6 minute read
The Great Exhibition of 1851
Special Subject, 30 credits
HIST3225 – The Great Exhibition of 1851: Art, Industry and the making of a Nation, Part 1*
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(Dr Eleanor Quince)
Module Overview
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations was an international exhibition which took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 11 October 1851. It was arguably the greatest of a series of international ‘expositions’ run throughout the nineteenth century, celebrating scientific and technological innovation, design aesthetic and the might of manufacturing. On show were some 13,000 objects from Britain, the Colonies and forty-four other nations. The Exhibition and the Crystal Palace which housed it became a British icon, symbolising free trade and national success. During its six month opening period, over six million people visited the Exhibition, turning London, in the words of the Illustrated London News, from ‘the capital of a great nation, [into] the metropolis of the world’. The effects of the Exhibition were enormous and felt well into the twentieth century and beyond. But why was the Great Exhibition so important? How did it become a turning point for the nation? And what exactly has its legacy been?
Indicative list of seminar topics
• Exposition: the International Exhibition trend • The role of Prince Albert • Travelling to the Exhibition: Thomas Cook Tours and trains • Inside the Crystal Palace • Women, race and protest at the Great Exhibition • Commodity Fetishism: establishing a world view of Victorian Britain?
Sample Source
See the picture above [illustration to 1851, or, The Adventures of Mr and Mrs Sandboys and family who came up to London to enjoy themselves and to see the Great Exhibition by Henry Mayhew and George Cruikshank, (London: George Newbold, 1851)]
‘The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations’, a global trade fair, took place in London in 1851 and was the brainchild of Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria. It brought together the best of art, science, design and engineering, in a global nod to the prowess of the industrial age. The illustration above is from 1851, or, The Adventures of Mr and Mrs Sandboys … by Henry Mayhew. A comic novel, it charts the experience of the fictional Mr and Mrs Sandboys, a provincial couple who attempt to travel to London from their home in Cumberland to visit the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park. The Sandboys find that their way is constantly blocked and only reach the Exhibition as it closes. The image above was drawn by the famous cartoonist George Cruikshank, and is from the very beginning of the book. It represents the irony which runs throughout the text: English people failing to reach the Exhibition while the rest of the world succeeds. In the image, the Exhibition building, the Crystal Palace, is situated at the top of the globe. People of all nations, identifiable through stereotypical clothing and objects – Chinese in large hats, people from Turkey smoking hookahs, Africans emerging from crude huts, Indians on elephants – rush towards the building. On the edges of the globe we can see symbols of nations who exhibited in 1851, steamships from America, pyramids from Egypt; and English flags demonstrate the reach of the Empire. While there is an element of mocking in the cartoon, it is also an indicator of the way in which the Exhibition, hailed by Queen Victoria as ‘one of the wonders of the world’, was viewed: a world-beating venture which put the nation on the map (literally).
Special Subject, 30 credits
(Dr Eleanor Quince)
Module Overview
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations was an international exhibition which took place in Hyde Park, London, from 1st May to 11th October 1851. It was arguably the greatest of a series of international ‘expositions’ run throughout the nineteenth century, celebrating scientific and technological innovation, design aesthetic and the might of manufacturing. On show were some 13,000 objects from Britain, the Colonies and forty-four other nations. The Exhibition and the Crystal Palace which housed it became a British icon, symbolising free trade and national success. During its six month opening period, over six million people visited the Exhibition, turning London, in the words of the Illustrated London News, from ‘the capital of a great nation, [into] the metropolis of the world’. The effects of the Exhibition were enormous and felt well into the twentieth century and beyond. But why was the Great Exhibition so important? How did it become a turning point for the nation? And what exactly has its legacy been?
Indicative list of seminar topics
• New acquisitions: purchasing for the nation at the Great Exhibition • Foundations: Government Schools of art, design, history and science • The making of the South Kensington Museum • Industry: working with the world in the wake of the Great Exhibition • Entertainment for the masses: photography, stereoscopy and film • The weird and the wonderful: the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, 1854 - 1936 • The past in the present: forging Britain's heritage • Virtual impact: the Great Exhibition lives on
Sample Source
“They decided that the building …should rise again …that it should form a palace for the multitude, where …healthful exercise and wholesome recreation should be easily attainable. To raise the enjoyments and amusements of the English people …in wholesome country air, amidst the beauties of nature, the elevating treasures of art, and the instructive marvels of science, an accessible and inexpensive substitute for the injurious and debasing amusements of a crowded metropolis.”
[Phillips, Samuel, Guide to the Crystal Palace and Park (London: Crystal Palace Library, Bradbury and Evans, 1856) p. 3]
Between 1852 and 1854 the Crystal Palace, the main exhibition building for the 1851 Great Exhibition, was transplanted to Sydenham on the outskirts of London. Here, the structure was not only rebuilt but enlarged. Phillips’ Guide to the Crystal Palace and Park is a complete handbook to the re-erected palace. The quotation above tells us the aim of this undertaking, placing the welfare of the people of England at its heart. The Crystal Palace at Sydenham was the first large-scale amusement park for ‘the people’ and introduced the concept of ‘edutainment’ to the nation. Open to all, easily accessible via a newly extended Metropolitan Line and regular Omnibus service, the 300-acre park included an art gallery, a theatre, an opera house, dinosaur island, an archery ground, a printers, a perfume stand, extensive gardens, a viewing platform, and the famous ‘crystal towers’: two reservoirs supplying water to the fountains on the site. Until it was destroyed by fire in 1936, the Crystal Palace spent eighty years as one of the nation’s major venues and was a hugely popular tourist attraction. What we learn from the source as a whole is the sheer scale of the enterprise. The Crystal Palace Company had its own railway station, stables and steamboat; published a series of books on the history of the structure and the site via its own press; produced its own souvenirs; had a full complement of staff including tour guides, groomsmen, waiters, tutors and salespeople; offered assistance to those with disabilities, including the provision of ‘bath chairs’ (wheelchairs); had perambulators (prams) for hire by those with small children; and catered for ‘excursion parties’ of over 1000 people. The re-erection of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham was the first action of the Royal Commission set up at the close of the 1851 Great Exhibition, aiming to continue the promotion of science and the arts and to educate the masses. The Commission was to go on to establish a series of educational and heritage institutions which crisscrossed the globe, taking the legacy of the 1851 Great Exhibition far and wide.
