History Society News – October 2021
We were very pleased to welcome a popular speaker, Geoffrey Kay, to the October meeting.
This time his talk was on the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the Crystal Palace and the illustrations, taken from periodicals of the time, really did the talk justice.
He based his talk on three heroes. Henry Cole was an entrepreneur who had the original idea for a trade exhibition. Prince Albert took the idea and ran with it, making it international. Joseph Paxton had the experience to build a glass structure as the building was to be temporary.
Queen Victoria gave permission to build in Hyde Park but did not want trees taken down so they were incorporated into the glasshouse. The whole exhibition was a triumph with the public and many visitors came to enjoy its wonders, although some art critics of the day had reservations about it. The exhibits were wide ranging and display was not a priority giving the whole thing the appearance of a posh car boot sale, according to Geoffrey!
After six months it was taken down and moved to Sydenham. Having been originally built in a few months, the rebuild took eleven years!
It eventually got shabby and dangerous, catching fire in 1936. Many of the design ideas were used in building the Albert Hall, the London Museums and the School of Art and many of the artefacts found a home in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Prince Albert died young, Henry Cole went on to become the first director of the V&A and Joseph Paxton became a workaholic with many grand ideas which did not come to fruition.
One of the members, Barrie Stevenson, brought along some of his collection of Victorian prints of the Crystal Palace and London which were admired and discussed after the talk.
The next meeting is on Tuesday 16th November when Mike Wabe will talk on an adaptation of The Little Christmas Ghost Story by Charles Dickens. Information from the secretary on 820052 or www.wickhambrook.org – local History Society