The Great Exhibition and the Crystal Palace
A building made of glass in Hyde Park, over six million visitors, and a museum that grew from it.
Jump to: The idea | The building | The show | Afterwards | The V&A
The idea
It was the first “world’s fair”. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851 The idea grew from the Royal Society of Arts, whose president was Prince Albert. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851
The Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 was set up on 3 January 1850. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851 There were 245 proposals for the building. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851
The building
On 11 June 1850 Joseph Paxton sketched his idea for the building, inspired by the Lily House he had built at Chatsworth in Derbyshire. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851 The design was changed so that ten huge elm trees could be saved. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851
Chance Brothers of Birmingham supplied 293,655 panes of glass. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851 On average 2,000 workers and 200 horses were on the building site each day. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851
The building was finished at the end of January 1851, only seven months after work began. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851 On 19 October 1850 the Illustrated London News reported a speech in which Paxton called it “The Crystal Palace”. The nickname stuck. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851
Owen Jones painted the ironwork yellow, white, blue and red. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851 The Crystal Palace was the largest man-made covered space on earth. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851
The show
The doors opened at 9 am on 1 May 1851 to 25,000 season-ticket holders. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851 Over six million visitors came to the Great Exhibition in London’s Hyde Park during its five and a half months in 1851. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851
More than 100,000 objects were shown by nearly 14,000 exhibitors from 34 nations and more than 30 territories of the British Empire. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851 Experts especially admired the art and crafts from India, above all the textiles. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851
Instead of cash prizes there were medals. The top award, the Council Medal, went to around 170 of the 14,000 exhibitors. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851 Britannica says one million “pop” bottles were consumed at the Great Exhibition. Encyclopaedia Britannica: Great Exhibition of 1851
The V&A says the six million visitors were about one-third of the British population, and included Charles Darwin and Charles Dickens. V&A: Building the Museum
Afterwards
The exhibition closed on 11 October 1851. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851 The Crystal Palace was rebuilt at Sydenham, and Victoria and Albert opened it there on 10 June 1854. It was destroyed by fire in 1936. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851
Profits from the Great Exhibition paid for what became the South Kensington museums and colleges, including the museum that became the V&A. Encyclopaedia Britannica: Victoria, relations with Peel
How it led to the V&A
After the exhibition, experts chose 244 objects, which were bought for the Government School of Design. They became part of the V&A’s founding collections when it opened in 1857. V&A: The Great Exhibition of 1851 The museum was founded in 1852 and moved to its home on Exhibition Road in 1857. V&A: Building the Museum
For over 40 years it was called the South Kensington Museum. Then it was renamed after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. V&A: Building the Museum In May 1899, at what turned out to be her last public ceremony, Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone for Aston Webb’s new museum building. V&A: Building the Museum
The museum’s refreshment rooms were the first of their kind in the world. V&A: Building the Museum Gas lighting let the museum stay open into the evening in winter. V&A: Building the Museum
Visitor figures differ slightly between sources: see when sources disagree.
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