Empire Marketing Board

The Empire Marketing Board was formed in May 1926 by the Colonial Secretary Leo Amery to promote intra-Empire trade and to persuade consumers to 'Buy Empire'. It was established as a substitute for tariff reform and protectionist legislation and this is why it was eventually abolished in 1933, as a system of imperial preference replaced free trade.

Amery was its first Chairman, Sir Stephen George Tallents its Secretary,Edward Mayow Hastings Lloyd its Assistant Secretary, and Walter Elliot was Chairman of its Research Committee.

The EMB had three principal aims:

In 1925 the Imperial Economic Committee; a board which hosted representatives from the Dominions and Britain; conceived the Empire Marketing Board to generate public support for purchasing Empire goods. The Committee wrote “that the grant of £1 million per annum should be spent by an ‘executive commission’ which would undertake a ‘national movement’ to increase Empire buying by the British public”. The Empire Marketing Board would implement its budget on a variety of projects including scientific research and advertisement. The clear purpose of the Empire Marketing Board was to boost Empire trade through the promotion of Dominion and British goods while also improving their production to become more advantageous to foreign competition. The Empire Marketing Board’s formal objectives were declared shortly after its creation in saying that scientific research and marketing tactics were primary objectives for the Board to assist private industries across the Empire. This message is found in the first annual report of the Empire Marketing Board with an address by Secretary Stephen Tallents who wrote

Fundamentally the stimulation of Empire marketing must depend on the private enterprise of producers and traders… The best service that can be done to the Empire producer is to place freely at his disposal the resources of science and economic investigation – to see that he is made aware of sowing and planting, of tending and harvesting; to show him how his produce should be graded and packed to ensure that it is transported safely and without deterioration: to suggest lastly how its presentation, in the shop window or on the counter, may be fitted to win the housewife’s critical eye.

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