London’s Screen Archives enables Londoners see their past come alive on film. Managed by Film London, we are a unique network of historic film collections that cares for, collects and screens heritage film across the city. Together we preserve London’s rich film heritage from feature films to home movies, public information films, newsreels, and records of the capital’s many different industries.
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King and Queen as Sight-seers
High jinx at Wembley, where a small boy refuses to ride on the miniature railway with George V during a royal trip to the Empire Exhibition.
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Overview
George V and Queen Mary attend the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley, accompanied by the Topical Budget cameras. The king opened the exhibition in 1924, and here attended as a sight-seer. The royals are shown squeezed into a miniature railway – although one small boy, identified by the caption as “Jim”, refuses to share a carriage with the king, much to everyone’s amusement. Jim is replaced by young Joan Mollison, who insists the king is “a very nice man”.
The Empire Exhibition attracted more than 20 million visitors to the themed pavilions and rides built on 216 acres around the new Empire Stadium, of which this film provides a snapshot. Around 70 colonial governments participated in an exhibition conceived in 1914 to celebrate the British Empire. Among the exhibits were a butter statue of cricketer Jack Hobbs, a theatre with a water stage to re-enact moments of naval history and a mile-long rollercoaster. The buildings were largely demolished when the exhibition ended in 1925.
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