Festival of Empire 1911 IN COLOUR.

[tulse hill terry]

This thread is about the series of coloured postcards of the Festival of Empire, held at the Crystal Palace Sydenham in 1911, as published by the "National Series."



Sold 16-Mar-08 22:03:46 GMT for £33 to 1924lineone



Sold 23-Mar-08 22:04:22 GMT for £7.50 to 1924lineone. Which works out at just over a pound each!



















I am assuming this is from the same publisher - though it has a different back! I haven't measured the serif!

Fresh off the scanner, rest to follow.

[Falkor]

Thanks Terry!!! Those are gorgeous...

[leenewham]

Why was all this pulled down or does any of it still remain? It looked great!

[tulse hill terry]

leenewham said:

Why was all this pulled down or does any of it still remain?

You can see the South Africa Pavilion [bottom left] still around after the First world War.



And now you don't.



Most of the festival buildings were just wood and plaster, inspired in style by the Franco British Exhibition of 1908, in the part of London now called "White City."

The kiosks on the terrace seemed to have survived for a while, and the rationalised Canadian Parliament building served as squash courts till vandals burnt them down in the 1950's.




The crumbling plaster exterior of the Canadian Parliament building rationalised.

Interestingly, the excuse that it was extravagant to maintain what were originally temporary buildings, was used by Churchill to remove all the Festival of Empire buildings erected on the South Bank in 1951. Nothing to do with them being erected by Labour government of course.

[Falkor]

Excellent comparisons! Good attention to detail!!

You know what? I bumped into the Chair of the Norwood Society, but forgot to ask him if they had an interior view of the Assyrian Court.

[tulse hill terry]

Ah the eternal quest for the interior of the Assyrian/Nineveh Court.

I have seen Mr. Holdaways postcard collection, he's very good to sell copies so reasonably.

Festival of Empire kiosks still standing during the First World War.



The interior of the Canadian Pavilion, from a guide, they have a copy at Bromley Library I think. You can see how they could be easily turned it into squash courts.