The Great Exhibition Vol 2

A Documentary History

Geoffrey Cantor

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000559682
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

The Great Exhibition of 1851 was the outstanding public event of the Victorian era. Housed in Joseph Paxton's Crystal Palace, it presented a vast array of objects, technologies and works of art from around the world. The sources in this edition provide a depth of context for study into the Exhibition.

III. THE OPENING ON 1 MAY 1851

DOI: 10.4324/9781003112884-40

The opening of the Exhibition on 1 May 1851 was a magnificent occasion. However, as the first document in this section indicates, serious reservations had earlier been expressed about the arrangements for the opening ceremony. In light of previous attempts on the Queen’s life, it had been announced on 16 April that only a select group, including the Commissioners, diplomats, aristocrats and the royal household, would be present at the ceremony. This group would then enjoy a private viewing before the public was admitted at 1 pm. ¹ However, a number of newspapers and periodicals expressed outrage at this proposal to severely limit admission to the ceremony because the Exhibition had been promoted as a public event and funded by public subscription. It was argued that the ceremony should not therefore be restricted to the social elite but instead be open to all of the Queen’s loyal subjects, who were unlikely to threaten her safety. ² Only on 22 April, just nine days before the opening, did the Commissioners relent, and a revised plan for the opening ceremony was promulgated and widely distributed over the signature of the Commission’s acting secretary, Edgar Bowring. The holders of season tickets were now also to be admitted.

The Commissioners had also been urged by the religious press to include ‘some significant, though simple acknowledgment’ that the Exhibition, ‘which is so marvellous in our eyes, “is the Lord’s doing”’. ³ In response to these concerns, which probably reflected his own wishes, Albert approached the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Bird Sumner, with the following request: ‘we the Com[m] iss[ion]ers felt anxious that the blessing of Almighty God upon the undertaking sh[oul]d be invoked in a short prayer, which we hope Your Grace would consent to offer’. ⁴ The Archbishop concurred, and the proclamation of 22 April therefore included the instruction that ‘His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury will … say a prayer, invoking God’s blessing upon the undertaking, followed by a short anthem sung by the choir’. Many in the religious world, both Anglican and dissenter, were greatly heartened and reassured by the inclusion of a religious element in the opening ceremony, which they considered would act as an antidote to the Exhibition’s display of rampant materialism. ⁵

During the weeks leading to the opening, contemporary newspapers and other periodicals conveyed the increasing excitement that swept through the country. Frequent notices appeared detailing the decisions of the Commissioners, the rapid construction of the Crystal Palace, the visits by the royal family, the arrival of goods, etc. The ILN, in particular, also published many informative illustrations showing the erection of the building. Even before the Exhibition opened readers of the daily and weekly press would have learned a great deal about the progress of the Exhibition, and many would have been excited by the prospect of visiting it. On 26 April the ILN reported on the new arrangements for the opening, but its report also conveyed the excitement that the forthcoming ceremony had generated. On the day before the Exhibition opened, the renowned novelist William Makepeace Thackeray published in The Times his ‘May Day Ode’, which also reflected the expectant mood. Both documents are included below.

The opening ceremony itself was widely reported in the press. Formal accounts appeared in The Times, the ILN (with impressive illustrations, some of which are reproduced here) and in many other daily and weekly papers. These accounts recorded the arrival of the Queen and other dignitaries, the speech by Prince Albert, Victoria’s response and the prayer by the Archbishop (all verba-tim), the singing of the Hallelujah Chorus by the massed choirs, and a full list of those who participated in the procession that concluded the formal proceedings. Yet factual reports were invariably seasoned with the reporters’ personal observations and assessments of the event. For example, the report in The Times began with an account of London waking up and its inhabitants converging on Hyde Park, the rising sense of excitement as people gathered in the Crystal Palace and a description of its interior. However, as this reporter noted, the 25,000 spectators who witnessed the ‘imposing ceremony … will each have his own account to give, his own tale to tell of its wonders’. Hence the formal report from the ILN reproduced below is complemented by several personal narratives of people who were present on that momentous occasion.

The first two personal accounts were by women and were published in contemporary monthlies: the first was probably written by Sarah Ellis and published in her Morning Call – a women’s monthly, the second by Anna Maria Fielding, writing in the widely read Art-Journal. The third is by the journalist and social reformer Henry Mayhew and formed a section in his humorous novel 1851 or, The Adventures of Mr and Mrs Sandboys. Although this is ostensibly a fictional work, Mayhew included an eloquent account on the opening ceremony. This is followed by the description published by a French visitor, the journalistJules Janin, who had travelled to London specifically to cover the Exhibition for a French newspaper, the Journal des Debats. In contrast to these fairly detailed reports of the opening, the Civil Engineer and Architect’s Journal had little to say about the ceremony itself. Instead, its reporter was more interested in critically assessing the exhibits. Finally, we return to Thackeray, this time writing in Punch, and his reflections on the opening ceremony. Taken together, these several accounts offer a range of interpretations of this outstanding event in British history.

These accounts convey the festive atmosphere of the event and the ways in which people responded not only to the formal proceedings but also to each other. Large numbers of spectators – estimated at 300,000 – also gathered to cheer the Queen and Albert as they proceeded from Buckingham Palace to Hyde Park and the Crystal Palace. The opening ceremony was also a personal triumph for both Victoria and her consort. The appearance of the Queen at this very public event raised the profile of the monarchy. Moreover, Albert’s reputation was considerably enhanced by the success of the opening ceremony and, more generally, by his overall achievement of mounting the Exhibition. ⁶ In her journal entry for that day (reproduced below, pp. 289–93), Victoria expressed not only her personal enjoyment of the ceremony but also her joy at Albert’s success.

Notes

1. Commissioners’ Minutes, 15 April 1851, p. 330.
2. Northern Star, 19 April 1851, p. 4; Manchester Examiner and Times, 19 April 1851, p. 4.
3. English Churchman, 24 April 1851, p. 265. On the arrangements for the opening, see H. Hobhouse, The Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition: Art, Science and Productive Industry. A History of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 (London: Athlone Press, 2002), pp. 59–61.
4. Prince Albert to Archbishop of Canterbury, 22 April 1851, 1851 Archive, H/1/6/91.
5. Cantor, Religion, pp. 63–70.
6. S. Weintraub, Albert: Uncrowned King (London: J. Murray, 1997), passim.

ANTICIPATING THE EXHIBITION

DOI: 10.4324/9781003112884-41

[Anon.], ‘The Great Exhibition’, Illustrated London News, 26 April 1851, p. 328.

William Makepeace Thackeray, ‘May Day Ode’, The Times, 30 April 1851, p. 5.

The Commissioners’ announcement that attendance at the opening ceremony would be limited to themselves, politicians, diplomats and members of the royal household produced an angry reaction from the popular press. For example, on 17 April the liberal, progressive Daily News, which throughout had strongly supported the Exhibition, complained that a ‘more impolitic, a more absurd, or a more ludicrous resolution the Commissioners could not have come to’. ¹ Diplomatic moves were also underway. For example, on the following day Lord Granville, the vice-president of the Commission, visited the prime minister to request that season ticket holders also be admitted. Russell, whose opposition to this proposal had become less forceful, forwarded Granville’s request to Albert. ² Faced with such opposition, the Palace decided to reconsider, and on 21 April The Times announced that the Queen ‘has consented that the state opening of the Exhibition on the 1st of May shall take place in a manner corresponding with the popular character of the occasion’. Thus holders of season tickets would be admitted. ³ On the following day, 22 April, the Commission held one of its regular meetings, after which revised plans were issued for the opening ceremony over the name of the acting secretary, Edgar A. Bowring. The text of this announcement was subsequently printed in many of the dailies and weeklies. As in the following article from the ILN, which includes Bowring’s text, editors often expressed their approval that season ticket holders were now permitted to attend the ceremony. This article, which was published in the ILN on Saturday, 26 April, is also of interest because it conveys the rising excitement that the Exhibition generated as the opening approached. For information about the ILN, see below, pp. 273–4.

The second document, William Makepeace Thackeray’s ‘May Day Ode’ published in The Times, likewise conveys the sense of anticipation on the day prior to the opening. Yet in contrast to Thackeray’s fervour, The Times had earlier opposed the Exhibition and was particularly outspoken during the early summer of 1850, when the fate of the project hung in the balance. Subsequently The Times had adopted a less strident attitude; it published reports and other documents emanating from the Commission but refrained from commending the Exhibition, while still giving space to any correspondent who found fault with it. Even on 10 April 1851 the editor remained steadfastly noncommittal by asserting that although some people supported the Exhibition, others viewed it as a nuisance. ⁴ By contrast, Thackeray’s ode published less than three weeks later – on 30 April – looked forward to the Exhibition with enthusiasm. More surprising still, the editor, John Delane, began his editorial on 2 May with the following assertion: ‘There was yesterday witnessed a sight the like of which has never happened before, and which, in the nature of things, can never be repeated. They as were so fortunate as to see it hardly knew what most to admire, or in what form to clothe the sense of wonder, and even of mystery, which struggled within them’. ⁵ he Times had undergone a complete volte-face; it now enthused about an Exhibition that it had previously denigrated.

In 1851 the reputation of Thackeray (1811–1863) was riding high, having been enhanced by his much-vaunted novel Vanity Fair (1847–8). Shortly after delivering the ode to The Times’s office on 29 April, he confided to a friend that the poem had taken five days to compose and that the effort had left him ‘utterly beat, nervous, bilious & overcome’. It also made him realize that poets are necessarily selfish, as poetry writing had excluded everything except ‘my self and my rhymes and my measure’. He subsequently declared that ‘the ode has had a great success’. ⁶ Another poem of Thackeray’s, the humorous ‘Mr. Molony’s Account of the Crystal Palace’, had been published in the 26 April issue ofPunch. ⁷ About half of ‘Mr. Molony’s Account’ was also printed in the ILN, the first document, below.

Critical of what he saw as endemic nationalism and jingoism, Thackeray warmly endorsed Albert’s internationalist vision of the Exhibition in his ‘May Day Ode’. Like Albert, he welcomed foreigners and their exhibits to the Exhibition and affirmed the value of bringing the nations together in order to create a more peaceful world. He also portrayed the Exhibition as under God’s superintendence. Thus, just a day before the Queen and her consort were to open the Exhibition in Hyde Park, readers of The Times (which had previously expressed a cold antipathy towards the Exhibition) encountered this exuberant poem by one of the leading literary figures of the day.

Notes

1. Daily News, 17 April 1851, p. 4.
2. Lord John Russell to Albert, 19 April 1851, The Letters of Queen Victoria, ed. A. C. Benson and Viscount Esher, 3 vols (London: J. Murray, 1907), vol. 2, p. 382.
3. The Times, 21 April 1851, p. 5.
4. The Times, 10 April 1851, p. 5.
5. The Times, 2 May 1851, p. 4.
6. W. M. Thackeray to J. Brookfield, 29 April 1851, The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, ed. G. Ray, 4 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1946), vol. 2, pp. 765–7; W. M. Thackeray to J. Brookfield, 1 May 1851, ibid., pp....

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• II. Reactions to the Proposed Exhibition (continued)
• III. The Opening on 1 May 1851
• Editorial Notes
• Silent Corrections
• List of Sources