The Crystal Palace Exhibition
—Chrissie

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            The Great Exhibition of 1851 (better known as the Crystal Palace Exhibition) was one of the grand cultural and technological exhibitions which came to be called the World’s Fair. It was organized by the Royal Society for Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, with Albert, Prince Consort of Queen Victoria, at its head. It was intended to showcase modern culture, scientific breakthroughs, and new technologies. While it was presented as a world-wide showcase, its location in London and planning by a British Royal Commission meant that English achievements would be emphasized.

One of the first decisions made was that the exhibition would be indoors, and so a building was needed. They called for a design that would be temporary, easy to construct quickly, and cheap. After rejecting dozens of proposals, they chose an iron and glass design created by London horticulturalist Joseph Paxton. He based it on a greenhouse he had designed a few years earlier, using large sheets of plate glass produced using a new method by the London-based Chance Brothers, thereby also showcasing another element of British technological superiority. In order for it to not hold heat like a greenhouse, canvas shades were added in key locations and adjustable vents were built into the roof and sides. The design was also modular, using standardized pieces which could be combined to create as many rooms and long galleries as needed, as well as built upwards to create multiple stories.

For a small fee, ranging from a weekday ticket price of one shilling to five shillings on Saturdays, a person could see examples of industrial and cultural works from the entire globe. With nearly 100,000 exhibits, repeat visits were common, making the season ticket price of two pounds not unreasonable, if one could afford it. One half of the entire fair was dedicated to British exhibits. It was split into four sections, three showcasing various industrial and scientific achievements and a fourth that was dedicated to fine arts. The original plan had been to create a path through the first three that took the visitor from raw materials to finished goods, but the requirements for some of the machinery meant it could not be organized in this way. Among these technological achievements was the Image Telegraph, a precursor to the fax machine, built by Frederick Bakewell, and what is believed to be the first mechanical voting machine, built by William Chamberlain. Also featured was a 27-foot tall fountain advertising Schweppe’s sodas; they were the exclusive drink provider for the exhibition, for which the company paid £5500. And, on a practical note, the Exhibition also featured flush toilets, available to customers for a penny.

Exhibits from the rest of the world were found in the other half of the Crystal Palace. Notable exhibits for the United States included daguerreotypes by Matthew Brady, whose photographs of the American Civil War a decade later would bring to light the horrors of war and demonstrations of Samuel Colt’s firearms, which would also play a major role in that Civil War. The Chinese exhibit was not sanctioned by the Chinese government and so was comprised of items collected from British-held Hong Kong. As indicated by this, there was not a small amount of colonialism evident in the Exhibition; it is made visible in the central place held by exhibits from the British colonies, including jewels from India and the work of the native peoples of Australia and New Zealand. Colonialist power was also evident in the exhibits organized by France, Belgium, and the German States as well as the Native American goods displayed in the United States’ section. Slavery was also understood as facilitating many aspects of the exhibits, with the cotton production demonstrations being the most obvious for their lack of acknowledgement of the origins of the raw materials.

One of the displays most associated with The Crystal Palace was not included in the Great Exhibition, the dinosaurs sculpted by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins. These were a central piece of the park to which the Crystal Palace was moved after the Exhibition ended and were not put into place until 1854. The Crystal Palace, intentionally designed to be temporary, was rebuilt about fifteen miles away, where it housed cultural and educational groups and events until its destruction by fire in 1936.

The Exhibition was intended to be self-funding, and it was. The surplus was used to fund museums and grants for education and industrial research, some of which still exist. Approximately six million tickets were sold, with the attendance averaging about 40,000 visitors per day. It was unquestionably a success and is exemplary of the Victorian Era.