Great Exhibition

Great Exhibition, name given to the huge display “... of the Works and Industry of All Nations” opened by Queen Victoria on May 1, 1851, at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London. As Prince Albert, one of the principal organizers, described it, the idea was “... to show the point of development at which mankind has arrived, and a new starting point from which all nations will be able to direct their future exertions”—though there is no doubt that the underlying political purpose of the Exhibition was to demonstrate the superiority, ingenuity, and prosperity of the world's first industrial society, the “workshop of the world”, and to rank its products favourably alongside those of foreign competitors. In the succeeding months, about six million people passed through the futuristic “giant greenhouse”, 610 m (2,000 ft) long and 122 m (400 ft) wide, designed by Joseph Paxton, many of whom were visiting London for the first time on the nation's new railways for the Exhibition's “Shilling Days”. The catalogue of the exhibition filled hundreds of closely printed pages including a vast array of products that ranged from locomotives to steel furnaces, musical instruments, firearms, sewing machines, and machines for washing ore, grinding wheat, sawing wood, making wire, and mixing chocolate. Among the items of greatest interest were Bessemer's patent process for making steel, Joseph Whitworth's new screw gauges which eventually unified engineering practices all over the world, and the latest precision tools for mass production. Every nation had its own stand, in which it exhibited its most innovative products, technological advances, and inventions, for eventual judging by international juries. Great Britain won nearly all the prizes: more than a trade fair, the Great Exhibition was a national experience. Queen Victoria visited the Crystal Palace more than 40 times, afterwards commenting: “It has taught me so much more than I ever knew before”.