A safe space for Commonwealth hospitality
In the 1960s and 1970s the Society was used as a destination for many other visiting Commonwealth delegations who would be entertained over lunch or afternoon tea (see the images below). We can see these images as superficial and knowing displays of Commonwealth hospitality. However, it is also important to put the multiracial aspect of the Society into the context of post-war London. In the immediate post-war period, the RCS provided one of only a handful of formal social spaces of this type in central London in which it was possible to bring non-white guests without fear of discrimination. David Brokensha, a South African Professor and RCS member from the late 1940s onwards, specifically utilised the Society for this reason. When visiting London in the 1950s and early 60s, he frequently stayed there, meeting and entertaining friends. These friends ‘included Africans, and it was a comfort to know that not only could we have a good meal at a reasonable price, in elegant surroundings, but also I knew that no eyebrows would be raised when I walked in with a black person. I do not think that I was unduly sensitive, because in those years there were certainly many establishments where the regular clientele preferred not to see black faces.’ The RCS offered a safe space for Commonwealth hospitality at a time when race and racial intolerance were still central in shaping the encounters of many visitors to Britain. One employee remembers that there were ‘people of all colours and shades of colour in the building, which at that time was reasonably unusual.’
Otumfo Opoku Ware II Asantehene of Ashanti outside the Society’s headquarters after a visit in 1972 (Crown copyright: COI ref. R8751 EL72)
RCS IV (a) 285
The visit of the Queen of Lesotho for lunch at the Royal Commonwealth Society. She is pictured here with Elizabeth Owen, Deputy Chair of the RCS, in November 1973 (Crown copyright: COI ref. R93340 GL73)
RCS IV (a) 293
The Entrance Hall of the Royal Commonwealth Society, taken for publicity purposes in 1959
RCS II (e) 6
The language which accompanies ideas of hospitality – words such as guest, invitation, and generosity – can work to obscure the reasons for the hospitable interactions and the unequal power relations they often entailed (Rosello, 2001). Thinking critically about the hospitality offered to people from the Commonwealth at the RCS, and in Britain more broadly, in this era of decolonisation can help to uncover the ways in which these terms can include a variety of negative and positive experiences and relationships with and between places and people.