Franco-British Exhibition (1908)

Bird's eye view of the exhibition area

The Franco-British Exhibition (1908) was a large public fair held in London in the early years of the 20th century. The exhibition attracted 8 million visitors and celebrated the Entente Cordiale signed in 1904 by the United Kingdom and France.

The Exhibition was held in an area of West London near Shepherd's Bush which is now called White City: the area acquired its name from the exhibition buildings which were all painted white. The 1908 Summer Olympics fencing events were held in the district alongside the festivities.^[1]

Attractions

The fair was the largest exhibition of its kind in Britain, and the first international exhibition co-organised and sponsored by two countries. It covered an area of some 140 acres (0.57 km²), including an artificial lake, surrounded by an immense network of white buildings in elaborate (often Oriental) styles.

The most popular attractions at the exhibition were the two so-called "colonial villages" - an "Irish village" and a "Senegalese village", which were designed to communicate the success of imperialism. The Irish village ("Ballymaclinton") was inhabited by 150 "colleens" (Irish girls) who demonstrated various forms of domestic industry, as well as displays of manufacturing and even an art gallery. The "Senegalese village" was a so-called "native village" displaying day-to-day life, as well as various artefacts. Press reports commented on the "surprising cleanliness" of the Irish, while readers were reminded that the Senegalese were "cleaner than they looked".^[2]

Limericks were used to advertise this event:

In Elite Gardens

A maiden of coy disposition,

Met her fate at the Bush Exhibition,

When his great love he told her,

Placed her head on his shoulder,

And enjoyed the happier position.

In an Anglo-French section one night,

A Youth met a Maiden, gay and bright,

But her idea of pleasure,

Was of such boundless measure,

He left with heart heavy - purse light.

In 1937, a large portion of the White City site was cleared to make way for a housing estate. During the clearance, the Flip Flap, and a number of other White City structures, were sold for scrap to the steel firm, George Cohen, Sons and Co Limited – the same company who had dismantled the Great Wheel of the Earl’s Court Exhibition,^[3] and went on to dismantle the Skylon, dome, and ten other buildings, at the Festival of Britain site in 1952.^[4]

The site today

The exhibition site is now occupied by the BBC Television Centre, opened in 1960, and the Westfield Shopping Centre, which opened in late 2008. The last remaining buildings of the 1908 exhibition were demolished to make way for the Westfield development. Frithville Gardens, once part of the Japanese Garden, is the only part of the 1908 exhibition site still visible. A small area of tiling preserved from the Garden can still be seen inside the main Television Centre site adjacent to the Studio 1 Audience Entrance. The White City Stadium site, in Wood Lane adjacent to the Westway overpass and once part of the Exhibition, is now occupied by the BBC's Media Village.

Bibliography

• Geppert, Alexander C.T., Fleeting Cities. Imperial Expositions in Fin-de-Siècle Europe, Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

See also

• History of Shepherd's Bush
• List of world's fairs

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Franco-British Exhibition.

• Science and Society Picture Library
  • Aerial view of exhibition halls at White City, 1920
  • Aerial view of White City stadium and exhibition halls, 1928
• Vintage postcards from the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition

v t e Olympic venues in fencing 1896: Zappeion 1900: Tuileries Garden 1904: Francis Gymnasium 1908: Franco-British Exhibition Fencing Grounds 1912: Östermalm Athletic Grounds 1920: Gardens of the Egmont Palace 1924: Stade de Colombes 1928: Schermzaal 1932: 160th Regiment State Armory 1936: Haus des Deutschen Sports, Tennis Courts 1948: Wembley Palace of Engineering 1952: Westend Tennis Hall 1956: St Kilda Town Hall 1960: Palazzo dei Congressi 1964: Waseda Memorial Hall 1968: Fernando Montes de Oca Fencing Hall 1972: Messegelände, Fechthalle 1, Messegelände Fechthalle 2 1976: Winter Stadium, Université de Montréal 1980: CSKA Football Fieldhouse 1984: Long Beach Convention Center 1988: Olympic Fencing Gymnasium 1992: Palau de la Metal·lúrgia 1996: Georgia World Congress Center 2000: Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre 2004: Fencing Hall 2008: Olympic Green Convention Center 2012: ExCeL, Copper Box 2016: Deodoro Arena

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