Illustration: Arcade from the oak screen work of stalls in the Choir at Winchester Cathedral.
The Great Exhibition of 1851 was the first international trade exhibition of its kind, certainly as far as scale and scope were concerned. It proved to be both a financial and public success, if not an entirely critical one. However, the Exhibition also released a number of unexpected aspirations, creating an atmosphere across much of Britain and Ireland that was to long outlast its physical nature. This took the form of a heightened and sustained interest in the educative aspect of the Exhibition, the expansion of knowledge, both historical and contemporary, that went hand in hand with the Exhibition itself and when the Exhibition did finally close, it continued through the 1850s and beyond, interest actually growing, rather than dispersing.
It is perhaps one of the great unforeseen benefits of the Great Exhibition that although its more obvious legacy can be seen in the founding of some of the great institutions of London such as the Museum of South Kensington, which later became the Victoria and Albert Museum, many towns and cities across Britain that had any conceivable connection with industry and trade, also felt the aspirational need for an institution and through that a connectedness to the larger contemporary world, in some cases for the first time. Institutions were organised and founded, some of a directly practical nature, others less so. However, these institutions were often focused venues for the leading ideas and beliefs of the contemporary industrial world. Practical classes were held in anything from fine art to mechanics, often depending on the industry of the town, and interestingly many institutes were founded with the intention of also running classes for women, even though many of these were initially domestically textile based rather than art or science based.
Illustration: Cornice design from the pedestal of Trajan's Column in Rome.
Institutes were also great venues for educational lectures and these were run by both national and local experts, critics and enthusiastic amateurs. The wealth of subject matter was admittedly eclectic, but at the same time informative, ranging from such titles as: The Manufacture of Iron; On the Kings and Courts of the Eighteenth Century; On the Application of Electricity to the Arts; On the Physiology of the Senses; Assyria, and the Buried Cities of Assyria and On the Advantages of Mechanics' Institutes in Cultivating the Mind. That many of these lectures were held at institutes in relatively small towns, not just the major ones, and often far from the capital, shows how the initial enthusiasm had spread from the original Great Exhibition.
Illustration: Design from the font in Cormac's Castle in Ireland.
Although there was much debate during the immediate aftermath of the euphoria set by the Great Exhibition, particularly as to the low self-esteem felt by critics of British manufacturing and design, there was in contrast a real ground-swell of positive enthusiasm for knowledge, both of the contemporary and historical world. To be fair some of this enthusiasm was aimed by the educated at what was considered the uneducated or minimally so, those that belonged to the large working majority which included both blue and white collar workers. There was also a certain reluctance on the part of audiences as the low turn outs for lecture series proved. Many institutes complained of a consistent lack of enthusiasm for their public lectures while their practical classes were always full. However, lectures tended to be very much a voluntary aspect of the institutions work, more so than the practical classes, even though there was a widespread determination in nineteenth century Britain that education should be seen as both a moral duty by the educator and a moral responsibility by the receiver, therefore the betterment of both the individual and the community was seen in some respects as the delayed remit of the Great Exhibition.
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Illustration: Diaper design from the Alhambra in Spain.
Venues for the discussion and promotion of aspects of the historical and contemporary world were not limited to Britain and Ireland. Enthusiasm was just as apparent in the various colonies and dominions that made up the British Empire many of whom had taken part in the Great Exhibition and wished to build on that initial participation, while also making perceived and necessary connections with Britain. The United States was also an enthusiastic participator in the positive aspects engendered by the Exhibition and there was a genuine interest in forging practical and intellectual links between institutes and organisations on both sides of the Atlantic.
As far as design and decorative criticism was concerned, the enthusiasm across Britain for education, often through the practical application of the town institute in whatever form seemed necessary for each individual case, did not by itself spread the interest in design and decoration history and its potential use in the contemporary world. However, the positive atmosphere created by both the Great Exhibition itself and the sustained enthusiasm after its closure, allowed for the continuation and expansion of detailed examinations of the world of design and decoration on a much wider scale and on a much more serious level than had been achieved before.
Illustration: The pulpit from Siena Cathedral in Italy.
By physically encouraging the involvement of the nation through the use of practical classes and topical lectures in so many venues across the country, a relatively new phenomenon had occurred, the encouragement of the ordinary individual to intellectually invest in the major contemporary industries of the day, as well as that of art, science and history, subjects that had been limited in previous generations to the privately educated aristocracy. Although many who turned up at institutes in the major cities and towns across the country were to remain locked within the tight boundaries set out by Britain's stifling class system, a system still very much alive today, they still provided a valuable and voluntary self-education facility, a means of providing a vehicle for the individual to discover their past, their present and their future worlds through the opportunity of education.
Education can often be seen as the lifeblood of self-empowerment, a means of breaking out of limited options or expectations, a way of understanding and handling the world as it really is and not as others would have us see it. Although this was often far from the end purpose perceived in the numerous lectures and classes promoted throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, it was also an inevitable outcome in the promotion of self-education and self-discovery, which in some respects was the great legacy of the Great Exhibition.
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