1938.
103. Forward, 13 Aug.1938.
104. New Leader, 12 Aug.1938.
105. Daily Record, 18 Aug.1938.
106. This comment was made by Ethel Mannin in an article in Forward,13 Aug. 1938.
107. All the information about the content of the Workers' Exhibition is from an article in Forward from 2 Aug. 1938. I have not been able to locate any of the guidebooks, programmes or pamphlets published for the event except 'Come and See the Empire by the All Red Route', held in the archive of the ILP in London.
108. 'Come and See the Empire by the All Red Route' (published by the Workers Empire Exhibition Committee, National Labour Press, 1938), Independent Labour Party Archive, LSE, ILP1938/5.
109. 'Come and See the Empire by the All Red Route'
110. New Leader, 5 Aug. 1938.
111. Keith Laybourn, 'Recent Writing on the History of the ILP, 1893-1932', in The Centennial History of the Independent Labour Party, ed. David James, Tony Jowitt and Keith Laybourn, Halifax, 1992, p. 319.
112. See Robert E. Dowse, Left in the Centre: the Independent Labour Party, 1893-1940, London, 1966, p. 193.
113. James, Jowitt and Laybourn, Centennial History, p. 14.
114. Robert Keith Middlemass, The Clydesiders: a Left Wing Struggle for Parliamentary Power, London, 1965, p. 259.
115. 'Come and See the Empire by the All Red Route', ILP1938/5
116. The Constitution of the ILP, 1938, Independent Labour Party Archive, LSE, ILP15/1938/6
117. Leaflet: Socialist Policy for 1938, Independent Labour Party Archive, LSE, ILP15/1938/23
118. See for example, Richard Stevens, 'Rapid Demise or Slow Death?: the Independent Labour Party in Derby, 1932-1945', Midland History 22: 1, autumn 1997, pp.113-130.
119. R. J. Morris, 'The ILP, 1893-1932: introduction', in The ILP on Clydeside, 1893-1932: from Foundation to Disintegration, ed. Alan McKinlay and R. J. Morris, Manchester, 1991, p. 4.
120. Ben Pimlott, Labour and the Left in the 1930s, Cambridge, 1977, p. 77.
121. Stevens, 'Rapid Demise or Slow Death?', p. 117.
122. David Howell, 'Traditions, Myths and Legacies: the ILP and the Labour Left', in The ILP on Clydeside, ed. McKinley and Morris, p. 205.
123. Howe, Anticolonialism in British Politics, p. 51.
124. These included the Socialist League, the New Fabian Research Bureau, the Friends of Africa Committee, the India League, the International African Service Bureau and the League of Coloured Peoples
125. See Partha Sarathi Gupta, Imperialism and the British Labour Movement, 1914-1964, London, 1975, pp. 225-6.
126. Weiler, 'Forming Responsible Trade Unions', p. 370.
127. See also Howe, Anticolonialism in British Politics, p. 90.
128. Howe, Anticolonialism in British Politics, p. 90.
129. Weiler, 'Forming Responsible Trade Unions', p. 371.
130. Howe, Anticolonialism in British Politics, p. 90.
131. Bush, Imperialism, Race and Resistance, pp. 222-3.
132. Nicholas Owen, 'Critics of Empire in Britain', in The Oxford History of the British Empire: vol. IV, The Twentieth Century, Oxford, 1999, p. 202.
133. Garigue, 'The West African Students' Union', p. 57.
134. This narrative of increasing radicalism and anti-imperialism is relayed in Garigue, 'The West African Students' Union', pp. 55-69.
135. ASS: MSS.Brit.Emp.C04.R09094.
136. Ezra, Colonial Unconscious, p. 28.
137. The TUC Pavilion contained exhibits and displays projecting a progressive narrative of the growth and development of British trade unionism
138. See Empire Exhibition, Scotland - 1938. Official Guide, Glasgow, 1938, p. 219.