A chorus of derision has greeted proposals for a national day during which schoolchildren will swear their allegiance to Queen and country. But those who argue the concept is profoundly un-British have short memories.

The sort of patriotic ceremonies envisaged in Lord Goldsmith's report used to be a common ritual every May 24. For that was Empire Day.

It was the idea of Lord Meath, an Anglo-Irishman. He was keen to inculcate the sort of patriotic and imperial thinking in state schools that already existed in many public schools. With the Government's backing, he proposed a scheme in which schools throughout the land would spend the morning of May 24 teaching the nature and extent of the British Empire. A ceremony would follow in which all pupils saluted the Union Flag before taking the afternoon off.

Launched in 1904, it quickly caught on. Within four years The Times was describing it as “an established festival” and more than a thousand schools in the London area alone were participating.

Nor were the festivities a preserve of the metropolis. In his memoir of growing-up in North Shields, James Ward recalled how his school assembled to sing verses by Kipling while the Union Flag was raised. Tears welled in his eyes as he sang the final lines: “Lord of our birth, our faith, our pride,/ For whose dear sake our fathers died,/ Oh Motherland we pledge to thee,/ Head, heart and hand in the years to be.”

Inevitably, the juvenile subversive spirit roused itself, an alternative version of Rule Britannia being mumbled by children in Lancashire: “Ruby Tanya, two tanners make a bob, four half crowns make ten bob.” Yet most seemed to enjoy the festivities. It gave even the sorriest schools an excuse to put on a show.

The celebrations spilt beyond the schoolyard. Every May 24, villages, towns and cities began flying their flags and staging carnivals. Although supposedly imperial in scope, it became an opportunity to express local or civic pride. By 1909, Everton's football ground was packed with Liverpudlians singing lustily in praise of the King-Emperor.

Between the wars, prime ministers from both parties broadcast Empire Day messages on the BBC. But by then, the occasion was starting to attract critics of its jingoistic sentiment. Some red flags pointedly appeared above buildings where the Union Flag was supposed to flutter. In 1946 internationalists launched a campaign to have Empire Day replaced by United Nations Day.

They were wasting their breath. Empire Day had become moribund even before 1958, when it was rebranded Commonwealth Day. Two world wars had made Remembrance Sunday a more fitting commemoration of past endeavours. There was also the small matter of there being no empire left to salute.

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