The first modern exhibition was held at London in 1756 by the Society of Arts, which offered prizes for improvements in the manufacture of tapestry, carpets and porcelain, the exhibits being placed side by side. Five years afterwards, in 1761, the same society gave an exhibition of agricultural machinery. In 1797 a collective display of the art factories of France, including those of Sèvres, the Gobelins and the Savonnerie, was made in the palace of St Cloud, and the exhibition was repeated during the following year in the rue de Varennes, Paris. This experiment was so successful that in the last three days of the same year an exhibition under official auspices, at which private exhibitors were allowed to compete, was held in the Champ de Mars. Four years later, in 1801, there was a second official exhibition in the grand court of the Louvre. Upon that occasion juries of practical men examined the objects shown, and the winners of a gold medal were invited to dine with Napoleon, who was at that time First Consul. In the report of the jury the following remarkable sentence appeared:—“There is not an artist or inventor who, once obtaining thus a public recognition of his ability, has not found his reputation and his business largely increased.” The third Paris Exhibition, held in 1802, was the first to publish an official catalogue. There were 540 exhibitors, including J.E. Montgolfier, the first aëronaut, and J.M. Jacquard, the inventor of the loom which bears his name. The fourth exhibition was held in 1806 in the esplanade in front of the Hôtel des Invalides, and attracted 1422 exhibitors. There were no more exhibitions till after the fall of the empire, but in 1819 the fifth was held during the reign of Louis XVIII., with 1622 exhibitors. Others were held at Paris at various intervals, that in 1849 having 4500 exhibitors.
Other exhibitions, though on a smaller scale, were held in Dublin, London, and in various parts of Germany and Austria during the first half of the 19th century—that in 1844, held at Berlin, having 3040 exhibitors. Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Sweden, Russia, Poland, Italy, Spain and Portugal all held exhibitions, and there was a Free Trade Bazaar of British Manufactures at Covent Garden theatre in 1845, which at the time created a great deal of interest. But all these exhibitions were confined to the products of the country in which they took place, and the first great International Exhibition was held in London in 1851 by the Society of Arts, under the presidency of the prince consort. All nations were invited to compete; a site was obtained in Hyde Park, and a building 20 acres in extent was erected, after the design of Sir Joseph Paxton, at a cost of £193,168. The exhibition was open for five months and fifteen days. The receipts amounted to £506,100, and the surplus was £186,000. The number of visitors was 6,039,195, and the money taken at the doors was £423,792. The total, number of exhibitors was 13,937, of which Great Britain contributed 6861, the British colonies 520 and foreign countries 6556. The International Exhibition of 1851 was followed by those of New York and Dublin in 1853, Melbourne and Munich in 1854, and Paris in 1855—this latter was held in the Palais d’Industrie, which remained in existence until pulled down to make room for the two Palais des Beaux Arts, which formed one of the attractions of the 1900 exhibition. The exhibitors numbered 20,839 and the visitors 5,162,330. There were national exhibitions during the following years in several European countries, but the next great world’s fair was held at London in 1862. The total space roofed in amounted to 988,000 sq. ft., 22.65 acres, the number of visitors was 6,211,103, and the amount received at the doors £408,530. The death of the prince consort had a depressing effect upon the enterprise. In 1865 an exhibition was held at Dublin, the greater proportion of the funds being supplied by Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness. The number of attendances during six months was 900,000, and the exhibition was opened at night. An Italian exhibition was held at Rome in 1862.
The Paris Exhibition of 1867 was upon a far larger scale than that of 1855. It was held, like those that preceded and succeeded it, at the Champ de Mars, and covered 41 acres. The building resembled an exaggerated gasometer. The external ring was devoted to machinery, the internal to the gradual development of civilization, commencing with the stone age and continuing to the present era. A great feature of the exhibition was the park, which was studded with specimens of every style of modern architecture—Turkish mosques, Swedish cottages, English lighthouses, Egyptian palaces and Swiss châlets. The number of attendances was 6,805,969. The exhibitors numbered 43,217, and the total amount received for entrances, concessions, &c. , was £420,735. This was the first exhibition at which there were international restaurants. The cost of the exhibition was defrayed partly by the state and partly by private subscriptions.
Small exhibitions were held in various parts of Europe between 1867 and 1870, and in the latter year a series of international exhibitions, confined to one or two special descriptions of produce or manufactures, was inaugurated in London at South Kensington. These continued till 1874, but they failed to attract any very large attendance of the public and were abandoned. A medal was given to each exhibitor, and reports on the various exhibits were published, but there was no examination of the exhibits by jurors. In 1873 there was an International Exhibition at Vienna. The main building, a rotunda, was erected in the beautiful park of the Austrian capital. There were halls for machinery and agricultural products, and hundreds of buildings, erected by different nations, were scattered amongst the woodlands of the Prater. Unfortunately, an outbreak of cholera diminished the attendance of visitors, and the receipts were only £206,477, although the visitors were said to have reached 6,740,500, and the number of exhibitors was 25,760.
None of the International Exhibitions held between 1857 and 1873 had attracted as many as 7,000,000 visitors, but the gradual extension of education amongst the masses, and the greater facilities for locomotion, brought about by the growth of the railway system in all portions of the civilized world, largely increased the attendances at subsequent World’s Fairs. The Centennial Exhibition of 1876, to celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of American Independence, was held at Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. The funds were raised partly by private subscriptions, and partly by donations from the city of Philadelphia, from Pennsylvania and some of the neighbouring states. The central government at Washington made a large loan, which was subsequently repaid. The principal buildings, five in number, occupied an area of 48½ acres, and there were several smaller structures, which in the aggregate must have filled half as much space more, the largest being that devoted to the exhibits of the various departments of the United States government, which covered 7 acres. Several novelties in exhibition management were introduced at Philadelphia. Instead of gold, silver and bronze medals, only one description, bronze, was issued, the difference between the merits of the different exhibits being shown by the reports. Season tickets were not issued, and the price of admission, the same on all occasions, was half a dollar, or about 2s. 1d. The exhibition was not open at night or on Sundays, thus following the British, and not the continental, precedent. The number of visitors was 9,892,625, of whom 8,004,214 paid for admission, the balance being exhibitors, officials and attendants. The total receipts amounted to £763,899. Upon one occasion, the Pennsylvania day, 274,919 persons—the largest number that had visited any exhibition up to that date—passed through the turnstiles. The display of machinery was the finest ever made, that of the United States occupying 480,000 sq. ft. The motive-power was obtained from a Corliss engine of 1600 horse-power. At this exhibition the United Kingdom and the British Colonies of Canada, Victoria, New South Wales, New Zealand, Cape Colony and Tasmania made a very fine display, which was only excelled by that of the United States.
The Paris Exhibition of 1878 was upon a far larger scale in every respect than any which had been previously held in any part of the world. The total area covered not less than 66 acres, the main building in the Champ de Mars occupying 54 acres. The French exhibits filled one-half the entire space, the remaining moiety being occupied by the other nations of the world. The United Kingdom, British India, Canada, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Cape Colony and some of the British crown colonies occupied nearly one-third of the space set aside for nations outside France. Germany was the only great country which was not represented, but there were a few German paintings. The display of fine arts and machinery was upon a very large and comprehensive scale, and the Avenue des Nations, a street 2400 ft. in length, was devoted to specimens of the domestic architecture of nearly every country in Europe, and of several in Asia, Africa and America. The palace of the Trocadero, on the northern bank of the Seine, was erected for the exhibition. It was a handsome structure, with towers 250 ft. in height and flanked by two galleries. The rules for admission were the same as those at Philadelphia, and every person—exhibitor, journalist or official—who had the right of entrance was compelled to forward two copies of his or her photograph, one of which was attached to the card of entry. The ordinary tickets were not sold at the doors, but were obtainable at various government offices and shops, and from numerous pedlars in all parts of the city and suburbs. The buildings were somewhat unfinished upon the opening day, political complications having prevented the French government and the French people from paying much attention to the exhibition till about six months before it was opened; but the efforts made in April were prodigious, and by June 1st, a month after the opening, the exhibition was complete, and afforded an object-lesson of the recovery of France from the calamities of 1870-1871. The decisions arrived at by the international juries were accompanied by medals of gold, silver and bronze. The expenditure by the United Kingdom was defrayed out of the consolidated revenue, each British colony defraying its own expenses. The display of the United Kingdom was under the control of a royal commission, of which the prince of Wales was president. The number of paying visitors to the exhibition was 13,000,000, and the cost of the enterprise to the French government, which supplied all the funds, was a little less than a million sterling, after allowing for the value of the permanent buildings and the Trocadero Palace, which were sold to the city of Paris. The total number of persons who visited Paris during the time the exhibition was open was 571,702, or 308,974 more than came to the French metropolis during the year 1877, and 46,021 in excess of the visitors during the previous exhibition of 1867. It was stated at the time that, in addition to the impetus given to the trade of France, the revenue of the Republic and of the city of Paris from customs and octroi duties was increased by nearly three millions sterling as compared with the previous year.
Exhibitions on a scale of considerable magnitude were held at Sydney and Melbourne in 1879 and 1880, and many continental and American manufacturers took advantage of them in order to bring the products of their industry directly under the notice of Australian consumers, who had previously purchased their supplies through the instrumentality of British merchants. The United Kingdom and India made an excellent display at both cities, but the effect of the two great Australian exhibitions was to give a decided impetus to German, American, French and Belgian trade. One of the immediate results was that lines of steamers to Melbourne and Sydney commenced to run from Marseilles and Bremen; another, that for the first time in the history of the Australian colonies, branches of French banks were opened in the two principal cities. The whole cost of these exhibitions was defrayed by the local governments.
Exhibitions were held at Turin and Brussels during 1880, and smaller ones at Newcastle, Milan, Lahore, Adelaide, Perth, Moscow, Ghent and Lille during 1881 and 1882, and at Zürich, Bordeaux and Caraccas in Venezuela during 1883. The next of any importance was held at Amsterdam in the latter year. On that occasion a new departure in exhibition management was made. The government of the Netherlands was to a certain extent responsible for the administration of the exhibition, but the funds were obtained from private sources, and a charge was made to each nation represented for the space it occupied. The United Kingdom, India, Victoria and New South Wales took part in the exhibition, but there was no official representation of the mother country. Exhibitions on somewhat similar lines were held at Nice and Calcutta in the winter of 1883 and 1884, and at Antwerp in 1895.
A series of exhibitions, under the presidency of the then prince of Wales, and managed by Sir Cunliffe Owen, was commenced at South Kensington in 1883. The first was devoted to a display of the various industries connected with fishing; the second, in 1884, to objects connected with hygiene; the third, in 1885, to inventions; and the fourth, in 1886, to the British Colonies and India. These exhibitions attracted a large number of visitors and realized a substantial profit. They might have been continued indefinitely if it had not been that the buildings in which they were held had become very dilapidated, and that the ground covered by them was required for other purposes. There was no examination of the exhibits by juries, but a tolerably liberal supply of instrumental music was supplied by military and civil bands. The Crystal Palace held a successful International Exhibition in 1884, and there was an Italian Exhibition at Turin, and a Forestry Exhibition at Edinburgh, during the same year. A World’s Industrial Fair was held at New Orleans in 1884-1885, and there were universal Exhibitions at Montenegro and Antwerp in 1885, at Edinburgh in 1886, Liverpool, Adelaide, Newcastle and Manchester in 1887, and at Glasgow, Barcelona and Brussels in 1888. Melbourne held an International Exhibition in 1888-1889 to celebrate the Centenary of Australia. Great Britain, Germany, France, Austria and the United States were officially represented, and an expenditure of £237,784 was incurred by the local government.
The Paris Exhibition of 1889 marked an important change in the policy which had previously characterized the management of these gatherings. The funds were contributed partly by the state, which voted 17,000,000 francs, and by the municipality of Paris, which gave 8,000,000. A guarantee fund amounting to 23,124,000 francs was raised, and on this security a sum of 18,000,000 francs was obtained and paid into the coffers of the administration. The bankers who advanced this sum recouped themselves by the issue of 1,200,000 “bons,” each of 25 francs, Every bon contained 25 admissions, valued at 1 franc, and certain privileges in the shape of participation in a lottery, the grand prix being £20,000. The calculations of the promoters were tolerably accurate. The attendances reached the then unprecedented number of 32,350,297, of whom 25,398,609 paid in entrance tickets and 2,723,366 entered by season tickets. A sum of 2,307,999 francs was obtained by concessions for restaurants and “side-shows,” upon which the administration relied for much of the attractiveness of the exhibition. The total expenditure was 44,000,000 francs, and there was a small surplus. The space covered in the Champ de Mars, the Trocadero, the Palais d’Industrie, the Invalides and the Quai d’Orsay was 72 acres, as compared with 66 acres in 1878 and 41 acres in 1867. Amongst the novelties was the Eiffel Tower, 1000 ft. in height, and a faithful reproduction of a street in Cairo. The system of international juries was continued, but instead of gold, silver and copper medals, diplomas of various merits were granted, each entitling the holder to a uniform medal of bronze. Some of the “side-shows,” although perhaps pecuniary successes, did not add to the dignity of the exhibition. The date at which it was held, the Centenary of the French Revolution, did not commend it to several European governments. Austria, Hungary, Belgium, China, Egypt, Spain, Great Britain, Italy, Luxemburg, Holland, Peru, Portugal, Rumania and Russia took part, but not officially, while Germany, Sweden, Turkey and Montenegro were conspicuous by their absence. On the other hand, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, the United States, Greece, Guatemala, Morocco, Mexico, Nicaragua, Norway, Paraguay, Salvador, the South African Republic, Switzerland, Uruguay and Venezuela sent commissioners, who were accredited to the government of the French Republic. The total number of exhibitors was 61,722, of which France contributed 33,937, and the rest of the world 27,785. The British and colonial section was under the management of the Society of Arts, which obtained a guarantee fund of £16,800, and, in order to recoup itself for its expenditure, made a charge to exhibitors of 5s. per sq. ft. for the space occupied. There were altogether 1149 British exhibitors, of whom 429 were in the Fine Arts section. One of the features of the exhibition was the number of congresses and conferences held in connexion with it.