The Crystal Palace Exhibition
The First of the Victorian World's Great Exhibitions
England's Great Exhibition included exhibits from all over the world but the building which housed the show drew an equal amount of attention.
From May 1st to October 15th 1851 England hosted the first exhibition which included displays from all of the world's industrialized nations. It was called The Great Exhibition for the Works of Industry of All Nations and was to be followed over the next one hundred years by similar exhibitions at regular intervals in numerous cities throughout the world.
The exhibition took its less formal name, The Crystal Palace Exhibition, from the building that was built to house it, the Crystal Palace, which was temporarily located in London's Hyde Park. By holding the first great exhibition, England intended to demonstrate their superiority in industry, technology and economics but it was France that walked away with most of the prizes.
Queen Victoria's much-maligned German husband, Prince Albert, conceived the project. Ticket pre-sales guaranteed that the show would make a profit before it had even opened. The profits from the show were used to buy nearby land and found London's Science Museum, National History Museum and the predecessor of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Ornamental Art.
The Crystal Palace Exhibition included almost 14,000 exhibits from countries including; Canada, the United States, India, Australia and New Zealand and drew over six million visitors during its short run. Every type of machine and appliance imaginable was on display including a heating stove built in the shape of a suit of armor.
Also at the show was a steam-powered tractor introduced only two years prior by Hornsby and Son and the Folkstone 4-2-0 Locomotive, designed by T.R. Crampton for America's Southeastern Railway Company. There were also; kitchen appliances, an envelope machine, steel making displays and a reaping machine.
An unlikely success at the show was Dr George Merryweather's Tempest Prognosticator, a device that used fresh water leaches, glass jars and fine chains to predict the arrival of severe storms.
The Crystal Palace was itself an amazing feat, almost 2000 ft long and 400 ft wide it housed several of the park's trees instead of tearing them down. The building was made using 4000 tons of iron and almost a million feet of glass. It was designed by the University of Virginia's Sir Joseph Paxton in just under two weeks and was assembled in under a year.
The clean lines of Paxton's design was ahead of it's time and was, in fact, the exact opposite of the Victorian taste for ornamentation. The building's success was perhaps an indication of changing public taste in the Victorian world, from handmade ornamentation to the streamlined, machine made products that were to become popular in the coming years.
At the end of the exhibition the Crystal Palace was dismantled and moved to Sydenham Hill in London where it housed many other exhibits and events until it was destroyed by fire on November 30 1936.
Sources
victorianstation.com
vam.ac.uk
victorianweb.org
iath.virginia.edu/london/model/design.html
britainexpress.com/history/great_exhibition.htm
Packer,Martin, Dr George Merryweather's 1851 Tempest Prognosticator, The Victorian Web.org
