Here is a photograph I was asked to digitally restore. The original photograph is about a metre and a half wide and the photograph is absolutely fascinating as it contains so much detail. It’s a photograph of Robertson and Ginnetts Gigantic Circus at the British Empire Exhibition in Wembley Stadium in 1925 featuring my customer’s great grandfather who is the ringmaster!
Here is the whole photograph before restoration, after restoration and then a single detail followed by a detail of that detail! There are literally hundreds of recognisable faces.
Here are some other close-up sections going along the front row from left to right
My customer’s Great Grandfather is the ringmaster on the left with the top hat
The following is an extract from Anne Clendinning, “On The British Empire Exhibition, 1924-25″
The British Empire Exhibition, held in 1924 and 1925, assembled the member nations of the empire to develop imperial trade connections and to cultivate closer political ties between Britain and her territories.
The British Empire Exhibition opened for a second season in May 1925, but only after considerable debate. Despite the enthusiastic press reports and the self-congratulatory comments of the exhibition organizers, the 1924 exhibition was a financial disaster. Executive director Sir William Travers Clark blamed the cold, rainy summer. Although 17 million people had passed through the turnstiles, that figure was much lower than the anticipated 30 million visitors that had been the basis for 1924’s projected returns. If only to try and recoup its investment, the British government agreed to re-open Wembley in 1925.
More recently, the British Empire Exhibition appears in the 2010 film about the Duke of York’s stammer wherein Prince Bertie delivers a painful public address at the exhibition’s closing ceremony in October 1925.
There is another interesting article of the British Empire Exhibition here
