Imperialism for the People

Abstract

Britons traveled to Wembley as individuals or as members of family groups, workplaces and businesses, civic associations, choral societies, schools and church groups, women’s clubs, girl guides and scout brigades, and in many other combinations; bridal couples celebrated their honeymoons at Wembley, others combined a trip to Wembley with a visit to the Cenotaph, and some visited Parliament and other popular London sites. The British Empire Exhibition came after a long period of war, social upheaval, and economic dislocation, and for many Britons a visit to Wembley was a welcome moment of lightheartedness and release. In Dundee, Scotland, for example, newspapers reported a popular enthusiasm dubbed “Wembley fever” as employers, newspapers, and patriotic societies promoted the exhibition, while steamship lines and railroads offered discounts and special excursion trains. Local newspapers reported “huge crowds lined up in front of the stations” waiting for trains to Wembley, a distance of 500 miles away; inside the night trains “hilarity and excitement reached fever height” and “corridors thronged until well into the morning with laughing, jostling trippers.”1