Editing Festival of Britain (section)

==Conception and organisation==
[[File:1951 South Bank Exhibition.jpg|thumb|right|A view of the South Bank Exhibition from the north bank of the [[Thames]], showing the {{convert|300|ft|adj=on}} tall [[Skylon (tower)|Skylon]] and the [[Dome of Discovery]]]]
The first idea for an exhibition in 1951 came from the [[Royal Society of Arts]] in 1943, which considered that an international exhibition should be held to commemorate the centenary of the 1851 [[Great Exhibition]].<ref name=science>{{cite web |url=http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/specialcollections/events/2007paulingconference/video-s2-3-anderson.html |title="Circa 1951: Presenting Science to the British Public", Robert Anderson, Oregon State University |publisher=Osulibrary.oregonstate.edu |access-date=13 December 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080706032208/http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/specialcollections/events/2007paulingconference/video-s2-3-anderson.html |archive-date=6 July 2008 |df=dmy}}</ref> In 1945, the government appointed a committee under [[Lord Ramsden]] to consider how exhibitions and fairs could promote exports.<ref name=science/> When the committee reported a year later, it was decided not to continue with the idea of an international exhibition because of its cost at a time when reconstruction was a high priority.<ref name=science/> [[Herbert Morrison]] took charge for the Labour government and decided instead to hold a series of displays about the arts, architecture, science, technology and industrial design,<ref name=guide>Cox, Ian, ''The South Bank Exhibition: A guide to the story it tells'', H.M.S.O., 1951</ref> under the title "Festival of Britain 1951".<ref name=archives/> Morrison insisted there be no politics, explicit or implicit. As a result, Labour-sponsored programmes such as nationalisation, universal health care and working-class housing were excluded; instead, what was allowed was town planning, scientific progress, and all sorts of traditional and modern arts and crafts.<ref name="Leventhal p 447">Leventhal, "A Tonic to the Nation" p 447</ref>

Much of London lay in ruins, and models of redevelopment were needed. The Festival was an attempt to give Britons a feeling of recovery and progress and to promote better-quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities.<ref name=V&A>{{cite web |url=http://www.vads.ac.uk/learning/designingbritain/html/festival.html |title=V&A, ''Designing Britain'' |publisher=Vads.ac.uk |access-date=13 December 2011 |archive-date=8 November 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111108200536/http://vads.ac.uk/learning/designingbritain/html/festival.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> The Festival of Britain described itself as "one united act of national reassessment, and one corporate reaffirmation of faith in the nation's future."<ref name=guide/> [[Gerald Barry (British journalist)|Gerald Barry]], the Festival Director, described it as "a tonic to the nation".<ref name=V&A/>

A Festival Council to advise the government was set up under General [[Lord Ismay]].<ref name=guide/> Responsibility for organisation devolved upon the [[Lord President of the Council]], Herbert Morrison, the deputy leader of the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]], who had been London County Council leader. He appointed a Great Exhibition Centenary Committee, consisting of civil servants, who were to define the framework of the Festival and to liaise between government departments and the festival organisation. In March 1948, a Festival Headquarters was set up, which was to be the nucleus of the Festival of Britain Office, a government department with its own budget.<ref name=archives/> Festival projects in Northern Ireland were undertaken by the government of Northern Ireland.<ref>F.M. Leventhal, "'A Tonic to the Nation': The Festival of Britain, 1951." ''Albion'' 27#3 (1995): 445–453.</ref>

Associated with the Festival of Britain Office were the [[Arts Council of Great Britain]], the [[Council of Industrial Design]], the [[British Film Institute]] and the National Book League.<ref name=guide/> In addition, a Council for Architecture and a Council for Science and Technology were specially created to advise the Festival Organisation and a Committee of Christian Churches was set up to advise on religion.<ref name=guide/> Government grants were made to the Arts Council, the Council of Industrial Design, the British Film Institute and the [[National Museum of Wales]] for work undertaken as part of the Festival.<ref name=archives/>

Gerald Barry had operational charge. A long-time editor with left-leaning, middle-brow views, he was energetic and optimistic, with an eye for what would be popular, and a knack on how to motivate others. Unlike Morrison, Barry was not seen as a Labour ideologue. Barry selected the next rank, giving preference to young architects and designers who had collaborated on exhibitions for the wartime Ministry of Information. They thought along the same lines socially and aesthetically, as middle-class intellectuals with progressive sympathies. Thanks to Barry, a collegial sentiment prevailed that minimised stress and delay.<ref name="Leventhal p 447"/>

===Displays===
The arts were displayed in a series of country-wide musical and dramatic performances.<ref name=guide/> Achievements in architecture were presented in a new neighbourhood, the Lansbury Estate, planned, built and occupied in the Poplar district of London.

The Festival's centrepiece<ref name=guide/> was the South Bank Exhibition, in the [[Waterloo, London|Waterloo]] area of London, which demonstrated the contribution made by British advances in science, technology and industrial design, displayed, in their practical and applied form, against a background representing the living, working world of the day.<ref name=guide/>

There were other displays elsewhere, each intended to be complete in itself, yet each part of the one single conception.<ref name=guide/> Festival Pleasure Gardens were set up in Battersea, about three miles up river from the South Bank. Heavy engineering was the subject of an Exhibition of Industrial Power in Glasgow. Certain aspects of science, which did not fall within the terms of reference of the South Bank Exhibition, were displayed in South Kensington. Linen technology and science in agriculture were exhibited in "Farm and Factory" in Belfast. A smaller exhibition of the South Bank story was put on in the Festival ship ''[[HMS Campania (D48)|Campania]]'',<ref name="Britain 1951"/> which toured the coast of Britain throughout the summer of 1951, and on land there was a travelling exhibition of industrial design.<ref name=guide/>

[[File:Minehead 2018 - London Transport RF13 (LUC213).JPG|thumb|London Transport RF13 (LUC213)]]London Transport ordered its first batch of 25 post-war [[AEC Regal IV|RF]] single deck buses fitted with roof lights to provide a fleet of sight-seeing coaches for the festival.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bowker |first1=David |title=Our Buses |date=2021 |publisher=London Bus Museum |location=Brooklands |page=30}}</ref>

The [[University of Brighton Design Archives]] have digitised many of the [http://vads.ac.uk/results.php?&cmd=search&page=1&mode=boolean&words=dcafb&idSearch=boolean&ordered=title&ordered=image_up,key1 Design Council's files] relating to the planning of the festival.