Sally’s Blog: The Festival of Britain 1951
The Festival of Britain took place just six years after World War Two ended, and was held so that people could celebrate Britain and give the population a boost by everyone being able to see how British manufacturing had recovered and what great things were being designed and made. It was also a great day out!
William Whiteleys were asked to show-case our scissors, which of course we did – sadly there are no photos of the exhibited items, but we won a medal and a certificate to show that we were chosen to exhibit. The Festival of Britain took place in London exactly one hundred years after the Great Exhibition of 1851 where we won a medal and that Exhibition was visited by 8.5 million people!
A lot of the exhibits of furniture were very modernistic and typical of the 1950s. There was also a futuristic tower called Skylon, hung on cables, a cinema called Telekinema, and the Royal Festival Hall which is still used.
Sadly the ink on the certificate has faded, but the signatures of The Director General of the Festival and the Director of the Council of Industrial design are still very clear.
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