Context and purpose

1After the end of the Second World War in Europe, the general election held in the United Kingdom on 5 July 1945 returned a Labour government with a landslide victory and a majority of 145 seats in the House of Commons. The Labour government, led by Clement Attlee, implemented a programme of sweeping social and economic change. In 1947, in a context of continuing rationing, deprivation, shortages, when 2 million people were unemployed and there was a shortage of foreign currency to buy food overseas, the Deputy Prime Minister, Herbert Morrison, proposed a festival to mark the centennial of the Great Exhibition of 1851.

2However, the new festival was intended to celebrate Britain as a nation and its achievements. A prime idea was that the festival should help to boost morale and be “a tonic to the nation”. Unlike its 19^th century predecessor, it was decided not to refer to the Empire, but the wish was to focus instead on the viability of British democracy and to show the vibrant cultural life in Britain. The idea of holding up a mirror to the nation was to show British people “winning the peace”, when the international background of the early years of the Cold War was one which contained the looming threat of nuclear war.

3Projecting and celebrating a sense of national identity was closely linked to Memory, remembering who the British were, which chimed with a national sense of place, as the rebuilding of Britain led to rethinking a national sense of place. The Land and the People was therefore the theme: a national display of the interwoven serial story of Britain. The architects and designers involved were strongly influenced by their attachment to the land of Britain and the history of the place. Yet, while being in tune with the past, there was a strong emphasis on design, art and architecture. This was allied with attempts to market the project – and the country – and attract victors from UK and overseas, although in the end the only tourists who visited Britain were mainly expats.

4There were objections to the Festival and these included the extensions made to licensing hours, meaning the pubs could stay open longer. The Festival was viewed by some as a ludicrous imposition at a time of hardship and left-wing critics viewed it as a waste of time and a diversion of funds at a time when Britain was in dire need of new housing and job creation. Right-wing objectors viewed the whole thing as socialist propaganda seeking to publicize the new Britain envisaged by the Labour government.

5Nevertheless, committees and bodies were set up, for example the Council on Science and Technology and one on Town Planning and Building Research. Existing organisations were mobilised: the Council of Industrial Design, the Arts Council, the Central Office of Information and the British Film Institute. The Church of England and the National Book League became involved. There was optimism that people would spontaneously join in and respond, and that the Festival would inspire unofficial manifestations but on the whole there was little public exuberance.

6The Festival of Britain centred on London and although ideas were mooted for the organisation of tours of the exhibition around the country this suggestion was quickly abandoned as it would have been too expensive to carry out. Nevertheless, events were organised all over the United Kingdom and not just in London. In many cases these events would have taken place anyway, but in the summer of 1951 they were labelled as part of “Festival of Britain”. As the souvenir guide to the South Bank Exhibition in London explained:

• 1 Ian Cox, The South Bank Exhibition, A Guide to the Story It Tells, London 1951, H.M. Stationery Off (…)

The Festival is nation-wide. All through the summer, and all through the land, its spirit will be finding expression in a variety of British sights [sic] and a great range of British sounds. Taken together, these will add up to one united act of national reassessment, and one corporate reaffirmation of faith in the nation’s future.1

A national festival?

8However, was it really “national”? Was all of the United Kingdom really encompassed in the Festival or did London dominate? Half of the official exhibitions were held in London (South Bank Exhibition site, Exhibition of Science, Exhibition of Architecture and the Battersea Pleasure Gardens) with one in Scotland (Exhibition of Industrial Power in Glasgow) and one in Northern Ireland (Ulster farm and factory exhibition in Belfast) while there were none in Wales. There was a travelling exhibition by land and a Festival ship, the Campania, that berthed at Plymouth. But the aim was to present a cohesive, single ‘story’ about Britain and so there was not really any place for representing the multiple national traditions and differences within the nation-state. Nevertheless, outside London, many events were in fact organised but there is no list or record of these, compiled in one central comprehensive way. No websites or authoritative books (such as The Festival of Britain Harriet Atkinson, 2012) indicate the existence of any such archive.

Focus on Wales

11In the absence of any large-scale definitive study of this period, when trying to establish an idea of what the Festival of Britain entailed outside London, research on the internet and then in local libraries revealed that the summer of 1951 was celebrated in quite an extensive way in Wales, and this probably holds true for the rest of the UK.

14Focus here will turn in particular to Wales’ second city Swansea. The public library holds a collection of miscellaneous documents gathered in one volume Festival of Britain Swansea Events 1951. The person who gathered together these items may have been a Mr L. Rees as his name is on several invitations from the Mayor of Swansea, to the official opening on 2 June, to a film and to an exhibition of Swansea pottery.

15The Festival programme in this collection announces a very extensive variety of activities organised throughout the city and its suburbs for the four months duration. It is interesting to note that the Festival opens with specially dedicated services in the different churches in Swansea (Church of Wales (Anglican), Roman Catholic and Methodist) while the History of the Prayer Book was the subject of a pageant in the first week and early in July Sunday School pupils put on a similar show. There was also an exhibition on work done by Welsh missionaries.

18Women ‘s groups and youth associations (Scouts, Guides and Boys Brigade) are present on the programme with different kinds of activities. The armed services took a full part in the local festivities: HMS Sheffield visited the city between 12 – 17 July and there was an RAF pageant.

19More intellectual offerings were made by the university which organised several exhibitions and talks as well as an Open Week. A printed document from the University of Swansea describes the institution and the events of Festival week. The city library had displays and exhibitions too on Literary Swansea, which concerned local authors, including Dylan Thomas, as well as books about the city. A major sector of the Welsh economy was on display at a large agricultural show and in September a week was devoted to Trade and Shopping. The collection of documents in Swansea Library also include type-written histories of Swansea and brief biographies of local authors as well as information and bibliographies on the history of music in Wales.

Conclusion

21The Festival of Britain has been forgotten these days. This could be due in part to the immediate dismantling of Festival infrastructure by the Conservative government elected in October 1951. The only permanent edifice has been the Festival Hall on the South Bank of the Thames. If it had been a high point in post-war national life it was quickly replaced in public memory by the accession of Elizabeth II and the excitement and preparations for the Coronation in June 1953. It seems to have been just a particular moment in the nation’s hi/story.