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SUPPORTING INFORMATION : THE GREAT EXHIBITION KS2

The Victoria and Albert Museum is the key museum in which to study the Great Exhibition of 1851.

Following a series of increasingly popular public exhibitions, which attempted to educate the public's taste by showing the best of British manufactured goods, Henry Cole visited a similar exhibition in Paris. He decided to persuade Prince Albert to make the next British exhibition in 1851 an international one, in order to expose British design to foreign competition. This was not universally welcomed. It faced opposition from people who wanted to keep out foreign competition and from those who objected to building in Hyde Park (their one success was to force the organisers to agree that it be a temporary site).

A competition for the building produced 248 plans, The Building Committee disliked them all and attempted to design their own, putting together ideas from a number of entries. Not only was this regarded by contemporary critics as unethical, the result was also totally unsuitable. The Committee's plan, published in May 1850, would have taken 15 months to build and needed some 15 million bricks for its construction. The scheduled opening day was 1 May 1851.

Joseph Paxton had been building greenhouses for the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, basing his designs on the structure of the regia lily. When he was brought to Henry Cole with an idea that could be realised in ten months, Cole agreed that it be put before the Committee. Paxton proposed a gigantic pre-fabricated building of iron and glass.

This building, with its skeleton of cast-iron columns supporting a network of girders, was based on a 24ft (7.3) module of parts pre-fabricated in Birmingham. It not only was innovative technologically, but also used many other industrial skills and inventions of the time. The removal of the glass tax only a few years previously had contributed to the development of plate glass by the Birmingham glass company, Chance Bros. The Crystal Palace used 300,000 sheets in the largest size that had ever been made (4ft 1in x 10ins/1.3m x 25.3m). Steam engines on site drove the machinery to cut the wooden glazing bars as well as the 24 miles (40km) of Paxton's patent guttering used to hold the glass in position on his simple but effective ridge and furrow roof. The invention of the telegraph allowed rapid communication between the site and the manufacturers in the Midlands.

Plan of the Crystal Palace
Click image to see a larger view

On 1 May 1851 the Exhibition was opened by Queen Victoria. As visitors travelled from all parts of the country to the Exhibition in London they would have been struck by the size, magnificence and structural perfection of the building that met their eyes. With the sun reflected in its massive glass surface they would have undoubtedly have agreed with the magazine Punch that it was 'a Crystal Palace'.

Opening the Great Exhibition by H.C.Selous

The drama of its building must have heightened their expectations as they went through the doors to be overwhelmed by the height of the iron and glass transept which soared 108ft (33m) above their heads. The park's fully-grown elm trees encased within the building added to the impression that the visitor was inside a vast green house.

Inside Crystal Palace by B.B.Turner

From the entrance the nave stretched apparently endlessly until the brightly painted iron pillars and girders in blue, yellow and red merged into the grey in the distance. Everywhere was a feeling of light and colour with the great dark red banners hanging from the galleries telling of the myriad manufactured goods of Britain, the raw materials and exotic productions of her colonies, while farther back lay all the other strange countries of the world to explore.

Section showing colonial produce

By the time the exhibition closed on 15 October 1851, more than 6 million people had passed through its doors. The vast majority of these were the ordinary people of Britain who came from every corner of the land, some of them seeing London, let alone the marvels of the Exhibition, for the first time. When they arrived they were as amazed and impressed by the productions of industry and the ingenious scientific gadgetry, much of it now preserved in the Science Museum, as by the decorative and applied arts that today's visitor can see in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

For the mid-19^th century citizen this would have been a unique experience. It was the first time that the nations of the world had ever come together in one place and it was remarkable showcase for the manufactures of Britain and the world.

After the Exhibition closed, the prime movers, Prince Albert and Henry Cole, were determined to open a museum to further the Exhibition's aims. The land on which the V&A and all other museums in South Kensington stand was purchased with the profits of the Great Exhibition.

OTHER RELEVANT GALLERIES

You will find objects relevant to the Great Exhibition in the following galleries:

		Europe and America 1800-1900	Gallery 8
		India	Gallery 41
		The Print Room	Gallery 503