The Great Exhibition

EXPO London 1851

The Great Exhibition 1851
Overview
BIE-class Universal exposition
Category Historical
Name Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations
Building The Crystal Palace
Area 10,4 Ha
Invention(s) Telegraph, Vulcanised Rubber
Visitors 6,039,722
Participant(s)
Countries 25
Location
Country United Kingdom
City London
Venue Hyde Park
Coordinates 51°30′11″N 0°10′12″W / 51.50306°N 0.17000°W / 51.50306; -0.17000
Timeline
Bidding 1849
Awarded 1849
Opening 1 May 1851 (1851-05-01)
Closure 11 October 1851 (1851-10-11)
Universal expositions
Next Exposition Universelle in Paris
The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, in 1851.
Queen Victoria opens the Great Exhibition in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, in 1851.
The enormous Crystal Palace went from plans to grand opening in just nine months.
Exhibition interior
The front door of the Great Exhibition
Paxton's Crystal Palace enclosed full-grown trees in Hyde Park.

The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations or The Great Exhibition, sometimes referred to as the Crystal Palace Exhibition in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held, was an international exhibition that took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 11 October 1851. It was the first in a series of World's Fairs, exhibitions of culture and industry that became popular in the 19th century, and it was a much anticipated event. The Great Exhibition was organized by Henry Cole and Prince Albert, husband of the reigning monarch, Queen Victoria. It was attended by numerous notable figures of the time, including Charles Darwin, Samuel Colt, members of the Orléanist Royal Family and the writers Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, George Eliot and Alfred Tennyson. Music for the opening was under the direction of Sir George Thomas Smart and the continuous music from the exhibited organs for the Queen's procession was "under the superintendence of William Sterndale Bennett".

Background

The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations was organized by Prince Albert, Henry Cole, Francis Henry, George Wallis, Charles Dilke and other members of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce as a celebration of modern industrial technology and design. It was arguably a response to the highly successful French Industrial Exposition of 1844: indeed, its prime motive was for Britain to make "clear to the world its role as industrial leader".[1] Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort, was an enthusiastic promoter of the self-financing exhibition; the government was persuaded to form the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 to establish the viability of hosting such an exhibition. Queen Victoria and her family visited three times. Although the Great Exhibition was a platform on which countries from around the world could display their achievements, Britain sought to prove its own superiority. The British exhibits at the Great Exhibition "held the lead in almost every field where strength, durability, utility and quality were concerned, whether in iron and steel, machinery or textiles."[2] Britain also sought to provide the world with the hope of a better future. Europe had just struggled through "two difficult decades of political and social upheaval," and now Britain hoped to show that technology, particularly its own, was the key to a better future.[1]

Sophie Forgan says of the Exhibition that "Large, piled-up ‘trophy’ exhibits in the central avenue revealed the organisers’ priorities; they generally put art or colonial raw materials in the most prestigious place. Technology and moving machinery were popular, especially working exhibits." She also notes that visitors "could watch the entire process of cotton production from spinning to finished cloth. Scientific instruments were found in class X, and included electric telegraphs, microscopes, air pumps and barometers, as well as musical, horological and surgical instruments."[3]

A special building, nicknamed The Crystal Palace, or "The Great Shalimar",[4] was built to house the show. It was designed by Joseph Paxton with support from structural engineer Charles Fox, the committee overseeing its construction including Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and went from its organisation to the grand opening in just nine months. The building was architecturally adventurous, drawing on Paxton's experience designing greenhouses for the sixth Duke of Devonshire. It took the form of a massive glass house, 1851 feet (about 564 metres) long by 454 feet (about 138 metres) wide and was constructed from cast iron-frame components and glass made almost exclusively in Birmingham and Smethwick. From the interior, the building's large size was emphasized with trees and statues; this served, not only to add beauty to the spectacle, but also to demonstrate man's triumph over nature.[1] The Crystal Palace was an enormous success, considered an architectural marvel, but also an engineering triumph that showed the importance of the Exhibition itself.[2] The building was later moved and re-erected in an enlarged form at Sydenham in south London, an area that was renamed Crystal Palace. It was destroyed by fire on 30 November 1936.[4]

Six million people—equivalent to a third of the entire population of Britain at the time—visited the Great Exhibition. The average daily attendance was 42,831 with a peak attendance of 109,915 on 7 October.[5] The event made a surplus of £186,000 (£18,370,000 in 2015),[6], which was used to found the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum. They were all built in the area to the south of the exhibition, nicknamed Albertopolis, alongside the Imperial Institute. The remaining surplus was used to set up an educational trust to provide grants and scholarships for industrial research; it continues to do so today.[7]

The Exhibition caused controversy as its opening approached. Some conservatives feared that the mass of visitors might become a revolutionary mob,[8] whilst radicals such as Karl Marx saw the exhibition as an emblem of a capitalist fetishism of commodities. King Ernest Augustus I of Hanover, shortly before his death, wrote to Lord Strangford about it:

The folly and absurdity of the Queen in allowing this trumpery must strike every sensible and well-thinking mind, and I am astonished the ministers themselves do not insist on her at least going to Osborne during the Exhibition, as no human being can possibly answer for what may occur on the occasion. The idea ... must shock every honest and well-meaning Englishman. But it seems everything is conspiring to lower us in the eyes of Europe.[9]

In modern times, the Great Exhibition is a symbol of the Victorian Age, and its thick catalogue, illustrated with steel engravings, is a primary source for High Victorian design.[10] A memorial to the exhibition, crowned with a statue of Prince Albert, is located behind the Royal Albert Hall.[11] It is inscribed with statistics from the exhibition, including the number of visitors and exhibitors (British and foreign), and the profit made.

Exhibits

The official descriptive and illustrated catalogue of the event lists exhibitors not only from throughout Britain but also from its 'Colonies and Dependencies' and 44 'Foreign States' in Europe and the Americas. Numbering 13,000 in total, the exhibits included a Jacquard loom, an envelope machine, kitchen appliances, steel-making displays and a reaping machine that was sent from the United States.[12]

Admission fees

Admission prices to the Crystal Palace varied according to the date of visit, with ticket prices decreasing as the parliamentary season drew to an end and London traditionally emptied of wealthy individuals. Prices varied from three guineas (£311.05 in 2015)[6] (two guineas for a woman) for a season ticket, or £1 per day (for the first two days only), then reducing to five shillings per day (until May 22).[14] The admission price was then further reduced to one shilling (£4.94 in 2015),[6] per day – except on Fridays, when it was set at two shillings and six pence and on Saturdays when it remained at five shillings.[14] The one-shilling ticket proved most successful amongst the industrial classes, with four and a half million shillings (£22,217,549 in 2015),[6] being taken from attendees in this manner.[15] Two thousand five hundred tickets were printed for the opening day, all of which were bought.[8]

Souvenirs: Lane's Telescopic Views

The Great Exhibition of 1851 encouraged the production of souvenirs, the Lane's Telescopic Views which provided a three-dimensional view of the Great Exhibition of 1851. These were paper souvenirs that were made of printed lithographic cards which were hand-coloured and held together by cloth to give a three-dimensional view of the Great Exhibition. These views offered a miniature view of the Crystal Palace Exhibition when one viewed the cards through the peep hole on the front cover. Visitors purchased these souvenirs so that they could relive the experience of going to the exhibition.

Lane's Telescopic View The Ceremony of Her Majesty Opening the Great Exhibition Inside view grand opening by Queen Victoria

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Kishlansky, Mark, Patrick Geary and Patricia O'Brien. Civilization in the West. 7th Edition. Vol. C. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2008.
  2. 1 2 Ffrench, Yvonne. The Great Exhibition; 1851. London: Harvill Press, 1950.
  3. ↑ Forgan, Sophie (10 February 2000), "A compendium of Victorian culture", Nature, 403 (6880): 596, Bibcode:2000Natur.403..596F, doi:10.1038/35001134
  4. 1 2 "The Great Exhibition of 1851". Duke Magazine. November 2006. Retrieved 30 July 2007.
  5. ↑ Appletons' annual cyclopaedia and register of important events of the year: 1862. New York: D. Appleton & Company. 1863. p. 412.
  6. 1 2 3 4 UK CPI inflation numbers based on data available from Gregory Clark (2016), "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)" MeasuringWorth.
  7. ↑ The Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. "About Us". Retrieved 1 November 2008.
  8. 1 2 Newth, A.M. (1967). Britain and the World: 1789-1901. New York: Penguin Books. p. 97. ISBN 0-14-080304-1.
  9. ↑ Van der Kiste 2004, pp. 206–207.
  10. ↑ Official Catalogue of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations. 1851.
  11. ↑ "Memorial to the exhibition". Royal Institute of British Architects. Retrieved 18 October 2014.
  12. ↑ "The Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace". Victorian Station. Retrieved 3 February 2009.
  13. ↑ "The Great Exhibition," Manchester Times, 24 May 1851.
  14. 1 2 Leapman, Michael (2001). The World For A Shilling. p. 72.
  15. ↑ "Entrance Costs to the Great Exhibition". Fashion Era. Retrieved 3 February 2009.

Further reading

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