The+Victorians

= Will the great exhibition at Crystal Palace be a success?=

//After 2½ years of planning Prince Consort Albert finally managed to finish the exhibition of the products from British Industry, which opened at Hyde Park in London yesterday.//



Yesterday, Thursday 1st May 1851, her Royal Majesty Queen Victoria officially opened “The Exhibition of Industry of All Nations”. Or “the Great Crystal Palace Exhibition” as it is called in everyday talk. After the French success of their Industrial Exposition in 1844 proposals were put to the Parliament detailing the benefits of such an exhibition held in England, and which consequences it would have on the commerce and the British economy as a whole. These proposals were met with absolutely no support and it was not until 1848, when the Prince Consort showed his interest for the idea, progress were made towards and finally realizing the event. The self-financing project took almost 2½ years to come to fruition and yesterday Queen Victoria finally announced the exhibition open for public.

The design which boasted a huge semicircular glass roof over the steel frames is credited to Sir Joseph Paxton. The 1,848 feet long and 408 feet wide building contains 900,000 feet of glass and that is also the origin of the name “Crystal Palace”. The price for this spectacular building was 150,000£ just for the building materials, and it took 300 workmen a little over two years to finish. The final costs for the exhibit is not announced but statements have said that there is no worrying about covering the cost as to date. Without any day-by-day ticket sales yet at all, well over 100,000 pounds have been recovered: 64,344 pounds by public subscriptions, 40,000 pounds from sale of season tickets, 3,200 pounds from Spicer and Clowes for the honor of printing the catalogues, and 5,500 pounds from Schweppes for the privilege of supplying refreshments. The exhibition is claimed to have over 100,000 objects exhibited, so you definitely will find something that interest you. The experience is plenty and the exhibit contains spectacular items from beautiful paintings, revolutionary machinery and the world's biggest diamond, the Koh-I-Noor.

Some people have called the “Crystal Palace” the eighth wonder of the world. With more than 20,000 visitors on the opening day and six more months left of the exhibition it already looks like this has gone on to be a huge success.