The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations was held in the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, from 1 May to 15 October 1851. It was the first international exhibition of manufactured products and was enormously influential on the development of many aspects of society including art and design education, international trade and relations, and even tourism. The Exhibition also set the precedent for the many international exhibitions which followed during the next hundred years.
Among the results of the Exhibition were the establishment of the pre-cursor to the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Museum of Ornamental Art, in Marlborough House in 1852; and the reorganisation of the national Schools of Design.
The Museum's first objects were selected from exhibits in the Great Exhibition and one of the key organisers, Henry Cole, became the first General Superintendent of the Department of Practical Art, the government body responsible for art education including the new museum. The Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851, the body set up in 1850 to organise and administer the Exhibition under the Presidency of Prince Albert, made a number of recommendations for improving science and art education in the United Kingdom in their 'Second report of the Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851' submitted in November 1852. The profits (£170,000) from the Exhibition were invested in land in the South Kensington area, close to the site of the Crystal Palace.
A number of science and art institutions subsequently developed here, not least the V&A, which moved from Marlborough House and opened on its current site in 1857 as the South Kensington Museum.
Prince Albert's Project
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The Exhibitions chief proponent and cheerleader was Prince Albert. The Prince Consort envisaged a self-financing event, and encouraged a reluctant government to set up a Royal Commission to oversee the exhibition, to be held in Hyde Park, London. The Commission called for architectural submisions for the exhibition hall, which was to cover an area of over 700,000 square feet. Over 200 submissions were received, but the Commission rejected them all in favour of its own plan, which was universally reviled as ugly and expensive. This latter objection proved all too true, for when the Commission called for tenders for the materials alone, they were apalled to learn it would cost up to 150,000 pounds. The Great Exhibition – 1851Guernsey’s Contribution On Thursday 1st May 1851 Her Royal Majesty Queen Victoria officially opened The Exhibition of Industry of All Nations, now better known as the Great Crystal Palace Exhibition.
The project took almost 2½ years to come to fruition and it’s leading light was Queen Victoria’s husband, Albert, Prince Consort. In 1848 he placed a proposal before British Parliament to set up a self supporting exhibition of the products of British Industry. However, Albert cannot be credited with inventing the concept of an Industrial Exhibition as the formula had already been successfully employed in England, but most particularly in France, on many prior occasions.
At the end of the 18th century the Marquis d’Aveze – Commissioner of the Royal Manufactories of the Gobelins, of Sèvres and of the Savonnerie initiated the first of what was to become a series of Expositions which culminated in the highly successful French Industrial Exposition of 1844. After the success of the 1844 Exposition proposals were put to Parliament detailing the benefits such an Exhibition held in England would have on commerce and the British economy as a whole.
These initial proposals were met with absolutely no support and it was not until 1848, and the involvement of the Prince Consort, that progress began to be made towards realising the event.
Victorian Taxidermy's birth
THE 1851 GREAT EXHIBITION
The Great Exhibition of the Works and Industry of All Nations opened in London on 1st May, 1851. Approximately 100,000 objects were on display to the public from 14000 exhibitors, half of them British and in reality, was a celebration of British achievements put on for foreigners to admire and emulate. To house the Great Exhibition, a huge glass conservatory designed by self-made man Joseph Paxton, was erected in Hyde Park more than a third of a mile long and 66 feet high. It became known as Crystal Palace because of the large amount of glass used in its construction. The works of fourteen Victorian taxidermists were exhibited at the Crystal Palace Exhibition, the majority of those present could be found in Class 29 - Miscallaneous Manufactures and Small Wares. The following Taxidermy names were those exhibitors present at the 1851 Exhibition.
Dennis, Rev. J.B.P. - Bury St. Edmunds
Gordon, C. - Museum Dover
Harbor, Thomas - Reading
Beevor, J. (M.D.) - Newark - upon – Trent
Walford, C., sen - Witham Essex
Walford, J. - Witham Essex
Williams, Thomas Mutlow - Oxford St., London
Leadbeater,John - Golden Square, London
Spencer, Thomas. - Great Portland St., London
Gardner, James - Oxford St. London
Dunbar, William - Golspie, Scotland
Bartlett, Abraham Dee - College St, Camden Town
Hancock , J.A. - London
Plouquet , H. - Stuttgart, Wurtemburg (Germany)
Plouquet received rave reviews for his exhibits of birds and small and large game specimens, which at the time were amongst the finest examples of group taxidermy ever put on display to the public. In one review, his life-size mounts, composed to imitate hunt scenes portrayed by famous artists were themselves described as “beautiful specimens of the art of the taxidermist". Bartlett was of particular interest at the Exhibition for his display that included that of a lifesize reconstruction of the extinct Dodo bird. Formerly an inhabitant of the island of Mauritius, the Dodo was discovered by the Dutch traveler Vasco di Gauma in 1497. The species was said by Dutch explorers to have existed on the island in abundance between the years 1598 and 1600 but became extinct soon afterwards .
Mention is made within the Great Exhibition 1851 catalogue (vol. 2, p.817) of the details of a stuffed Dodo specimen which formed part of the Tradescants Museum in 1600. This specimen passed into the hands of a Dr Ashmol, who later transferred it to the University of Oxford where it was virtually destroyed in 1755, all with the exception of the dried head and foot.
A notable absence from the London taxidermists present at the Great Exhibition was none other than John Gould, although he was represented through an exhibition of a new coloring technique of his plate books he had just patented.
However, Gould had the commercial mind to prepare an exhibition of stuffed Hummingbirds and display them 3 miles away from Hyde Park in the Zoological Gardens of Regent Park. With the approval granted by the Zoological Society of London, Gould financed and constructed a wooden building some 60 feet long near the Zoological Lion house for the purpose of the exhibition. This was a shrewd move by Gould the businessman for had he exhibited the hummingbirds in the Crystal Palace where charging was forbidden, he would have earned nothing. At the Zoological Gardens he took full advantage of the huge crowds flocking to London to visit the Great Exhibition, charged his visitors six pence at a time and managed to make a good profit which was said to be eight hundred pounds.
The exhibition consisted of twenty-four elaborate display cases each approximately 2 feet 2 inches high and 1 foot 10 inches wide, arranged in rows and surmounted by canopies suspended from the ceiling to diffuse the light. The design of each case differed according to whether they had four, six, or eight panels of glass in their structure, and each rested on a wooden base, painted black and gold, which were all raised on a pedestal support.
Each case contained between five and fifteen Hummingbirds, all strategically positioned to exhibit their chief characteristics and to emphasis the metallic iridescence of the male plume. Gould introduced the unusual innovation for the period of foliage and nests into the cases to give an impression of natural habitat, an unusual innovation for that period.
Seventy-five thousand people visited Goulds display of Hummingbirds in 1851, compared with over six million people who visited the Crystal Palace between 1 may and 15 October 1851.
What they consumed during the visit
An estimated 6 million people visited this exhibition (The Labour Government of today could have learned a lesson here with the Dome or should I say Doom!!!!) Don't you just love Labour.
Soda water, lemonade, ginger beer 1,092,337 bottles
Potted meat, tongue etc. 36,000 lbs
Biscuits 37,300lbs Plain buns 870,027
Hams 33 tons Potatoes 36 tons
Salt 37 tons Coffee 14,299lbs
Savoury Pies 33,456lbs Mustard 1,120lbs
