A very strange story of Edward VIII and a ton of Butter.

Edward VIII, as prince of Wales, in a butter sculpture at the 1925 British Empire Exhibition. Library and Archives.

Geez! Apparently, the Prince was honored by this sculpture, that was a promotion of both the dairy and refridgeration industries in Canada.

You know, I might stick this in my story,Milk and Water. The story is about Montreal in 1927 and centers around a visit by the Royal Prince for the country’s Diamond Jubilee.

Apparently, this was the only representation of  anything to do with Native Canadians at the Canadian Pavilion.

At the beginning of the movie the King’s Speech, Bertie, the Duke of York, is giving a speech at the closing.  I have the Official Guide of the 1925 British Empire Exhibition at Wembley. It was a two year event.

I bought it off eBay while writing another play, Looking for Mrs. Peel, which takes place in 1967 and goes backwards. 1967 was the year of Expo67, my favourite year, so I have a thing for Exhibitions.

Now, it was while researching the 1900 French Exhibition that I discovered, to my amazement, that the Canadian Pavilion contained an exhibit of Pelee Island wines from Ontario.

I was surprised, since I had only heard of Pelee wines lately. (I often go to Hawkesbury to buy them at the local LCBO as the SAQ doesn’t carry them.) Could it be? Was Canada into winemaking in 1900? And would they dare to presume to sell it to the French? Well, yes, so it seems.

Today, I wondered, out of the blue, if Canada exhibited Ontario wine at the 1924 and 1925 exhibitions, considering that the US was under Prohibition and Ontario had strict regulations concerning wine and hard liquor.

So I consulted the Official Guide and it appears, NO. Only Cypress and Australia were showing off their wines. “Australia is specializing in wine and proclaims of the day when she will be able to compete with France for the trade of the world. True enough.. France and Italy and Spain and Chile  and California and Canada and, and, and, and.

Canada had tobacco products on exhibit and fish and forestry products too. And dairy of course. In the Official Guide, in the Canada Section it says “You must not miss a two tonne silver nugget and a butter model of the Prince of Wales and the story of ‘a shanty man’s life.’

The Official Guide has full page portraits of the King and the Queen and the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of York and Colin Firth. Ah…And some Princess they left out of the King’s Speech. Princess Mary, a patroness of the Women’s Section. I wonder if she handed out pamphlets at the kiosk of the Women’s Total Abstinence Society.  It was situation in Clean Way, Quality Street. The Duchess of York was also a patroness of this Women’s Section, but from what I’ve read about the future Queen Mom she probably has a seat reserved in the Australian Pavilion, beside the wine exhibit. Had I been alive, I would have met her there!

The Pelee Wine Exhibit, 1900 Paris Exhibition. Canadian Pavilion. Oh La! La!

I found an ad for 1913 for Pelee wines, saying that comparatively few people know of this wine, that it is “Canadian Port” containing a low percentage of alcohol and of a red, rich colour. (I found a bit fro 1912 saying that it was a banner year for grapes.)

$1.50 a gallon!

Hmm. I wonder how much alcohol, likely 5 percent or less. Of course today, the wine is 12 and 13 percent, the usual.

Another article I found from 1883 said that vinyards at Pointe Pelee were established in 1866 by a Brantford guy, a Mr. Hamilton. He built a three storey stone winehouse.

They produced dry and sweet catawba, isabella, claret, port and sherries. Hmm. And communion wines and invalid wines. Wine was often prescribed for ailments at the turn of the last century. I have some family letters where people speak of this. Lucky for them, as most of the correspondents were Presbyterian, adherents to temperance. Being ‘an invalid’ was an excuse to drink.

Today, we need no excuses! Especially since Ontario wines have come into their own.

This same article says that Ontario wine is being introduced in the West Indies and Great Britain. But in 1900 they brought it to Paris, and along with Edison’s moving sidewalk, it didn’t really catch on.

Photoplays, picture shows, silent dramas and movies.

Mary Pickford. From Commons WIkipedia.

This is also from Maclean’s Review of Reviews 1911. No attribution.

Well, you learn something new everyday. I knew there was a famous magazine PHOTOPLAY, but I never realized that the term “photoplay” meant movie. As I’ve written before, they called the movies motion pictures or 5 and 10 cent picture shows in 1910, but I have a letter written by Edith in 1917 that says she is going to the movies and she has the movies in quotations “movies” which means it is a new term, at least to her.

I also have posted on my http://www.tighsolas.ca/ website, a bit from the 1910 New York Dramatic Mirror that claims that the motion picture is cutting into the theatre business, especially when it comes to the cheap seats, and so is another form of 1910 entertainment, automobile rides!!

“The moving picture show has come to stay. “The progress of the ‘silent drama’ has been on an unparalleled scale. “In fact,” writes Robert Grau in the Moving Picture Show and the Living Drama’ in the American Review of Reviews “some of the developments in this field in the last few months have utterly amazed the prominent theatrical managers and producers. As recently as two years ago, these gentlemen were inclined to regard the motion picture as a temporary fad; but when such offerings came as the Kinemacolor pictures of the English Coronation festivities, and it was observed that the public willingly paid regular theatre prices to see the wondrous spectacle, they marvelled. ( Editor: I wrote about this in a previous blog…Long Hot SUMMER 1911, I think)

One of the foremost of these, William Brady, thus expressed himself: “If the manufacturer of a photo-play can afford to spend 100,000 dollars for a single offering on screen, he has us beat many a mile, for that is just twice as much as it cost to produce Ben Hur, a play that has run 10 years.” …In Hartford, New Haven and Bridgeport, three cities of the first grade, theatrically-speaking, the one theatre in each still remaining to the theatrical syndicate is no longer available to travelling companies. All three, on the same date, January 29, 1812, reverted to William Fox, the moving picture magnate.

The amazing thing about the motion picture industry, is that even the most expensive productions are seen for only one day in the 10 thousand or more picture theatres. The only exception to the rule being when the pictures are exhibited in Vaudeville Theatres, where they are shown for at least a week or longer. ”