Christmas Fare from the Empire

Stir up Sunday has been and gone but it is not too late for Christmas baking. Today we want to highlight a publication produced by the Empire Marketing Board, Christmas Fare from the Empire.

The Empire Marketing Board (EMB)was formed in May 1926 by the Colonial Secretary Leo Amery to promote inter-Empire trade and to persuade consumers to 'Buy Empire'. Amery was the first Chairman of the EMB, Sir Stephen George Tallents was its Secretary, and Edward Mayow Hastings Lloyd was Assistant Secretary. The Institute of Commonwealth Studies holds archive collection from both Sir Stephen Tallents and Edward Mayow Hastings Lloyd  from or about their time with the Empire Marketing Board.

The EMB supported scientific research, promoted economic analysis about trade and produced publicity for Empire trade. While scientific research took up a large proportion of the EMB's work and budget researchers have more often been interested in the publicity and promotion of trade. The EMB organised poster campaigns, exhibitions, 'Empire Shopping Weeks', Empire shops, lectures, radio talks, schools tours, and advertisements in the national and local press and of shop window displays. Publicity work included that of the EMB film unit led by John Grierson, often considered the father of modern documentary film.
Christmas Fare from the Empire is a good example of the work of the Empire Marketing Board, providing consumers with recipes clearly stating ingredients and prefered origins.

The recipe for mince pies includes ingredients from the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the Irish Free State, South Africa, the British West Indies or British Guiana, India, Zanzibar, Canada, Palestine, Cyprus and Jamaica. This recipe for standard Christmas fare thus shows not only the work of the Empire Marketing Board, but more generally reflects on the interplay between trade, empire and diet.

Commonwealth Studies archives material in Kipling Exhibition

Two items from our archive collections have been included within a small exhibition mounted on the 1st floor of Senate House, in association with the "Rudyard Kipling: An International Writer" Conference taking place from 21 - 22 October 2011.

Kipling, hailed as 'an interpreter of Empire' (Times, 18 Jan 1936), was regarded as a national institution when he died in 1936, and his funeral in Westminster Abbey was attended by the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin. His current reputation is many-sided: sometimes condemned as a racist who embodied the imperial mind-set or dismissed as a writer 'whom nobody read', he is increasingly both valued and criticised for his complex response to the 'otherness' and diversity of races and classes in his writing.


This conference, sponsored by the Kipling Society, focuses on the figure of Kipling as an international writer. It seeks not only to re-assess Kipling's involvement in imperial ideology, but also to examine his interests in wider international affairs and his connections with foreign locations both within and outside the British Empire. The conference thereby aims to re-examine his work and achievement by exploring his diverse roles as an internationalist, and by considering his relevance to our post-modern globalising world

Senate House Library Special Collections staff have mounted this exhibition to highlight material relevant to the conference held in our collections. These include two items from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies Library collection - a letter from Kipling to Richard Jebb, thanking Jebb for a copy of an article from the 'Empire Review' and stating that he fears that he could not undertake to hold himself responsible for any deduction that may be made from anything that he may have written on the future of the Empire, and typescript notes by Sir Stephen Tallents, of a conversation with Kipling, held soon after Tallents took on his role within the Empire Marketing Board, to discuss ideas for the promotion of Empire good and EMpire trade.





Event Type: Conference / Symposium



Speakers





Keynote Speakers: Amit Chaudhuri and Charles Allen





Description





This conference, sponsored by the Kipling Society, focuses on the figure of Kipling as an international writer. It seeks not only to re-assess Kipling's involvement in imperial ideology, but also to examine his interests in wider international affairs and his connections with foreign locations both within and outside the British Empire. The conference thereby aims to re-examine his work and achievement by exploring his diverse roles as an internationalist, and by considering his relevance to our post-modern globalising world.

Tallents papers now listed on ULRLS Archives catalogue

We're very pleased to announce that the papers of Sir Stephen Tallents, relating mainly to his role as Secretary of the Empire Marketing Board (EMB), are now available on the ULRLS Archives Catalogue.

The material in this collection covers the Board's origins, some of its activities, including the "Buy British" campaign, the EMB Film Unit and liaison with the Commonwealth Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in Melbourne, Australia, and its administration and break-up. Files include reports, correspondence, notes, memoranda, EMB publications and press cuttings. There are also papers relating to Tallents' book about the EMB, "Empire Experiment", including draft chapters, notes and correspondence. Other material consists of reviews of Tallents' "The Projection of England" (1932) and to his period as Public Relations Officer at the General Post Office (1934 - 1936). There is also material relating to documentary film producer John Grierson, including correspondence, press cuttings, articles and publications and correspondence with Leopold Amery relating to his autobiography "My Political Life" (London 1953) and his links with the EMB.