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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Empire Day
Thousands of children honour Queen Victoria's birthday with an Empire Day parade in Hyde Park
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Overview
In honour of Queen Victoria's birthday and Empire Day in 1923, several thousand children paraded in Hyde Park before Prince Arthur. This newsreel item records the monarch's third son, the Duke of Connaught, inspecting the various organisations that took part, including cadet corps and boys' and girls' brigades, and the march past of the flags of the Empire which was reported by the Times as 'the great moment of the afternoon'.
From 1902 Empire Day celebrations took part on May 24th, the Queen's birthday. In 1923, the parade seen in this film was postponed until June to accommodate overseas visitors from the Empire's Education Department. Thirty associations took part and visible at the parade's head are tiny boys in sailor suits leading the Navy League of Sea Cadet Corps. Also seen are girls from the Foundling Hospital who, it was reported, passed the saluting base in their mob caps, aprons and claret-coloured dresses, giving a shy “eyes right” in contrast to the Boy Scouts who ran past to the tune of the “Keel Row”.
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