Prince Albert was President of the Society of Arts, a body which, dating from the middle of the eighteenth century, had, from time to time, offered prizes for specimens of British textile, ceramic, and other manufactures; but the project of holding a competitive Exhibition on an international scale originated with the Prince himself. |His Proposal for a Great Exhibition.| In the course of July 1849 he had laid his proposals before some of the members of the Society, and means were at once adopted to arouse the interest of manufacturers at home, abroad, and in the colonies, and to open negotiations with foreign governments. The idea caught on at once; the States of Europe were at peace, and nothing could more surely tend to obliterate the recollection of recent disturbances than to join in friendly rivalry in the arts of peace. |Adoption of the Scheme.| A Royal Commission was appointed to carry out the preparations, and the scheme was formally inaugurated on March 21, 1850, at a banquet given by the Lord Mayor to the Chief Magistrates of all the towns in the United Kingdom, to which Prince Albert and the foreign Ambassadors were also invited.
C. J. Staniland, R.I.] [From Contemporary Prints.
A. Master. B. Purser. C. Clerk. D. Midshipman. E. Rear-Admiral. F. Petty Officer. G. Boatswain. H. Carpenter. J. Seaman.
UNIFORMS OF THE BRITISH NAVY, 1837.
In the early part of the reign there was no regulation dress for seamen, and even in the case of officers the regulations were not enforced as they are now.
Somerset House had been placed at the disposal of the Commissioners for the purposes of the Exhibition, but the fervour with which all nations embraced the idea soon made it manifest that no permanent edifice could contain more than a small fraction of the exhibits. There was no time to be lost—the 1st of May 1851 had been fixed for the opening ceremony. |Competing Designs.| The difficulty was not the cost, for a guarantee fund of £200,000 had been speedily subscribed; but the designs and specifications had to be submitted, the materials prepared, and the erection completed, all within the space of nine months. A site in Hyde Park was chosen, and the Commissioners set to work to examine no fewer than 245 designs and specifications sent in by architects all over the world. |Mr. Paxton’s selected.| They had almost decided in favour of a design by a French architect, when a certain Mr. Joseph Paxton—not a professional architect, but superintendent of the Duke of Devonshire’s gardens at Chatsworth—produced a scheme so original and simple that it was adopted at once in preference to all others. It was an enormous conservatory of glass and iron—1,848 feet long, 408 feet broad, and 66 feet high—with transepts constructed so as to contain some of the elms still growing in Hyde Park. The decision of the Commissioners was not arrived at till July 26: not a single casting or piece of material had been prepared yet; but the contractors, Messrs. Fox, Henderson & Co., undertook to deliver the building ready for painting and fitting on December 31. |Erection of the Crystal Palace.| The ground lying between Albert Gate and Knightsbridge Barracks on the east and west, between Rotten Row and St. George’s Place on the north and south, was handed over to them on July 30; the first column was raised on September 26, and on the stipulated day Messrs. Fox and Henderson handed over the structure of the Crystal Palace, as it was called, to the Commissioners. Though the great fabric vanished with the leaves of a single summer, yet this achievement of the contractors deserves record among the most famous exploits of industrial enterprise, affording, as it did, a practical illustration of the dominant object of the Great Exhibition, as Prince Albert had defined it in his speech at the Mansion House; namely, “To give us a true test and living picture of the point of development at which the whole of mankind has arrived ... a new starting point from which all nations will be able to direct their further exertions.”
R. Simkin.]
A. Seaman (Full Dress). B. First Class Petty Officer, White (Summer) Full Dress. C. Chief Petty Officer. D. Seaman (Landing Order). E. Admiral. F. Captain. G. Midshipman. H. Lieutenant. J. Boatswain.