Sunday 14 April 2013

King Opens the Empire Exhibition

Daily Sketch dated Thursday April 24th 1924
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The British Empire Exhibition was opened by King George V on St George’s Day 1924. It stayed open until October then closed for the winter. It was re-opened in April 1925 and finally closed in October 1925, having played host to 27 million visitors. Most of the buildings used for the Exhibition were demolished but the Empire Pool became the Wembley Arena and the Empire Stadium became the iconic Wembley Stadium until it too was knocked down in 2002.
Trivia time –
The opening ceremony broadcast was the first time a ruling British monarch has been heard on the radio.
Jaffa oranges appeared for the first time in Britain at the Palestine pavilion.

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Mabel Jones, the wife of hotel owner Alfred Jones, had met Jean-Pierre Vaquier whilst on holiday in France. Vaquier later turned up at the hotel in Byfleet and stayed for six weeks apparently on business. On March 29th Alfred Jones had his usual morning drink but died in agony shortly after. The drink was found to have been poisoned. Vaquier was identified as having bought strychnine from a local chemist and was arrested. He was put on trial for murder, convicted and hung on August 12th 1924. 

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Broadcasting by the BBC (British Broadcasting Company Ltd) had only begun 18 months earlier but already stars like John Henry (real name Norman Clapham) were getting audiences of a million. His on air ‘wife’ Blossom died in 1934 and although they were not married she was buried using his name. Shortly afterwards Norman committed suicide. You can hear him on Youtube 

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The article covers Henry Kendall Thaw’s life up to 1924 including the murder of Stanford White. It’s well worth having a look at the material online about the murder so I won’t pre-empt it here. After 1924 he seemed to have lived a quite life in Virginia and Florida and died of a heart attack in 1947.

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HMS Birkenhead was a troopship back in 1852 transporting soldiers to British ruled South Africa when she hit submerged rocks off the South African coast and sank. William Newport was one of about 200 of the approximately 650 people on board who were saved.

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The clown and musician Grock was born Charles Adrien Wettach in Switzerland in 1880. This break up with his long time partner Max Van Embden was the first of several but they were working together again by 1927. Grock worked until 1954 and died in 1959.

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I wonder what would happen today to the parent(s) who left a loaded shotgun propped up against a kitchen wall where a child could pick it up? Not that anything would have brought Evelyn Hinton back.

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The Dominion of Newfoundland, which included Labrador, existed from 1907 until it became part of Canada in 1949. Sir Richard Squires was the Prime Minister from 1919 until he was forced to resign in 1923 after being accused of using bribes to win the election. He was arrested but this didn’t appear to hurt his career as he was Prime Minister again from 1928 until 1932.

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No apology offered for showing my favourite cartoon strip again – Pop by John Millar Watt. See also here and here.






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