THE OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE FROM GERALD BARRY, THE EDITOR OF THE "NEWS CHRONICLE", FRIDAY 14TH SEPTEMBER 1945
Dear Sir Stafford Cripps,
You have recently called upon the British people to re-establish their economic position in the world by their own exertions, and have drawn attention to the imperative need to stimulate British exports. May I urge the claims - as one means towards these essential needs - of a great Trade and Cultural Exhibition to be held in London within the next few years?
It so happens that we are approaching a significant date. The year 1951 will see the centenary of the great and successful International Exhibition of 1851. In the interval mankind has lived through a century of unimaginable developments. The so-called Age of Progress has led us into many unexpected and some undesirable by-paths, but one factor at least is common to both that period and the present - the high standing of British prestige. A great Exhibition in 1951 - there is no overriding need to stick to this date, but a period of five or six years from now would give us adequate time for preparation - would surely be a profitable way of advertising our products and of displaying to the world British prowess in design and craftsmanship. The decision to hold an Exhibition would be a powerful stimulus to both manufacturers and designers. It would be the means of attracting to this country not only traders with millions of pounds at their disposal but large numbers of foreign tourists who would spend their money in the country and - we may hope - would be encouraged to repeat their visits in future years. It would provide a challenge to British architects and engineers, which we might reasonably expect, would result in overseas orders.
Above all, it would afford an opportunity for assembling in London an international collection of exhibits in the fields of the Arts and of Science, and of representing developments in the arts and crafts which have taken place in the world behind the cultural blackout of the war. It is important than an early decision should be taken. Manufacturers will require long notice, and the preparations will necessarily take longer to mature. Moreover, under the International Convention, invitations to other countries must be sent out three years in advance.
If the Exhibition is decided on, there are strong arguments for holding it in the centre of the Empire's capital. One of the drawbacks of the Wembley Exhibition after the last war was that it was wrongly sited. The Paris experiment in 1937-1938 proved that a large modern International Exhibition can be staged in the heart of a metropolitan city with highly attractive results. London leads itself exceptionally well to this purpose, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, the Green Park (with St. James's Park lake hard by), Regent's Park; above all, the incomparable river frontage of Battersea Park - these large "landscape" sites would provide ample space for an Exhibition in which the north and south sides of the river could share the honours and the advantages. If it be objected that we must not occupy our great public parks for such a purpose, I can only reply that the citizens of London, who for six years of war were necessarily restricted in the use of these spaces would surely welcome their temporary use for a project which would bring both credit and profit to the capital of the Empire while at the same time providing millions with enjoyment. The Thames river could come into its own as a highway for sightseers. It may even be that many of the landing craft and "ducks" which would otherwise rot away on scrap-heaps might be put to attractive use as the transport of Exhibition visitors.
I commend this suggestion to you, Sir, in spite of the immense preoccupations of reconstruction which are now your responsibility, because I believe that here is an opportunity for the Labour Government to give an imaginative lead to the nation and the Empire in a project which would be of great practical help to British traders while affording active testimony to the spirit, enterprise and skill of the British people.
Yours sincerely, GERALD BARRY
Cripps replied in his own handwriting in red ink that he thought "perhaps it might be a good idea" (BLPES no. 34)
THE FESTIVAL COMES TO BIRTH by Sir Gerald Barry, Festival of Britain Director-General (written in 1951)
The labour pains of the Festival of Britain have lasted three years and one month. It was on April 1st, 1948, that we first began to plan the Festival, in two rooms kindly placed at our disposal by the Royal Society of Arts in their beautiful home in Adam Street, Adelphi. The significance of this address was the fact that the Royal Society of Arts were the promoters, under their President, Albert, Prince Consort, of the Great International Exhibition of 1851, in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. It was the centenary of this Exhibition that the Festival of Britain was intended to celebrate.
At that time, three years ago, we had a directive from his Majesty's Government to promote, by means of exhibitions and arts festivals, events which would in sum demonstrate the contributions of the British people to civilization "in the arts, in science and technology, and in industrial design.". The whole was to be called "The Festival of Britain", thus implying that the celebrations were to cover the entire United Kingdom.
The "official" programme of the Festival of Britain when it opens on May 3rd will consist of eleven exhibitions and twenty-three arts festivals, in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. But this is far from all. What qualifies the Festival of Britain to rank as a nation-wide event of unique significance is the fact that upwards of 1,700 localities throughout the country are organising spontaneous celebrations of their own, out of their own resources, and according to their own amenities and needs. Wherever possible these local events have some permanent value, great or small, to mark the importance of the occassion and to enrich the life of the community for the future.
It can be imagined that the organisation of a programme of this magnitude proved to be a major task and has not been carried through without its frustrations, setbacks and disapointments. The exigencies of time, of finance, and of inclemency in the international atmosphere combined to put difficulities in the way. In addition, the weather throughout the past winter has been almost the worst on record - a factor of almost desperate importance when it comes to laying out exhibitions.
Those responsible for planning the project had, of course, to start from scratch. We had to decide what kind of exhibitions were to be arranged, how they were to be organized, and where they were to be sited. We had to choose which cities and towns were best suited by their historical and artistic amenities and their geographical position to be invited to promote Arts Festivals. Above all we had to consider means whereby the directive could be fulfilled that the Festival of Britain should be truly an all-nation affair. Once all the decisions had been taken, the work of creating could begin.
When the Council of the Festival of Britain, representing most of the appropriate interests in the national life, had been appointed under the chairmanship of General Lord Ismay, celebrated wartime adviser to Mr. Winston Churchill, Princess Elizabeth graciously came to address its first meeting. She did so as President of the Royal Society of Arts, in whose building the meeting was held. In the short speech which she made that day she set, as it were, the temper of the Festival, she gave it its focus and objectives. These are quotations from her speech:
"At a time when the world is racked with uncertainties there is a special virtue in dwelling upon the arts of peace. It is good to turn our minds to those things in our tradition that are permanent and continuous, through which our country has added so much to the store of human happiness and knowledge.... It seems to me that that the present places a greater obligation upon us than ever before to concentrate on quality, in things of the mind no less than in what our factories produce.
I would therefore suggest to you, as you begin your work, the importance of setting the highest standards in everything you plan for 1951. The success of the Festival will depend on the courage and vision shown by those responsible for its organization. I feel sure they will never be content with what is second-best...
I hope also that in emphasizing our achievements of the past and present you will stress no less sharply our responsibilities to the future."
This was the first great milestone on our road. Here was our inspiration. By now we were already hard at work on the details, getting Council and Government approval of the various proposals and making contact with cities in the provinces which it was intended should come within the orbit of the programme. A high proportion of responsibility for the planning and carrying through of the programme has been borne throughout by the national bodies which from the outset were charged with bearing this burden. Two in particular have played decisive parts, the Arts Council of Great Britain (which has been responsible for planning all the Arts Festivals, the London Season of the Arts, and innumerable other artistic events throughout the country) and the Council of Industrial Design (whose crucial task has been to obtain the co-operation of British industries and to organize the industrial exhibits throughout the Exhibitions in such a way as will give a true and compelling pictire of all that is best in British manufacture in terms of design and technique).
The British Film Institure has been responsible for the film side of the Festival, and the National Book League for books. In order to complete the circle, the Lord President of the Council* called into being two ad hoc Councils, one to serve the interests of Science, the other those of Architecture, Town Planning and Building Research. Both these bodies have been responsible for overseeing all those things in the Festival that have come within their particular domains, and both have sponsored some bold and imaginative schemes. (* i.e. Herbert Morrison, later Foreign Secretary, a.k.a. 'Lord Festival')
Meanwhile the decisive steps were being taken to draw in the rest of the community. In June 1949 the Lord Mayor of London invited all the civic heads of the country to meet him in the Guildhall, where he put to them the proposal that each locality should make its own plans for joining in the Festival. Each man went back to his own place and began to make his plans. This was the second milestine. The result is the 1,700 participants to whose collaboration I have already referred.
But what gives the Festival of Britain an even wider significance, and helps to fulfil Princess Elizabeth's wish that it should stress "our responsibilities to the future", is the whole-hearted co-operation of innumerable voluntary organizations throughout the country and especially of the young people. It has all along been the hope of those in charge of the Festival that it would succeed in promoting the interests and stimulating the support of those who will be the citizens of to-morrow, reared as they have necessarily been in an age of violence and instability. An event such as the Festival of Britain, dramatically emphasizing the value of our traditions and the promise of our future, can do much to create a new national awareness and a new belief in our heritage.
That the Festival should occur when the international skies have grown a good deal more menacing than they were when it was first concieved does not detract from- it enhances- its validity. It is doubly important that at this critical time the British people should demonstrate to their friends and allies their confidence, resilience and dependability. It is equally important that, being obliged by fate to step straight out of one period of austerity into another, we should find some tonic to send us to our next tasks replenished, and newly aware of the value of those things we are once more called on to defend.
It is also of value that when half the world lives in ignorance and fear, the free half should do what it can to demonstrate its freedoms, among which is the freedom to exchange knowledge and ideas, and to open wide the doors of our democracy to the inspection of the world. At a time, too, when those whom it suits to say so would pretend that the Western peoples are intent upon plans of destruction, it is good that a nation should find the resources and initiative, in the midst of many preoccupations, to insist upon the creative virtues, on which in the end the sanity and stability of any nation must depend.
A TONIC TO THE NATION
by Gerald Barry, Director-General of the Festival of Britain (taken from the "Daily Mail" preview & guide)
What an immense amount has happened in the three crowded years since with many misgivings I took up temporary residence with a single colleague in rooms most kindly lent by the Royal Society of Arts in the Adelphi on April 1st 1948.
We did not even acquire a secretary apiece until a few days later. All we had were some paper, a clear directive from His Majesty's Government and the inspiration of a home in the building of the society that had started the Great International Exhibition of 1851 in the famous Crystal Palace.
We had just three years and one month in which to plan and bring into being something called "The Festival of Britain" which was to be staged in 1951 to commemorate the centenary of that world-shaking event.
To-day on the eve of the opening the Festival office staff is about 600 strong and the Festival programme embraces altogether some 1,700 cities, towns and villages throughout the United Kingdom.
Month by month the thing grew in our hands until the day arrived - a day unmarked in any calendar unknown even to ourselves as a particular date but a definate moment in time all the same - when the British people themselves quietly and spontaneously decided that this was their Festival and got to work to make it so.
This happened many months ago unobserved by those newspapers and the few politicians who were still busily engaged in sniping operations (not that we resented the criticisms. Often they were helpful, sometimes postively and criticism is always good for the soul.)
If I had to name the outstanding milestones in this three year journey I think I should choose three. The first when we had only been in existence a few weeks was the first meeting of our Council of which General Lord Ismay, famous and popular adviser to Winston Churchill throughout World War Two, had been appointed chairman.
To meet and address the Council came Princess Elizabeth in her capacity as President of the Royal Society of Arts, in whose lovely building we met. It was she who gave us our marching orders:
"At a time when the world is wracked with uncertainties...it is good to turn our minds to those things in our tradition that are permanent and continuous, through which our country has added so much to the store of human happiness and knowledge. To keep our freedom to live and think as we believe best, we have made heavy material sacrifices in recent years; but we have certainly not forfeited our opportunities of leadership in the world of ideas.
I would therefore suggest to you, as you begin your work, the importance of setting the highest standards of everything you plan for 1951...I hope also that in emphasizing our achievements of the past and present you will stress no less sharply our responsibilities to the future. Then the Festival of Britain, 1951, may prove to be not simpley and end in itself, but a beginning of many good things."
With this inspiring Royal directive spinning in our heads we got down to the job.
The next milestone was rather more than a year later, when the Lord Mayor of London of that year, Sir George Alwyn invited all the Lord Mayors, Mayors and chairmen of county and urban councils of England and Wales, to meet him at the Guildhall.
There he suggested that they should encourage each locality to make its own contribution to the Festival, out of its own resources, according to its own talents and needs. In the afternoon we all met in the Central Hall, Westminster, to try to answer questions.
It was that day's meetings.. that the movement began which, slowly at first and almost imperceptably, gathered strength and volume until to-day it can truthfully be said that the Festival of Britain is nation-wide. On that day the seed was sown from which the harvest is to be reaped this summer.
The King sent a message to the Lord Mayor that day in which he said: "The Queen and I hope that every family in the land will share in this great Festival, so that all of us may join in showing that Britain lives on, now as ever taking her rightful place among the nations of the world."
By the time the Festival of Britain closes at the end of next September it will have probably fulfilled His Majesty's hope, by having touched in one way or another almost every family in the country.
The third milestone was when on March 20, 1950, the King and Queen graciously consented to become Patrons of the Festival. Six weeks later, on May 2, they spared the time to visit the Festival Offices and inspect the site of the South Bank Exhibition, where London's new skyline was beginning to take shape.
It was a final inspiration to everyone concerned, and not least to the workmen on the job. In the afternoon a party was held on the lawns and terraces of Lancaster House, to greet the representatives of our hundreds of voluntary helpers.
But in between these milestones, what frenzied planning, what ardours and endurances, what advances and disapointments!
First we had to decide on the scope and theme of the exhibitions. Then to find homes for them- and the architects and designers to build and fill them. To find, too, the experts in science, industry and the arts to advise us on the choice of content. To nominate the cities best suited to hold Arts Festivals and invite their co-operation.
And, finally, to devise means whereby this national event could be made truly nation-wide and its significance for the future properly emphasised, so that it could fulfil the requirements laid down by Princess Elizabeth that it should " stress our responsibilities to the future" and make the Festival "not simply and end in itself but the beginning of many good things."
But with all these resolves to implement there was all the detail to be planned, too - all the drains, the scaffolding, the catering, the tickets - the choosing and engaging of musicians and painters, the contacting and persuading of industrialists and manufacturers.
Here is the place to pay tribute to the permanent organisations through whose close collaboration the Festival has come into being- the Arts Council of Great Britain, the Council of Industrial Design, the British Film Institute and the National Book League. Their officers have borne an immense burden and have done an enthusiatic job of work.
Two temporary bodies the Lord President of the Council brought into being to complete the circle- a Council for Science and a Council for Architecture, Town Planning and Building Reasearch. These -as their titles imply- have carried the duties of watching the interests of two of the most important sides of the Festival.
So at length, slowly, imperfectly and with prodigious birthpangs, something new has been brought to life. And when the belfries of Britain ring out on the morning of May 3 after His Majesty the King has declared the Festival of Britain open from the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral, and when on that night the skies are lit by a chain of bonfires across the country, and the young people gather round them in the firelight to sing, something will have begun which, so far as I know, no country has attempted before.
When we sat down on that April morning three years ago to begin to plan this Festival, the international skies were not as dark as they are now. But the worsening of the situation only gives the Festival a greater significance. For in a world given over to violence it is important to show that a free nation still has a mind to the creative virtues, on which the health of any people must ultimately depend.
It is important to demonstrate to the unfree world that one of the privileges of democracies is to enjoy freedom of travel and intercourse and the exchange of knowledge and ideas. A people of our tradition and experience have something in addition to tanks and aircraft to bring to the aid of freedom: we have a proven way of life.
The British people had the right to hope that after a decade of austerity and prodigious exertion they could look forward, not indeed to any relaxation of effort, but to some expansion of their horizons, some improvement in their standard of living. Instead we are compelled by turn of fate to take up the challenge once more and impose on ourselves without respite a fresh period of austerity.
The Festival thus comes at a moment when it will provide an invigorating tonic, and help to send the nation to its next tasks refreshed and replenished. It should provide, also, a valuable demonstration to our friends and allies that we are resilient, resolute and confident- that we are a country not only with a great past but also with a great future.
At this moment all over Britain, industrialists, artisans, designers, architects, musicians, painters, actors - all the practioners of the land with their wealth of inherited skills- are combining together to stage the most impressive show of a nation's energy and prowess that has ever been put on.
If this should sound boastful, it is not intended in any such way. There is nothing for any of us to boast about to-day. But it is right and proper- and, I submit, a pledge of our purpose and will- that in a spirit of tempered thanksgiving our people should co-operate in this national act of reassessment.
The recovery and resourcefulness of British industry, the brains of our scientists, the talent of our musicians and painters, the steadiness and Christian faith of our people- these things the Festival will demonstrate and will thereby, we hope, increase the confidence of our friends and the assurance and resolve of our own men and women.
So, at a time when half the world is forced to live behind a curtain of secrecy and fear, Britain throws open her doors wide. She is inviting the people of Europe, America and the Commonwealth to come and see her as she is, to share in and enjoy this unique national event which, though serious in purpose, will not be in any way solemn, but undertaken with flags and trumpets and a unique variety of entertainment.
see: www.lib.udel.edu/ud/spec/findaids/barry.htm for more detailed information on Sir Gerald Barry (1898 - 1968)