The International Exhibition of 1862, or Great London Exposition, was a

world's fair A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...

. It was held from 1 May to 1 November 1862, beside the gardens of the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr (Nor ...

South Kensington South Kensington, nicknamed Little Paris, is a district just west of Central London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Historically it settled on part of the scattered Middlesex village of Brompton. Its name was supplanted with ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, England, on a site that now houses museums including the

Natural History Museum A natural history museum or museum of natural history is a scientific institution with natural history collections that include current and historical records of animals, plants, fungi, ecosystems, geology, paleontology, climatology, and more. ...

and the

Science Museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in ...

Organisation

The exposition was sponsored by the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Trade, and featured over 28,000 exhibitors from 36 countries, representing a wide range of industry, technology, and the arts.

William Sterndale Bennett Sir William Sterndale Bennett (13 April 18161 February 1875) was an English composer, pianist, conductor and music educator. At the age of ten Bennett was admitted to the London Royal Academy of Music (RAM), where he remained for ten years. B ...

composed music for the opening ceremony. All told, it attracted about 6.1 million visitors. Receipts (£459,632) were slightly above cost (£458,842), leaving a total profit of £790. It was held in

, London, on a site now occupied by the Natural History Museum. The buildings, which occupied 21 acres, were designed by Captain

Francis Fowke Francis Fowke (7 July 1823 – 4 December 1865) was an Irish engineer and architect, and a captain in the Corps of Royal Engineers. Most of his architectural work was executed in the Renaissance style, although he made use of relatively new ...

of the Royal Engineers, and built by Lucas Brothers and Sir John Kelk. They were intended to be permanent, and were constructed in an un-ornamented style with the intention of adding decoration in later years as funds allowed. Much of the construction was of

cast-iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content more than 2%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloy constituents affect its color when fractured: white cast iron has carbide impuriti ...

, 12,000 tons worth, though façades were brick. Picture galleries occupied three sides of a rectangle on the south side of the site; the largest, with a frontage on the Cromwell Road was 1150 feet long, 50 feet high and 50 feet wide, with a grand triple-arched entrance. Fowke paid particular attention to lighting pictures in a way that would eliminate glare. Behind the picture galleries were the "Industrial Buildings" . These were composed of "naves" and "transepts", lit by tall clerestories, with the spaces in the angles between them filled by glass-roofed courts. Above the brick entrances on the east and west fronts were two great glass domes, each 150 feet wide and 260 feet high - at that time the largest domes ever built. The timber-framed "Machinery Galleries", the only parts of the structure intended to be temporary, stretched further north along Prince Consort Road. The opening took place on 1 May 1862.

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...

, still in mourning for her consort Prince Albert did not attend, instead her cousin the

Duke of Cambridge Duke of Cambridge, one of several current royal dukedoms in the United Kingdom , is a hereditary title of specific rank of nobility in the British royal family. The title (named after the city of Cambridge in England) is heritable by male de ...

presided from a throne sited beneath the western dome. An opening address was delivered by the

Earl Granville Earl Granville is a title that has been created twice, once in the Peerage of Great Britain and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It is now held by members of the Leveson-Gower family. First creation The first creation came in the Pee ...

, chairman of Her Majesty's Commissioners, the group responsible for the organisation of the event.The Exhibition Building of 1862
in Survey of London: Volume 38, South Kensington Museums Area, ed. F H W Sheppard (London, 1975), pp. 137-147 , Retrieved 15 February 2016 An official closing ceremony took place on 1 November 1862, but the exhibition remained open to the public until 15 November 1862. Over six million people attended. Parliament declined the Government's wish to purchase the building and the materials were sold and used for the construction of Alexandra Palace.

Exhibitions

The exhibition was a showcase of the advances made in the

industrial revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

, especially in the decade since the first

Great Exhibition of 1851 The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, also known as the Great Exhibition or the Crystal Palace Exhibition (in reference to the temporary structure in which it was held), was an international exhibition which took pl ...

. Among the items on display were; the

electric telegraph Electrical telegraphs were point-to-point text messaging systems, primarily used from the 1840s until the late 20th century. It was the first electrical telecommunications system and the most widely used of a number of early messaging systems ...

submarine cables Submarine cable is any electrical cable that is laid on the seabed, although the term is often extended to encompass cables laid on the bottom of large freshwater bodies of water. Examples include: *Submarine communications cable *Submarine power ...

, the first plastic,

Parkesine Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common contemporary ...

, machine tools, looms and precision instruments. 1862 expo

Exhibits included such large pieces of machinery as parts of Charles Babbage's analytical engine,

cotton mill A cotton mill is a building that houses spinning or weaving machinery for the production of yarn or cloth from cotton, an important product during the Industrial Revolution in the development of the factory system. Although some were driven b ...

s, and maritime engines made by the firms of

Henry Maudslay Henry Maudslay ( pronunciation and spelling) (22 August 1771 – 14 February 1831) was an English machine tool innovator, tool and die maker, and inventor. He is considered a founding father of machine tool technology. His inventions were ...

and Humphrys, Tennant and Dykes. There was also a range of smaller goods including fabrics, rugs, sculptures, furniture, plates, porcelain, silver and glass wares, and wallpaper. The manufacture of ice by an early refrigerator caused a sensation. The work shown by

William Morris William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...

's decorative arts firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. attracted much notice. The exposition also introduced the use of

caoutchouc Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, and ...

for

rubber Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, an ...

production and the

Bessemer process The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel from molten pig iron before the development of the open hearth furnace. The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation ...

for steel manufacture.

Benjamin Simpson Sir Benjamin Simpson KCIE (31 March 1831 – 27 June 1923) was a British Surgeon-General and photographer who served in the Indian Medical Service Bengal from 1853 until 1890 His late 19th century photos of Kandahar, Quetta, Bombay, Tomb of Amhe ...

showed photos from the Indian subcontinent. LNWR engine No

William England William England (died 1896) was a successful Victorian photographer specialising in stereoscopic photographs. Life Sources disagree on his date of birth, with dates from 1816 to 1830 quoted by different authors. In the 1840s England ran a London ...

led a team of stereoscopic photographers, which included William Russell Sedgfield and Stephen Thompson, to produce a series of 350 stereo views of the exhibition for the London Stereoscopic Company. The images were made using the new collodion wet plate process which allowed exposure times of only a few seconds. These images provide a vivid three-dimensional record of the exhibition. They were on sale to the public in boxed sets and were delivered to the Queen by messenger so that she could experience the exhibition from her seclusion in mourning. The London and North Western Railway exhibited one of their express passenger locomotives, No. 531 ''Lady of the Lake''. A sister locomotive, No. 229 ''Watt'' had famously carried

Trent Affair The ''Trent'' Affair was a diplomatic incident in 1861 during the American Civil War that threatened a war between the United States and Great Britain. The U.S. Navy captured two Confederate envoys from a British Royal Mail steamer; the Brit ...

despatches earlier that year, but the ''Lady of the Lake'' (which won a bronze medal at the exhibition) was so popular that the entire class of locomotive became known as ''Ladies of the Lake''. The manufacturing

Lilleshall Company The Lilleshall Company was a large engineering company in Oakengates Shropshire founded in 1802. Its operations included mechanical engineering, coal mining, iron and steel making and brickworks. The company was noted for its winding, pumping an ...

exhibited a

2-2-2 Under the Whyte notation for the classification of steam locomotives, 2-2-2 represents the wheel arrangement of two leading wheels on one axle, two powered driving wheels on one axle, and two trailing wheels on one axle. The wheel arrangement bo ...

express passenger locomotive. There was an extensive art gallery designed to allow an even light without reflection on the pictures. The exhibition also included an international chess tournament, the

London 1862 chess tournament An international chess tournament was held in London, during the second British world exhibition, in 1862. The prizes were won by Adolf Anderssen (£100), Louis Paulsen (£50), John Owen (£30), George Alcock MacDonnell (£15), Serafino Duboi ...

. A large tiger skin, shot in 1860 by Colonel Charles Reid, was exhibited here. The skin was mounted by Edwin H. Ward and subsequently became "The Leeds Tiger", still on display at

Leeds City Museum Leeds City Museum, originally established in 1819, reopened in 2008 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It is housed in the former Mechanics' Institute built by Cuthbert Brodrick, in Cookridge Street (now Millennium Square). It is one of nine ...

, UK.

Music

Unlike the Great Exhibition of 1851, the

Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

chose to have a distinctive musical component to the exhibition of 1862. Music critic

Henry Chorley Henry Fothergill Chorley (15 December 1808 – 16 February 1872) was an English literary, art and music critic, writer and editor. He was also an author of novels, drama, poetry and lyrics. Chorley was a prolific and important music and litera ...

was selected as advisor and recommended commissioning works by

, Giacomo Meyerbeer,

Daniel Auber Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (; 29 January 178212 May 1871) was a French composer and director of the Paris Conservatoire. Born into an artistic family, Auber was at first an amateur composer before he took up writing operas professionally when ...

, and

Gioacchino Rossini Gioachino Antonio Rossini (29 February 1792 – 13 November 1868) was an Italian composer who gained fame for his 39 operas, although he also wrote many songs, some chamber music and piano pieces, and some sacred music. He set new standards ...

. Being in his retirement, Rossini declined, so the Society asked Giuseppe Verdi, who eventually accepted.Verdi, Giuseppe. ''Hymns = Inni.'' Robert Montemorra Marvin, ed., The Works of Giuseppe Verdi, series 4, volume 1, Chicago and Milan: University of Chicago and Ricordi, 2007.

wrote his ''Ode Written Expressly for the Opening of the International Exhibition'' (upon a text by Alfred, Lord Tennyson), Meyerbeer wrote his ''Fest-Ouvertüre im Marschstil'', and Auber wrote his ''Grand triumphal march''. These three works premiered at the opening of the exhibition on 1 May 1862, with the orchestra led by conductor Prosper Sainton. Controversies involving Verdi's contribution, the cantata '' Inno delle nazioni'', prevented the work from being included in the inaugural concert. It was first performed on 24 May 1862 at

Her Majesty's Theatre Her Majesty's Theatre is a West End theatre situated on Haymarket in the City of Westminster, London. The present building was designed by Charles J. Phipps and was constructed in 1897 for actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, who established t ...

in a concert organized by

James Henry Mapleson James Henry Mapleson (Colonel Mapleson) (4 May 1830 – 14 November 1901) was an English opera impresario, a leading figure in the development of opera production, and of the careers of singers, in London and New York in the mid-19th century. Born ...

. At another concert, the French pianist and composer Georges Pfeiffer created his Second Piano Concerto.Antonio Baldassarre: "Pfeiffer, Georges Jean", in: ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (MGG)'', biographical part, vol. 13 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 2005), c. 462. The pianist Ernst Pauer performed daily piano recitals on the stage under the western dome.

Accident

At the opening of the exhibition on 1 May 1862, one of the attending Members of the British Parliament, 70-year-old

Robert Aglionby Slaney Robert Aglionby Slaney (9 June 1791 – 19 May 1862) was a British barrister and Whig politician from Shropshire. He sat in the House of Commons as a Member of Parliament for the borough of Shrewsbury for most of the period from 1826 until his ...

, fell onto the ground through a gap between floorboards on a platform. He carried on with his visit despite an injured leg, but died from gangrene that set in on the 19th.Slaney was MP for Shrewsbury.

Gallery

File:DV307 no.48 Foreigners over for the great exhibition 1862.png, ''Foreigners over for the great exhibition''. A satirical sketch by Frances Elizabeth Wynne File:1862 international exhibition 03.jpg, 1862 international exhibition, western elevation view. File:1862 international exhibition 02.jpg, Penny Guide to the exhibition. File:Ross Fountain, Princes Street Gardens.JPG, The Ross Fountain in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

, manufactured in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, was an exhibit at the Great London Exposition. File:Hubert fountain 2.jpg, The Hubert Fountain in Victoria Park, Ashford,

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, was an exhibit at the International Exhibition. File:Old Mrs Jamborough. Punch, 14 June 1862.png, Old Mrs Jamborough. Punch, 14 June 1862, satirising the fashion for

crinoline A crinoline is a stiff or structured petticoat designed to hold out a woman's skirt, popular at various times since the mid-19th century. Originally, crinoline described a stiff fabric made of horsehair ("crin") and cotton or linen which was ...

s popular at the time of the exhibition. File:Farcot and Carrier-Belleuse Conical Mystery Clock.jpg, Sculpture of

Urania Urania ( ; grc, , Ouranía; modern Greek shortened name ''Ránia''; meaning "heavenly" or "of heaven") was, in Greek mythology, the muse of astronomy, and in later times, of Christian poetry. Urania is the goddess of astronomy and stars, he ...

by Carrier-Belleuse atop conical mystery clock by

Eugène Farcot Henri-Eugène-Adrien Farcot (20 February 1830 in Sainville – 14 March 1896 in Saint-Maur-des-Fossés) was a French clock-maker, industrialist, inventor, mechanical-engineer, aeronaut, occasional writer and one of the most celebrated conical pend ...

. Made for Great London Exhibition of 1862 File:Taplin Lincoln Traction Engine.png, 16 Horsepower traction engine exhibited by Taplin of Lincoln File:Japanese ambassadors in London.jpg, The members of the First Japanese Embassy to Europe (1862) visiting the 1862 International Exhibition.

References

External links

* Exhibition in 1862 - Article published by '' Once a Week''.
Official website of the BIE
*
London World Exposition 1862
Expo2000 article
Images of the 1862 International Exhibition
Science and Society Picture Library
The Exhibition Building of 1862
''

Survey of London The Survey of London is a research project to produce a comprehensive architectural survey of central London and its suburbs, or the area formerly administered by the London County Council. It was founded in 1894 by Charles Robert Ashbee, an A ...

: volume 38: South Kensington Museums Area'' (1975), pp. 137–147. {{Authority control World's fairs in London International Exhibition International Exhibition Festivals established in 1862 19th century in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea