La tradition to celebrate trade fairs goes back to the Middle Ages; In its origins, this type of samples of artisanal products was of a local nature, and it was not until the end of the eighteenth century when, in the neighbor France, the idea arose of opening them to the nation, making it a participant in the new discoveries and inventions of the time.
Without following a specific periodicity, French exhibitions followed one another throughout the 19th century, assuming a inflection point la edition held in 1849.
A group of individuals of English origin met there and, being impressed by the dimensions of a fair that managed to bring together more than 4.000 objects in the same space, returned to London convinced of the convenience of emulating the French idea on English soil, where, Two years earlier, a modest national fair had been organized that managed to bring together more than 200 exhibitors and a more than 20.000 visitors.
Henry cole
That Thomas Cubitt who is credited with the idea of export the Parisian model to England, but it was Henry cole, another of those attending the French edition of 1849, who proposed an ambitious project whereby the exhibitions held in London would exceed the dimensions of those in Paris, being held in such emblematic settings as Trafalgar Square.
A project of such magnitude seemed unbearable for the Royal Commission of Fine Arts, so these personalities, together with the former Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, decided to involve the Monarchy itself, in the person of the Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria.
Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
The first Great Universal Exhibition It cannot be understood without the Prince Consort, and vice versa; This exhibition is materialization of the political thought of a man ahead of his time, who had managed to overcome all kinds of obstacles, both domestically and politically.
The historical figure of Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha is worthy of recognition outside the borders of Great Britain for his contributions to education, art, industry and the institution of the Monarchy itself.; maybe, its most unknown facet is internationalist, because in the activities and actions that he promoted and promoted his first and last objective is present, condensed in one of his mythical speeches, and this is none other than "the realization of the unity of mankind."
Alberto's life
Alberto was of German origin.
Nephew of the ambitious Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, King of the Belgians, the Prince, who from a very early age demonstrated a great intelligence and a strong inclination towards new technologies, art and music, received a very rich and careful education, something unusual for someone of his condition in the 19th century.
His father and uncle zealously drew up an educational plan that would prepare him to become a King Consort of the Queen of the nation that was called to be the first world power of the present and future centuries; Unlike many aristocrats, Alberto was a university student, studying at the University of Bonn and, like many students today, he completed his own Erasmus: we are referring to the Grand Tour of the main Italian cities, a kind of educational journey, whose beginnings date back to the 18th century, and which allowed him to observe in first person the works of the Great Masters of the Renaissance.
See: The great artists of the Renaissance
With all this educational and cultural background, a very young Alberto set foot in London in 1839 to marry his first cousin Victoria; However, the love that the inexperienced Queen felt for her fiancé was not extendable to the political class, who always despised and rejected Alberto's ideas: English politicians were suspicious of their constitutional powers and prerogatives, as well as of anything coming from Germany., and they always saw the young man as a threat, a foreigner with extravagant and open-minded ideas, which endangered both their power and the tradition of their country.
Sir Robert Peel
To the relief of the Prince, among the chauvinistic political class of the country that would welcome him for the rest of his life, he found a man in whom he recognized himself as a reformist and liberal politician, equally misunderstood among the ranks of the party in which he was active, the tory party.
Sir Robert Peel, in the context of the organization of trade fairs, was member of the Royal Commission on the Fine Arts y subcommittee leader in charge of addressing the accessibility of all people, especially workers, to advances in engineering and the arts.
And this was, furthermore, another of the fundamental pillars of Alberto's thought: improve the conditions of the working classes, to whom culture and education had to be brought closer.
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations
The crowning work of the Prince Consort is The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations, matter that is the subject of these lines; They aim to value and highlight Alberto's contributions to the present British Monarchy and to the very foundations of the liberal democracies of the 20th and 21st centuries.
These rest on the triad constituted by the economic growth, welfare of citizens and recognition and guarantee of rights and freedoms; It is these three premises that entail and encompass the set of works and ideas of Alberto, whose maximum expression is the organization of the first universal exhibition in history.
Great Exhibition of 1851
Cole, Cubitt, Peel and Francis Fuller approached the Prince to promote their project for a national fair that would surpass those in Paris.
Alberto's avid mind soon realized that the idea represented a platform on which to exhibit their model of the new Monarchy, supported by its solid principles, among which the defense of free trade and the English-style parliamentary system.
So things, Alberto conditioned his participation on the fair's ambition not being limited to the borders of the United Kingdom., but it was open to all nations of the world, becoming a space in which to share the knowledge of all Humanity.
By exposing such an approach, the Prince was putting his own position and reputation in his wife's England at risk. However, it was thanks to his exhausting work and his involvement in a project that he turned into his personal bet, which made it possible for him to even today The Great Exhibition of 1851 is indisputably associated with his name.
“Peace, love and ready assistance, not only between individuals, but between the nations of the earth”
The debates surrounding the objective of the company that Alberto was preparing to undertake demonstrated that this young man of only thirty-one years old had the ambition to give substance to his most solid principles, and thus, the Great Exhibition should aspire to achievepeace, love and ready assistance, not only between individuals, but between the nations of the earth".
The size of the project called for a large space in which to house the creations of modernity, so, convinced that the most suitable location was the heart of London, what was next pursued was to spare future attendees the images of misery. indissoluble with the world of smoke that the social and economic progress of the Industrial Revolution brought with it; And in the center of the British capital, there were many neighborhoods that exuded the most extreme poverty.
Rain of criticism
In this way, Cole proposed Hyde Park, being seconded by Alberto himself; However, this point quickly became the subject of criticism from both the press and the most radical Tories: both parties alleged that the monstrous idea of this German Prince would destroy the century-old trees in the park, which is why, they maintained, the name of the Queen's husband would end up linked to the pollution and desecration of the Royal House itself, since the park was (and is) inserted in this park. Buckingham Palace, through whose surroundings foreigners and criminals would travel.
The harsh and discouraging criticism would continue, from then on, until the day of the inauguration.
Accusation of the death of Sir Robert Peel
In 1850,, accusing the death of Sir Robert Peel, one of the few friends he found in a country that repudiated him, a tired Alberto seriously considers abandoning a project that only had detractors.
Having selected Hyde Park as the venue for the event, the next point to discuss was the design of the building that would house such an exhibition.
A competition was opened to find building models that fit both the affordable cost and aesthetic expectations: 245 applications were submitted, 38 of them foreign; proceeding to a preselection of 18 designs, only three came from English architects, which provoked strong and harsh criticism from the press.
To make matters worse, the proposals were outside the established budget.
James Patxon
It was at this moment that he appeared on the scene. James Paxton, designer of a lily greenhouse, built entirely using iron and glass, known as Lily House.
Passing through London to review the works of the House of Commons, Paxton proposes to the subcommittee in charge of organizing the event his greenhouse model a economic proposal that would only involve the disbursement of £88.000 of the £141.000 budgeted; Likewise, with it, the fiercest critics, supposed defenders of the park's flora, were silenced, since the proposed design allowed Hyde Park's trees to be housed inside.
It is the famous Crystal Palace, which was erected in just twenty two weeks, and in whose construction Alberto himself participated, being in charge of the painting, both inside and outside of the building that has become a symbol of architectural avant-garde, of the industrial world and of modernity; a mass of glass 34 meters high, 600 meters long and 120 meters wide, which, unfortunately, was consumed by flames in 1936.
1851 – Opening of the Great Exhibition to the public
At last, the 1 May 1851, the Great Exhibition opens its doors to the public, producing something unusual until now, since The Queen of England and her husband rubbed shoulders with the public, walking at their side; a fact that, to this day, is a source of pride in the United Kingdom.
From that day until the closing on October 15, more than six million people passed through those imposing walls wrought of iron and glass; All of this thanks to Alberto's idea of establishing rates in the price of tickets for workers, and exempting the poor from paying, who would thus have access to the venue and all the wonders it held within.
The benefits derived from the success achieved by this work, expression of political and commercial openness that characterized the husband of Queen Victoria, have served so that, even today, the group of museums and educational institutions in south London continue to be financed with the collection achieved.
Progress to the lower classes
The Great Universal Exhibition represents, well, the materialization of Alberto's ideology, who brought progress to the lower classes, making them see that they were part of it and that they could benefit; and who showed that new technologies could contribute to improving the social conditions of the most disadvantaged, and proof of this is the sample of the prototype of apartment blocks, an idea emanating from the mind of the Prince himself.
Alberto taught how free trade and the free market could constitute the bases of international cooperation, since his great desire was the establishment of peace in Europe.
1945
However, as happens today, the scourge of the most reactionary nationalisms It prevented the virtues and teachings of this Prince from gaining value.
We would have to wait until 1945 so that bases that supported and erected the Crystal Palace inspired the policies of the main politicians and international leaders; Two world wars had to devastate Europe and terrify the world so that institutions like the UN, or supranational organizations like the European Union, whose banner is multilateralism and international cooperation, gained prominence in the international sphere.
Even so, the idea of organizing an exhibition of these characteristics annually has been going on since 1851, and Spain can boast of having hosted several of them, the most recent being the one popularly known as Exhibition of Seville in 1992, or that of Zaragoza, which took place in 2008.
Sources:Chancellor,
FB (1931). Prince Consort. New York: L. MacVeagh, The Dial press.
Martin, T. (1875). The life of His Royal Highness the Prince consort. Volume II. London: Smith, Elder, & co.
Merino Roselló, A. (2020). A European King without a Crown. The versatile Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Madrid: King Juan Carlos University.
Rhodes James, R. (2017). Prince Albert. A biography. London: Pan Macmillan.
Wilson, A. (2019). Prince Albert, the man who saved the Monarchy. London: Atlantic Books Ltd.
Sine historia jurisprudencia caeca est.
Graduated in Law, master's degree in European Studies and master's degree in Protocol and Institutional Communication, my true passion is History, which I consider the most useful tool to understand both national and international law, as well as the current world order. I enjoy discovering History through the lives of the monarchs who once led the main European Royal Houses.
I am passionate about seeing and knowing, the passion you feel for history, a very good article, you are a crack ALBA, keep it up, kisses and see you soon, in Calpe