Victorian Britain - The Great Exhibition

1. The Great Exhibition was opened on 1st May 1851 by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

2. It closed on 1st October 1851.

3. The Great Exhibition was the first international exhibition of manufactured products.

4. It was originally the idea of a man called Henry Cole.

5. He suggested holding an exhibition in London to demonstrate the industrial supremacy of Britain.

6. Prince Albert took up the idea and provided the necessary support.

7. He presided over the Royal Commission that raised the money.

8. The Great Exhibition was housed in the Crystal Palace.

9. The Crystal Palace was a purpose-built glass and iron structure, designed by Joseph Paxton.

10. Joseph Paxton was a landscape designer who planned the structure to blend in with the trees and plants.

11. The Crystal Palace was made of over four thousand tons of iron and three hundred thousand panes of glass.

12. It covered an area over nine thousand square metres.

13. It was ready on time and on budget.

14. When the Great Exhibition finished, the Crystal Palace was taken down and rebuilt on the outskirts of south London.

15. The Crystal Palace burned down in 1936.

16. More than half the exhibits at the Great Exhibition were British.

17. More than thirty thousand world-wide exhibitors took part from as far away as China.

18. The exhibits were divided into four main categories: raw materials, machinery, manufactured goods and fine arts.

19. Visitors to the Great Exhibition could look at goods ranging from silks to clocks and from furniture to farm machinery.

20. There were railway engines, boilers and working mill machinery.

21. Carriages, jewellery, precious stones, silks, clocks, musical instruments, toys, china and furniture could also be seen.

22. In six months, 6.2 million people visited to look at the one hundred thousand exhibits.

23. The Great Exhibition made a profit.

24. The profit was used to build the new museums and colleges, and the Royal Albert Hall.