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On 1 May this year, Queen Victoria and her husband Albert officially opened the Great Exhibition in a massive glass building in Hyde Park, London. The building was known as The Crystal Palace. The exhibition had been the brainchild of Albert and a man called Henry Cole. Cole had been to an exhibition in France in 1844 and he wanted to have somewhere that could show off all the modern inventions and ideas that the industrial revolution had brought about. By 1850, in Britain, more people lived in cities than in the country. It was the first country in the world where this happened. One of the main selling points to the government for supporting the exhibition was that Cole and his colleagues said it would be self-financing, i.e. bring in as much money as it cost.

A competition was organised to design a building that would not only be large enough, but also be of sufficient grandeur to house the event. 248 designs were received but the competition was won by a design from Joseph Paxton. The Duke of Wellington backed the idea of holding it in Hyde Park and so things began to take shape.

The building was a bit IKEA in form as it was built in pieces and could also easily be taken down. It was 1,850 feet (564 m) long, 408ft (124m) wide and 108 feet (33 m) high, It took 5,000 workmen to construct it.

The exhibits included almost every marvel of the Victorian age, including pottery, porcelain, ironwork, furniture, perfumes, pianos, firearms, fabrics, steam hammers, hydraulic presses and even the odd house or two. The original aim had been a celebration of art in industry and for the benefit of all nations but in practice it appears to have turned into more of a showcase for British manufacturing: more than half the 100,000 exhibits on display were from Britain or the British Empire. The Times newspaper reckoned it would take someone 200 hours to see every exhibit. By the way, at this time, the city of Sheffield in England, manufactured half of all the steel produced in the world.

It was estimated that over 6 million people visited the exhibition in the six months it was open and one reason for this was the rapid expansion of the railways. Travel had become far easier.

The event actually made a small profit and Henry Cole used some of this to build a group of museums which now house the Science, Natural History and Victoria and Albert Museums, as well as the Imperial College of Science, the Royal Colleges of Art, Music and Organists and the Albert Hall.

The Exhibition had all modern facilities, including refreshment rooms where over a million bottles of soft drinks were sold. There was no alcohol allowed and no smoking and no dogs. There was filtered water and, for the first time, public lavatories were provided for the gentlemen and 'rest rooms' for the ladies. It was a unique experience at that time in our history and the first time that all countries of the world had come together in one place to show off their goods and produce.

Sadly the actual Crystal Palace was less successful. After the exhibition it was moved across London to a place on a hill in Sydenham, South East London. It was put to a variety of uses but, on 30 November 1936, the building was totally destroyed by fire.

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