The
Festival of Britain was a national
exhibition held throughout the
United Kingdom in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give the British a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of
war and to promote the British contribution to science, technology, industrial design, architecture and the arts. The Festival's centrepiece was in London on the
South Bank of the
Thames. There were events in
Poplar (Architecture),
Battersea (The Festival Pleasure Gardens),
South Kensington (Science) and
Glasgow (Industrial Power). Festival celebrations took place in
Cardiff,
Stratford-upon-Avon,
Bath,
Perth,
Bournemouth,
York,
Aldeburgh,
Inverness,
Cheltenham,
Oxford,
Norwich,
Canterbury and elsewhere and there were touring exhibitions by land and sea. The Festival became associated with the post-war
Labour government of Clement Attlee and the South Bank Exhibition site (with the exception of the
Royal Festival Hall) was rapidly demolished by the incoming
Conservative administration of Sir Winston Churchill.