After Playing With Some Of My Stamps,

I though I would take a close look at some of them,

this is the first page of the 1908 Franco-British exhibition, and what an exhibition it was, with nearly 9 million people attending the exhibition, Imre Kiralfy, was a famous exhibition organiser in his time and “permanent counsellor of the British government for foreign shows”, also member of the London Chamber of Commerce, as the Commissioner-General for the Franco-British Exhibition, he developed the exhibition grounds on farmland on 140 acres at Shepherd’s Bush where he built the Great White City and Stadium,

From the Official Catalogue: ‘The suggestion for a Franco-British Exhibition to celebrate the entente cordiale between the two nations was the idea of Mr. Imre Kiralfy, and was first suggested in April, 1904.’ Following the success of the India Exhibition of 1895, Kiralfy expanded his scope immensely, resulting in a public fair at a 140-acre site in West London, which was visited by about nine million people. The Central Line was specially extended for the exhibition, and a new station created on the Hammersmith line. £300,000 was pledged by guarantors, and negotiations opened with the committee arranging the Olympic Games of 1908, which were to take place on the same site. Twenty palaces and seven exhibition halls were constructed of ‘fire-proof materials.’ The Indian Pavilion was built ‘in the severe style of Mohammedan architecture by the Government of India’ (Official Guide, 46). The ‘Indian Arena’ offered ‘the spectacle of “Our Indian Empire.”’ A replica Ceylonese village was built. Refreshments were provided by, amongst others, the Indian and Ceylon Tea-houses of Lipton and Co.

although these stamps look the same, each one features one building, above The Palace of Machines,

and as it looked at the time, photograph Dalspace Library,

The Garden Club,

again as it was at the time,

The Decoration and Furnishings Palace,

to give an idea of the size of the exhibition here are a couple of views of it, Alchetron,

JDP ECON, the exhibition really was huge,

as comitatives the stamps were produced in long and short examples as above, there was I believe a trail of 8 colours, but I think only 5 were printed as issues, in collecting over the years I have only found examples of green, light blue, dark blue, red and brown, there may well be others but I have yet to find them,

over the years many exhibitions were staged,

like this one, the Festival of Empire 1911, held at the Crystal Palace,

also in 1911, the Scottish Exhibition, held in Glasgow,

and even more in 1911, the Coronation Exhibition at Great White City, 

another exhibition was held in 1924,

the British Empire Exhibition,

and the good news is that there is even a video of this one,

in colour no less! sorry to go banging on about stamps, but I enjoy collecting, looking at them and finding out about their history so much.