The Great Exhibition of 1851

The "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations" took place in Hyde Park, London May 1st-October 15th, 1851. Organized by Henry Cole and Prince Albert, it was the very first World's Fair. Charles Darwin, Charlotte Bronte, Lewis Carroll, and George Eliot were among the six million in attendance. Made of a cast-iron frame and glass, a greenhouse-like "Crystal Palace" was built to house the exhibition. The architectural triumph was later moved to south London but destroyed in 1936 by a fire.



The Crystal Palace

An attendee of the Great Exhibition observed, "Large, piled-up ‘trophy’ exhibits in the central avenue revealed the organizers’ priorities; they generally put art or colonial raw materials in the most prestigious place. Technology and moving machinery were popular, especially working exhibits. [...] Visitors could watch the entire process of cotton production from spinning to finished cloth. Scientific instruments were found in class X, and included electric telegraphs, microscopes, air pumps and barometers, as well as musical, horological and surgical instruments."


Exhibits included: the Kon-i-noor, the world's largest known diamond at the time; the inadequacy of well-respected locks, as demonstrated by Alfred Charles Hobbs; a precursor to the fax machine, invented by Frederick Bakewell; Matthew Brady's daguerrotypes; an early automatic voting machine, invented by William Chamberlin, Jr. of Sussex; and the Tempest Prognosticator, a leech-powered barometer.



The Tempest Prognosticator

Some feared the attendees might become a mob; Karl Marx thought the Great Exhibition was emblematic of capitalism. Regardless, the Great Exhibition of 1851 identified Great Britain as a superpower and made modern discoveries accessible to the masses.