494 International Exhibitions. [Oct., 



Royale d'Emulation of Abbeville,' boldly recommended the holding 

 of an 'Exposition Universelle' in the year 1834, in an address 

 which he then delivered to the Society. The Prince Consort was 

 the first to take the Society of Arts' plan for an enlarged national 

 display in hand, and to mould it into an universal exhibition ; and, 

 at a meeting held at Buckingham Palace, on the 29th June, 1849, 

 he suggested the four great divisions of Raw Material — Machinery 

 and Mechanical Inventions — Manufactures — and Sculpture and 

 Plastic Art, of which he proposed the Great Exhibition should 

 consist. In July of the same year a general outline of a plan of 

 operations was drawn up, and after they had become more matured, 

 meetings were held in fifty towns ; and by January, 1850, the names 

 of sixty thousand influential persons had been obtained as supporters 

 of the great plan. At a banquet at the Mansion House, in May, 

 1850, the Prince Consort stated that the proposed collection and 

 exhibition in one building of the works of industry of all nations 

 was " to give a true test and a living picture of the point of deve- 

 lopment at which the whole of mankind had arrived in this great 

 task, and a new starting point from which all nations will be able 

 to direct their further exertions." 



Upon the presentation of reports prepared under the direction 

 of the Society of Arts, a Eoyal Commission was issued, in January, 



1850, in order to carry out all the necessary details of arrangement 

 for accomplishing the great object in view. The ultimate result 

 was the establishment of the Exhibition in Hyde Park, in the year 



1851. The design for the building — which still exists in the Crystal 

 Palace at Sydenham — was made by the late Sir Joseph Paxton, 

 and its erection was entrusted, under contract, to Messrs. Fox and 

 Henderson. The Exhibition was opened on 1st May and closed on 

 15th October 1851. After settling ail claims, the Commissioners 

 found themselves in possession of surplus funds amounting to 

 213,305/. 15s. 8d., which was subsequently invested in the "Gore 

 House Estate," and other property at South Kensington. 



The great financial and general success of the Exhibition of 

 1851 naturally encouraged the repetition of such displays all over 

 the world. There was the Cork Exhibition in 1852; two were 

 started simultaneously in 1853, one in New York, and the other in 

 Dublin, both of which were universal exhibitions. The Munich 

 Exhibition came next, in 1854 ; this display was not international 

 in the broadest sense, but the whole of Germany was allowed to 

 take part in the competition. The twelfth Exhibition in Paris 

 followed this in 1855, which was the first great French Inter- 

 national Exhibition. It imitated very closely the plan of 1851. 

 The exhibitors, although showing a decrease upon those of 1851 in 

 London, showed a marked increase upon those of the eleventh 

 French Exposition in 1849 ; and the building in which it was held 



