The Great Exhibition in 1851 was the first international exhibition of manufactured products. It was organised by Henry Cole and Prince Albert, and held in a purpose-built Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. Many of the objects in the Exhibition were used as the first collection for the South Kensington Museum which opened in 1857 and later became the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The Great Exhibition
The Great Exhibition was the first international exhibition of manufactured products and was enormously influential on the development of many aspects of society including …
Read article
A Day at the Great Exhibition
This video tells the story of the Great Exhibition of 1851. It was an enormously popular event and people came from all over the UK and abroad to visit the Crystal Palace a…
Read article
The Crystal Palace
A competition for a building to house the Great Exhibition produced 248 plans. The Building Committee disliked them all and attempted to design their own, putting together …
Read article
Travelling to the Great Exhibition
'Enormous excursion trains daily poured their thousands into the city... Throughout the season... it was like.., a gigantic picnic... large numbers of work people received …
Read article
The Great Exhibition Visitor Experience
Within the Exhibition (no dogs and no smoking) visitors found every modern convenience, including refreshment rooms where over a million bottles of soft drinks were sold (n…
Read article
The Displays and Products from Overseas
'The building is exceedingly light but the brightness is tempered and subdued by canvass or calico covering on the outside of the roof, and all the south side of the struct…
Read article
Watercolours of the Great Exhibition
These eleven watercolours were made just before the Great Exhibition opened and are part of a larger group of images that were reproduced both as colour and monochrome lith…
Read article
Industry, Religion and the British Empire
The mid-Victorians were convinced that their way of life was not only better but also quite unlike that known by their predecessors. The birth of industrialism, discoveries…
Read article
The Great Exhibition: Queen Victoria's Journal
'This day is one of the greatest and most glorious of our lives... It is a day which makes my heart swell with thankfulness... The Park presented a wonderful spectacle, cro…
Read article
The Great Exhibition: Poem by William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray, one of the leading novelists of the Victorian era, was moved to write a poem about the opening of the Crystal Palace.
Read article
National Art Library Great Exhibition collection
The National Art Library holds a number of collections relating to the International Exhibitions including documentation on the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Schools of Des…
Read article
Study Room resource: The Great Exhibition
Prints and drawings that are not on display in the galleries can be seen in the Prints and Drawings Study Room. To make it easier for teachers and lecturers to access the m…
Read article
A gift in your will
You may not have thought of including a gift to a museum in your will, but the V&A is a charity and legacies form an important source of funding for our work. It is not just the great collectors and the wealthy who leave legacies to the V&A. Legacies of all sizes, large and small, make a real difference to what we can do and your support can help ensure that future generations enjoy the V&A as much as you have.
MoreShop online
Leopard - Treasures of the Royal Courts Exhibition Postcard
Leopard - Treasures of the Royal Courts Exhibition Postcard Leopard ewer, one of a pair Unidentified maker’s mark of a triangle with two cr…
Buy nowEvent - Royal Courts of Justice
Wed 03 July 2013 14:00
The Royal Courts of Justice is one of the last great wonders of Gothic Revival architecture in England.
Book online
