Imre Kiralfy and the White City

In 1907 a 140 acre site of scrubland in West London was transformed into the White City, a fairyland of palaces and canals that housed the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition.

 

"The great attraction in London this year is, without doubt, the Exhibition at Shepherd’s Bush. It will take the Londoner from his desk, and his business, from his suburban home and garden, and land him, family and all, probably more than once or twice, by one railway system or another, in the midst of a new and gigantic pleasure ground, and there give him the opportunity of seeing all that is beautiful and ingenious in French, and what is equally beautiful and practical in English."
Guide to the Franco-British Exhibition

The exhibition opened its doors every day except Sunday, from ten in the morning until a quarter past eleven at night, from May to October 1908. In that time 8.4 million visitors passed through its turnstiles.

Elaborate white-plastered palaces displayed the exports and produce of French and British colonies and territories.



The Court of Honour, where the British and French Palaces of Industry faced one another across a lagoon. At the head of the lake, below the imposing Congress Hall, an ornamental cascade fell down glass steps that were illuminated from below at night.

 

The Indian Palace

Entrance to Ballymaclinton Village, the Irish theme park

 

In the Canadian Pallivion visitors flocked to see a giant grain hopper towering to the roof, built entirely of grain and stalks and original tableaux of historical and topical scenes carved in butter.

One of the exhibits on show in the Canadian Pavillion - a historical scene carved in butter showing the landing of Jacques Cartier at Montreal in 1535.

 

There were many entertainments in this Edwardian Theme Park. For sixpence you could ride on the Flip Flap - an Edwardian version of the London Eye. It had two steel cantilevered arms, 150 feet long, with a hanging car suspended at each end. The cars would be lifted up to pause at the mid point to give the passengers a bird’s eye view of the exhibition and the surrounding Metropolis. The arms would then cross over and deposit the people on the opposite side to that at which they started. The journey made some people queasy; others (facing the wrong way) objected that the view of the Metropolis was confined to the prison at Wormwood Scrubs.