The British Empire Exhibition South Africa: A case study

19241/PRI/1/2 - 1924 British Empire Exhibition pg 70 pg 71 South Africa advert and pavilion

‘An Investment not a gamble’

Advert, South Africa Pavilion page 70

This is an advert to buy land in South Africa. It promotes the purchase of land as an investment for merchants and industrial. The advert promotes the commodification of resources such as ‘diamond digging’ and orange farming in South Africa’s ‘fertile soil’, which will have ‘no chance of overproduction’, allude to the attitude of how land is seen for its profit value. This is opposed to a land with histories, people and cultures. It gives precedent to the notions of incomes, highlighting figures such as ‘£125 per annum for five years’.

A land seen for its value to produce commodity, a country as an entity for the taking. Further shown in the bureaucratic words such as ‘reports’, ‘estates’ highlight the objectification of the land and its resources and ‘prosperous industries’. These distinctions made in the advert overwhelm the essence South Africa’s identity, erasing intangible heritage of making, turning and nurturing its land, folklore, ancestral pastimes, artistry etc but instead a focus on it’s cultivation and productivity.

19241/PRI/1/2 - 1924 British Empire Exhibition South Africa Pavilion page 71-72

‘South Africa has ever been a land of Romance…’

‘From the place of accomplishment it is easy to understand that the next few years will witness still more startling developments, since there is no corner of this earth that enshrines greater potentialities or advances greater claims upon the adventurous’.

This is the Official Catalogue of the British Empire Exhibition. It includes site maps of the palaces of industry, engineering, beauty and colonial dominion pavilion’s. The catalogue included images of the site, maps and advertisements. The book opens with an acknowledgment to its royal and parliamentary advocates, and a list of the exhibition administrative staff such as colonial representatives and dominion commissioners.

Pavilion Commissioners

The Exhibition commissioner of the South African Pavilion in 1924 was Arthur. Canham (Trade Commissioner for the Union of South Africa, Exhibition Commissioner for the Union Government Exhibition). The Dominion and Colonial Representatives were;

High Commissioner Sir E.H.Walton and assistant to the commissioner C.H. Richardson. Mr Authur H Tatlow was the Publicity Manager of the South African Railways and Harbours who led lecture tours around the UK to advertise South Africa.

Colonel Sir William Hoy was the General Manager of the South African Railways and Harbours, who was chiefly responsible for the organisation of the South African section in the Union.

On Page 70 to page 72 we find the description of the South African Pavilion. Between page 71 to 71, we read about what the South Africa pavilion displayed. The language conveys prospects, glamour and wealth to those who consider themselves ‘adventurous’ to make investments. The playful, persuasive language evokes the reader to feel dared and encouraged to buy lands to manufacture leather, mohair, tobacco, rope as South Africa, ‘she’, was ‘rapidly coming to the front’.

Pavilion Features

Living Ostrich Paddock

South Africa Railways

Taxidermy Of animals to display hides, skins and poultry of antelopes, lions, cows

‘Diamond Winning’

South African catering, a restaurant on a South African Railway train cart.

Cinema page 38 of Union in South Africa.

Cinema’s ‘Moving Pictures of South African Interest, Demonstrating Industries, Native Life, Views of South African Towns, Gold Mining, Coal Mining, Citrus, Cotton, Maize, Pineapple Growing and packing, land settlement, Ostrich farming, Viticulture, whaling, wool, Mohair, tobacco, irrigation and railways.

Information for shipping, farming, insurance, banking, produce, equipment, property, hotels, mining, road making, mail service (telegrams), newspapers and much more to display the integrated system of Britain's control in South Africa.

South Africa as an investment to Britain seen in item WHS/0/1/6/18 The Union of South Africa

WHS/0/1/6/18 The Union of South Africa 

Guide book and catalogue listing all that was exhibited in the South Africa Pavilion. Includes adverts, images of South Africa, such as farms, ports, scenery, railways, and factories.

South African industries; wool, mohair, wine, preserves, canned fruits, steel, cooper, lead, tin, fluorspar, nickel, platinum, Talc, Iron ores, germanite, antimony, chromium, gold, tobacco, Colton seed, animal skins, hides, horns, ostrich feathers, herds, coal, bricks, roofing tiles, concrete, silica, paving, gas, diamonds, milling, rubber, beef, tea, leather, poultry, tree bark, timber, tools etc

Page 40 Aberdeen line - ship to England to South Africa to Australia (first and third class only) wealthy and workers

Page 56 - canned fruits on map graphic

Page 60 advert for South and East African ports and India, Bombay, Calcutta, Madras and Ceylon , Colombo - through service to Chinese and Japanese ports. Highlight on estate agents who enabled travel

Page 82 - advert for P&O £21 ticket to South Africa (P&O exhibit in Australian Pavilion)

Page 96 F.H.Hartleys, Lead Seal and Boer Tobacco

Page 112 - British Empire Grown Tobacco (earl grey tobacco, Rodeshiam-Turkish)

Page 118 - Farming in South Africa as a career

Page 152 - renaming a place in South Africa to East London. Complete disregard of its original history. Settler land acquisition.

Page 188 - steel trade advert and image of South African farms

Page 224 - Netherlands bank of South Africa // London Agency

Page 234 -network of trade - export and buyers South Africa grown and produced, sold by Britain to French buyers

Page 251 - cotton seed

Page 262 - steel factory and advert. Edgar Allen Imperial Steel Works

Page 272-273 - brick adverts and hold and diamond catalogue

Page 278 - 279 - explicit lists and display of produce and extraction

Page 292 - diamond tools

Page 298 - electricity and water supply factory

1924 followed the destruction and loss of British land and people in WWI. This exhaustion, lack of hope, austerity and grief, spurred the British government to empower and promote external prospects to their populace, to survey and divulge in the ‘treasures’ of their colonies. The extraction and exploitation of their imperial rule was encouraged to gain financial stability and gains, meaning Britain could collect taxes for its redevelopment of land and economy after WWI. As shown in a letter of correspondence in Brent’s BEE archive collection, Colonial Secretary at the time, lobbied for the BEE to be supported by some governmental finance. The BEE was a sanctioned effort to rebuild Britain by exhuming and extracting lands to cultivate wealth, buildings and employment in and for Britain. We can understand from the  advertisements and the catalogue descriptor of South Africa would have been an integral part of Britain's economic development and continuation of the empire.

WHS/0/1/10/9 - The African World British Empire Supplement: Africa at Wembley

This is an original copy of ‘Africa World’. As to commemorate Empire Day May 24th 1924 this was the first addition of the monthly supplement to be published. Empire Day was a celebration of the British Empire. It took place every year on May 24th, the date of Queen Victoria’s birthday. The day would be commemorated across British colonies, with patriotic displays to demonstrate pride in being part of the British Empire.

The focus of South Africa in this first addition to the series, on Empire Day, shows how prized and integral the South African colony was to British imperial investment. 

‘South Africa in the Empire’s Shop Window’

Aligned with the portrait of King George V on the editorial page of the supplement is an captioned close box titled ‘South Africa in the Empire’s Shop Window’. A comparison of a country to a shop. Clear in it’s message of the commodification of South Africa’s land, resources and people, which without Britain, wouldn’t have been known.

‘South Africa has good reason to be proud of the manner in which she is represented at the British Empire Exhibition, and by common consent it is agreed that every sovereign spent on the effort has been an excellent investment, for South Africa has been enabled to give to the world an insight into her illuminate resources and to show the millions who will throng the Wembley acres that in point of wealth, prospects, and the importance she marches in line with the other great Domino’s of Empire.’

Fair Trade

The editors note proudly takes us through the enormity and brilliance of Wembley's exhibition. For ‘peoples of both the United Kingdom and of each Dominion and Dependency overseas can gather full knowledge of conditions under which other peoples of varied race, colour, creed and language which make up the British Empire live, move and work’. As if an equal contribution and a needed force, the empire here is portrayed to us as a fair, free for all, liberation of trade and industry. This piece alludes to how the Empire envisions the ‘Empire’ as a mere business acumen, assertion and deals, evading the imperial rule of countries who did not have fair or equal governance of their own industries, land, culture, people and trade. Whilst many colonies retained a level of agency, disparities within the British Empire and even played out in the governance of the exhibition itself, remind us the opportunities of which are displayed was not an investment opportunity accessible for everyone, be it a working class British person or the farmers of whose lands were being advertise for sale at the exhibition. Such as the Indian Pavilion or Hong Kong having their own committee members on the exhibition commission boards, in comparison to West Indies, who had not West Indian representatives, is a common display of the hierarchy of power, voice and rights.