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The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an
international exhibition A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...
which took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October, 1851. It was the first in a series of
World's Fairs A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...
, exhibitions of culture and industry that became popular in the 19th century. The event was organised by Henry Cole and Prince Albert, husband of Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom. Famous people of the time attended the Great Exhibition, including
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...
,
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
,
Michael Faraday Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic inducti ...
(who assisted with the planning and judging of exhibits), Samuel Colt, members of the Orléanist Royal Family and the writers Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, George Eliot, Alfred Tennyson and William Makepeace Thackeray. The opening music, under the superintendence of William Sterndale Bennett, was directed by
Sir George Smart Sir George Thomas Smart (10 May 1776 – 23 February 1867) was an English musician. Smart was born in London, his father being a music-seller. He was a choir-boy at the Chapel Royal, and was educated in music, becoming an expert violinist, orga ...
. The world's first soft drink,
Schweppes Schweppes (, ) is a beverage brand that originated in the Republic of Geneva; it is made, bottled and distributed worldwide by multiple international conglomerates, depending on licensing and region, that manufacture and sell soft drinks. Schwep ...
, was the official sponsor of the event.


Background

The Great Exhibition of Products of French Industry organised in Paris, France, from 1798 to 1849 were precursors to the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London. The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations was organised by Prince Albert, Henry Cole, Francis Henry,
George Wallis George Wallis (1811–1891) was an artist, museum curator and art educator. He was the first Keeper of Fine Art Collection at South Kensington Museum (later the Victoria & Albert Museum) in London. Early years George Wallis, son of John Wa ...
,
Charles Dilke Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke, 2nd Baronet, PC (4 September 1843 – 26 January 1911) was an English Liberal and Radical politician. A republican in the early 1870s, he later became a leader in the radical challenge to Whig control of the Libe ...
and other members of the
Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used ...
as a celebration of modern industrial technology and design. It was arguably a response to the highly effective French Industrial Exposition of 1844: indeed, its prime motive was for Britain to make "clear to the world its role as industrial leader".Kishlansky, Mark, Patrick Geary and Patricia O'Brien. ''Civilization in the West''. 7th Edition. Vol. C. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2008. 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, the queen visited 34 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."Ffrench, Yvonne. ''The Great Exhibition''; 1851. London: Harvill Press, 1950. 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. 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." A special building, or "The Great Shalimar", 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, 1848 feet long by 454 feet wide (about 563 metres by 138 metres) and was constructed from
cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron– carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuri ...
-frame components and
glass Glass is a non- crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenchin ...
made almost exclusively in
Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...
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. The Crystal Palace was an enormous success, considered an architectural marvel, but also an engineering triumph that showed the importance of the Exhibition itself. The building was later moved and re-erected in 1854 in enlarged form at Sydenham Hill in south London, an area that was renamed Crystal Palace. It was destroyed by fire on 30 November 1936. 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 of 109,915 on 7 October. Thomas Cook arranged travel to the event for 150,000 people and it was important in his company's development. The event made a surplus of £186,000 (£ in ), 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. The Exhibition caused controversy as its opening approached. Some conservatives feared that the mass of visitors might become a revolutionary mob. The English-born 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.
In modern times, the Great Exhibition is a symbol of the
Victorian Age In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian ...
, and its thick catalogue, illustrated with steel engravings, is a primary source for High Victorian design. A memorial to the exhibition, crowned with a statue of Prince Albert, is located behind the Royal Albert Hall. It is inscribed with statistics from the exhibition, including the number of visitors and exhibitors (British and foreign), and the profit made. A range of medals were produced and awarded to exhibitors, jurists and providers of services. File:1851 Medal Crystal Palace World Expo London, obverse.jpg, 1851 medal The Crystal Palace in London by Allen & Moore, obverse File:1851 Medal Crystal Palace World Expo London, reverse.jpg, 1851 medal The Crystal Palace in London by Allen & Moore, reverse


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". 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. *The Mintons stand exhibited ceramics including majolica which proved a world-wide success. *The Koh-i-Noor, meaning the "Mountain of Light", the world's largest known diamond at the time, was one of the most popular attractions of the India exhibit. *The
Daria-i-Noor The Daria-i-Noor ( fa, , lit=Sea of light), also spelled ''Darya-ye Noor'', is one of the largest cut diamonds in the world, weighing an estimated 182 carats (36 g). Its colour, pale pink, is one of the rarest to be found in diamonds. The diamond ...
, one of the rarest pale pink diamonds in the world, was shown. *The early 8th-century Tara Brooch, discovered only in 1850, the finest Irish penannular brooch, was exhibited by the Dublin jeweller George Waterhouse along with a display of his fashionable
Celtic Revival The Celtic Revival (also referred to as the Celtic Twilight) is a variety of movements and trends in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries that see a renewed interest in aspects of Celtic culture. Artists and writers drew on the traditions of Gae ...
jewellery. * Alfred Charles Hobbs used the exhibition to demonstrate the inadequacy of several respected door locks. *
Frederick Bakewell Frederick Collier Bakewell (29 September 1800 – 26 September 1869) was an English physicist who improved on the concept of the facsimile machine introduced by Alexander Bain in 1842 and demonstrated a working laboratory version at the 1 ...
demonstrated a precursor to the fax machine. * Mathew Brady was awarded a medal for his daguerreotypes. *William Chamberlin, Jr. of Sussex exhibited what may have been the world's first voting machine, which counted votes automatically and employed an interlocking system to prevent over-voting. *The first modern pay toilets were installed, with 827,280 visitors paying the penny fee to use them. The toilets remained even after the exhibition was dismantled. "Spending a penny" became a euphemism for using a toilet. * Firearms manufacturer Samuel Colt demonstrated his prototype for the 1851
Colt Navy The Colt Revolving Belt Pistol or Navy Pistol, sometimes erroneously referred to as "Colt Revolving Belt Pistol of Naval Caliber" or "of Navy Caliber" (Naval is heavy gun and Navy Size Caliber was termed later for another Colt model), is a cap an ...
and also his older Walker and Dragoon revolvers. *The
Tempest prognosticator The tempest prognosticator, also known as the leech barometer, is a 19th-century invention by George Merryweather in which leeches are used in a barometer. The twelve leeches are kept in small bottles inside the device; when they become agitat ...
, a barometer using leeches, was demonstrated. *The America's Cup yachting event was instigated with a race held in conjunction with the Great Exhibition. *Gold ornaments and silver enamelled handicrafts fabricated by the Sunar caste from
Sind Sindh (; ; ur, , ; historically romanized as Sind) is one of the four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the southeastern region of the country, Sindh is the third-largest province of Pakistan by land area and the second-largest province ...
, British India. *C.C. Hornung of Copenhagen, Denmark, showed his single-cast iron frame for a
piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
, the first made in Europe. *"The Trophy Telescope", so called because it was considered the "trophy" of the exhibition, was shown. Its main lens of 11 inches (280 mm) aperture and 16 feet (4.9 m) focal length was manufactured by Ross of London. The German equatorial mounting was made by Ransome & May of Ipswich. *The instrument maker J. S. Marratt exhibited a five-foot achromatic telescope and a transit theodolite used in surveying, tunnelling, and for astronomical purposes. * Asprey exhibited a kingwood and ormolu mounted lady's dressing case with silver-gilt contents bearing the "Annie" cipher. *The emphasis of the
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...
exhibit featured natural resources, as well as crafted items made by
Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...
, such as flax baskets, carved wooden objects, eel traps, mats, fish hooks and hand clubs.


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 two guineas (£ in 2015) (three guineas for a man) for a season ticket, or £1 per day (for the first two days only), then reducing to five shillings per day (until 22 May). The admission price was then further reduced to one shilling (£ in 2015), per day – except on Fridays, when it was set at two shillings and six pence and on Saturdays when it remained at five shillings. The one-shilling ticket proved most successful amongst the industrial classes, with four and a half million shillings (£ in 2015) being taken from attendees in this manner. Two thousand five hundred tickets were printed for the opening day, all of which were bought. To attract future customers from the working classes, the newly expanding railways offered highly discounted tickets for people to travel from distant parts of the country and special rates were offered to parties, often led by the local vicar. Those too poor to travel lined up by the rail tracks to watch the long trains of open carriages steaming past.


Stereoscopic views

The Great Exhibition of 1851 encouraged the production of souvenirs. Several manufacturers produced stereoscope cards which provided a three-dimensional view of the Exhibition. These paper souvenirs were printed lithographic cards which were hand-coloured and held together by cloth to give a three-dimensional view of the event. They offered a miniature view of the Crystal Palace when one viewed the cards through the peep holes on the front cover. Visitors purchased these souvenirs so that they could relive the experience of attending.


See also

*
List of world's fairs This is a list of international and colonial world's fairs, as well as a list of national exhibitions, a comprehensive chronological list of world's fairs (with notable permanent buildings built). 1790s * 1791 – Prague, Bohemia, Habsburg ...
* 1862 International Exhibition, held in London. * Festival of Britain * Great Exhibition Bay * Prince Albert's Model Cottage


References


Further reading

* * Eyck, Frank. ''The Prince Consort: a political biography'' (Chatto, 1959). * * * James, Robert Rhodes. ''Albert, Prince Consort: A Biography'' (Hamish Hamilton, 1983), a major scholarly biography * *


External links


Official website of the BIE


Map of London showing the site of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. MAPCO

Cartoon series from ''
Punch Punch commonly refers to: * Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist * Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice Punch may also refer to: Places * Pu ...
'' magazine
Charlotte Bronte's account of a visit to the Great Exhibition
mytimemachine.co.uk *
Great Exhibition Collection in the National Art Library
Victoria and Albert Museum
"In Our Time"
BBC radio programme discussing the Great Exhibition and its impact. Originally broadcast 27 April 2006

Royal Engineers and the Great Exhibition *

– approximately 190 links
Fair Enough: The London Great Exhibition, 1851
– YouTube, documentary, 1h03m41s * The Great Exhibition 1851, Presented by David de Haan (YouTube, documentary): *
Part 1
– 25m26s *
Part 2
– 22m01s
The Great Exhibition of 1851: Industrialization and the Emergence of the Modern World
– audio, lecture, 38m21s, at Internet Archive
Dickinson's Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851
– book, 230pp, at Internet Archive
Guide-Book to the Industrial Exhibition
– book, 175pp, at Internet Archive
The Art Journal Illustrated Catalogue: The Industry of All Nations, 1851
– book, 432pp, at Internet Archive
The American Exhibit at the Great Exhibition of 1851
– video, illustrated lecture, 33m59s, at Georgia Tech Library

– article with pictures, at The Hector Berlioz Website
Glimpses and Gatherings During a Voyage and Visit to London and the Great Exhibition in the Summer of 1851
– book, 404pp, at Internet Archive
Art and Faith, in Fragments from the Great Exhibition
– book, 354pp, at Internet Archive
The Great Exhibition: "Wot is To Be" (1850)
– booklet, 20pp, at Internet Archive
The Great Exhibition Virtual Tour
Virtual tour of the "Crystal Palace" {{DEFAULTSORT:Great Exhibition, 1851 1851 in London 19th century in the City of Westminster Crystal Palace, London Victorian era Exhibitions in the United Kingdom British design exhibitions Charles Darwin Lewis Carroll Hyde Park, London Albert, Prince Consort 1851 festivals Festivals established in 1851 May 1851 events