The Times, in its account of Empire Day 1909, reported that ‘there was a gathering of about 20,000 people at an Empire celebration held at Preston on Saturday afternoon, and in which over 4,000 school children took part’ (The Times, 24 May 1909, 15). The celebration included a speech by Lord Meath, otherwise known as Reginald Brabazon, who had founded the Empire Day movement in 1903, which preceded the first Empire Day in May 1904 (Mackenzie, 1986, 168).

In 1909 The Times published a substantial Empire Day supplement – as it would every year, on all but three occasions, until 1927 – celebrating what is ‘now an established festival throughout the British world’ (The Times, 24 May 1909, 13). In particular Lord Meath sought to present Empire Day as a festival within schools. In 1908, 1036 schools in London were said to celebrate this ‘great patriotic day’ and in a letter to The Times in 1909, Lord Meath outlined the necessary arrangements for schools wishing to take part in the 1909 celebrations (English, 2006, 249). ‘There are still large numbers of schools throughout the United Kingdom’ he wrote, ‘which possess no flagstaff and no Union Jack, the scholars of which will therefore be unable to salute the latter on the national festival. Many schools have no portrait of His Majesty the King and no large Empire wall-maps … and are without copies of the “Empire Catechism” and other songs (The Times, 27 April, 1909, 8). Meath would subsequently claim that in 1909 ‘this national festival was observed, throughout the Empire, in some 55,000 schools, with an attendance of about 7,500,000 scholars, whilst over 7000 sermons, on the higher aims of the movement, were delivered on “Empire Sunday”’ (The Times, 3 May 1910, 4). Historian Jim English, in noting the ‘potency’ of Empire day to ‘inspire children and adults alike’, argued that ‘celebrations spilled out into adult society so that Empire Day in the community was often far more conspicuous than the festival within the schools’ (English, 2006, 248).

Yet for all the popular support Empire Day – a half-holiday for school children – evidently received, it was not officially recognised by the government. In 1909, the Liberal Government rejected a bill to make Empire Day a public holiday, prompting a Times editorial to note that ‘although His Majesty’s present advisers refuse to honour it and seem to fear its influence, it will be celebrated today with widespread, if unofficial enthusiasm, throughout the country’ (The Times, 24 May 1909, 13). Jim English explained this decision in part by suggesting that ‘certainly the government would have been aware of the propaganda value of Empire Day to the Conservative Party’ (English, 2006, 259). In 1909 the education committee in Derby also declined to sanction Empire Day, denouncing it as the ‘thin end of militarism’, while Lord Meath, in his speech at Preston, strongly criticised a decision by the War Office to forbid the Harrow School Cadet Corps from taking part in the London Empire Day celebrations (The Times, 24 May 1909, 15). Empire Day was officially recognised by the government in 1916.

Filmed footage of the Empire Day played throughout the Empire. Bioscope noted, for example, that ‘the Empire Day pictures at the Sebright are a great and attractive draw’ (Bioscope, 3 June 1909, 21). The film of Preston’s Empire Day played at the local Palace and Picturedrome in Preston a few weeks after the event. The local listings in Bioscope on 10 June noted that ‘Mr Will Onda’s good programme includes Preston’s Empire Day, Oh! Rats, Romance of a War Nurse, Italian Cavalry, On the Western Frontier, etc’ (Bioscope, 10 June 1909, 46). Will Onda was the stage name of Hugh Rains, a music hall entertainer and founder of Preston Film Service. Onda, a film pioneer in Preston, made local interest films, which he distributed throughout the North of England. This practice of local filmmaking was an important aspect of the early film industry – the best-known examples today are those of Mitchell and Kenyon – though it was already slightly past its peak by 1909. It is likely that Preston’s Empire Day was one of Onda’s own productions.