The Great Exhibition
The Great Exhibition, also known as the Crystal Palace Exhibition, was an international exhibition held in
Hyde Park,
London, from 1 May to 15 October 1851 and the first in a series of
World's Fair exhibitions of
culture and
industry that were to be a popular
19th century feature.
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations was organised by
Prince Albert,
Henry Cole, Francis Fuller and other members of the
Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce as a celebration of modern
industrial technology and design.
Encyclopedia
The
Great Exhibition, also known as the
Crystal Palace Exhibition, was an international exhibition held in
Hyde Park,
London, from 1 May to 15 October 1851 and the first in a series of
World's Fair exhibitions of
culture and
industry that were to be a popular
19th century feature.
The
Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations was organised by
Prince Albert,
Henry Cole, Francis Fuller 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 can be argued that the Great Exhibition was mounted in response to the highly successful French Industrial Exposition of 1844. Prince Albert, Queen
Victoria's consort, was an enthusiastic promoter of a 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.
A special building, nicknamed
The Crystal Palace, was designed by
Joseph Paxton to house the show; an
architecturally adventurous building based on Paxton's experience designing
greenhouses for the
sixth Duke of Devonshire, constructed from
cast iron-frame components and
glass made almost exclusively in
Birmingham and Smethwick, which was an enormous success. The committee overseeing its construction included
Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The massive glass house was 1848 feet long by 454 feet wide, and went from plans to grand opening in just nine months. The building was later moved and reerected in an enlarged form at Sydenham in south London, an area that was renamed
Crystal Palace.
The Great Exhibition made a surplus of £186,000 which was used to found the
Victoria and Albert Museum, the
Science Museum and the
Natural History Museum which were all built in the area to the south of the exhibition, nicknamed "Albertopolis", alongside the
Imperial Institute.
The exhibition caused controversy at the time. Some conservatives feared that the mass of visitors might become a revolutionary mob, while radicals such as
Karl Marx saw the exhibition as an emblem of the
capitalist fetishism of commodities. Today the 'Great Exhibition' has become a
symbol of the
Victorian Age, and its thick catalogue illustrated with steel engravings is a primary source for High Victorian design.
Alfred Charles Hobbs used the exhibition to demonstrate the inadequacy of several respected locks of the day.
Frederick Bakewell demonstrated a precursor to today's
Fax machine.
The
America's Cup yachting event began with a race held in conjunction with the Great Exhibition.
See also
Further reading
- Auerbach, Jeffrey A. The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on Display, Yale University Press, 1999.
- Gibbs-Smith, Charles Harvard The Great Exhibition of 1851, 2nd edition, London: HMSO, 1981.
- Greenhalgh, Paul Ephemeral vistas: the expositions universelles, great exhibitions and world's fairs, 1851-1939, Manchester University Press, 1988
- Leapman, Michael. The World for a Shilling: How the Great Exhibition of 1851 Shaped a Nation, Headline Books, 2001.
External links
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- Royal Engineers and the Great Exhibition
- BBC radio programme discussing the Great Exhibition and its impact.
- on flickr.com
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