| London The Franco-British Exhibition 1908 |
| The Franco-British Exhibition of 1908 was held to celebrate the "entente cordiale" which had been signed by Britain and France in 1904. The exhibition was housed in an area west of London now called White City. Nearby, the White City Stadium was constructed for the Olympic Games held in the same year. Originally scheduled for Rome, the venue had to be changed to London because of the devastation of Naples by an eruption of Vesuvius - the funds for the Olympics were instead used to rebuild Naples.(This stadium was later used for athletics and greyhound racing, and was demolished in 1985). A new tube station was built at Wood Lane - this opened to coincide with the opening of the Exhibition on May 14 1908. The opening ceremony was performed by the Prince of Wales - later King George V - in pouring rain. The exhibition attracted 8 million visitors and was the largest exhibition of its kind in Britain. It was the first international exhibition co-organised and sponsored by two countries. It covered an area of some 140 acres, including an artificial lake, surrounded by an immense network of white buildings in elaborate (often Oriental) styles. |
| At least we will not have to bother about dating the postcards on this page - all will of course have been produced in 1908. |
| Postcards of the Past |
| The writer of this postcard describes the ride - "I went on the spiral railway, it is a terrible thing ! and is supposed to be very dangerous. I sat in front with the driver and he asked me if I would like to go fast, I said "Yes", and we did !!" |
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| The main entrance to Ballymaclinton. |
| A flower show in the Palace of Music. |
| There is a lot of information about this exhibition on the internet - search for it here. |
| We want you - we want your articles, comments, old postcards - in fact anything interesting about London or any of the places featured in this website. Send them to us at gregoryolney@aol.com and we'll publish them here - with an appropriate acknowledgement of course. So now's your chance to get into print ! |
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| Thanks to the anonymous person who emailed us this image ! |
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| There are more old postcards of the exhibition - see the link below. |
| A visitor to this website has told us that she lived in White City for a few years after World War II and remembers the ruins of the Exhibition Site, which they called the "Chinese Jungle". Follow this link for a history of the White City. |
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| White City Stadium - we used to go greyhound racing here in the late 1950s ! |
| This is not a postcard but the front cover of some sheet music composed for the Exhibition. The composer's grandson, Peter Gillies, kindly emailed us this image. |
