Five Things Even a Modern Woman Would Have Been Shocked to Find in the Crystal Palace!
The Great Exhibition of 1851, also known as the Crystal Palace Exhibition, was the first of the world’s fairs. A massively successful and influential event, it took place in a specially constructed, great glasshouse in Hyde Park in London. The brain child of Prince Albert, his friend and inventor Henry Cole and various committees of scientific and economic experts, the Exhibition attracted over six million visitors from the world over.
The event was meant to showcase modern industrial advances as well as art and design. Visitors were awed by the newest technologies, along with gorgeous sculpture, models, furniture, jewels, linen, stained glass and ornamental everything. They oohed and awed over marvels from across Britain and its colonies as well as forty-four other nations. It occurred so long ago, but if we could visit from today, we would be surprised at some of the exhibits—some for their strangeness and some if only because we might not have expected them to be prominent so far in the past.
Fizzy Water
Today’s consumers are all about flavored bubbling waters, but many visitors at the Exhibition were shocked to try them for the first time. Jacob Schweppe had developed fizzy mineral waters and touted their health benefits. He received his first Royal Warrant from King William IV. Young Princess Victoria loved his products and renewed his warrant when she gained the throne. Her husband, Prince Albert, and his committees granted the Schweppes company the privilege to sell their products at the refreshment rooms in the Crystal Palace—for a cool £ 5,500. And sell them, he did—over one million bottles! The great fountain under the barrel vault inside the palace was reputed to be filled with his mineral water and perfumed. The fountain is still a part of the company logo, all these years later.
The First Pay Restrooms
If you are drinking lots of fizzy water, you are going to need a restroom! Visitors inside the Crystal Palace were shocked and titillated to encounter the world’s first pay toilets. You paid a penny and besides a clean toilet, you received a towel, a comb and a shoeshine. Over 820,000 visitors paid to use them.
A Collection of Corsets
Today’s young ladies might be used to cruising by the lingerie/underwear boutique at the mall, but in Victorian times, a lady didn’t even mention her underwear—literally calling them unmentionables when she had to speak of them at all.
But Roxey Ann Caplin was a corset maker who had an exhibit in the Crystal Palace. Married to a medical doctor, she consulted with her husband to fashion corsets that were fitted specially to each customer and designed to support freer movement and even exercise. Mrs. Caplin set up a collection of twenty-three corsets, following all the phases of a woman’s life, from childhood through pregnancy and on to old age. Several of the corsets she showed at the Exhibition are in the Museum of London now. Mrs. Caplin received an award at the end of the Exhibition, to recognize her status as a Manufacturer, Designer and Inventor for corset designs. She continued to advocate for women and their health, writing books and opening special gymnasiums to encourage exercise.
Weather Predictor
There were many technological marvels at the Great Exhibition, including an advanced telescope, the world’s first six shooter, hydraulic jacks, and a mechanized press printing the day’s edition of The Times. But one of the strangest had to be the Tempest Prognositicator.
A Dr. Merryweather—you can’t make this up!—knew that leeches, kept in a jar, will swim upwards and even try to crawl out if they sense a drop in barometric pressure. He created a device with twelve leeches in jars. When the creatures sensed a storm coming, their antics would trigger a bell to ring to warn of the approaching weather.
Celebrity Sightings
The Great Exhibition was famous far and wide. It ran from May to October and six million visitors came from all over the world. It represented a chance for the lower orders to mix with the higher echelons of Society and for workers and ordinary people to rub elbows with the celebrities of the day. Queen Victoria visited the Exhibition thirty-seven times. Other distinguished visitors included Charles Darwin, Lewis Carroll, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens and Alfred Lord Tennyson.
A grand success overall, the Great Exhibition raised enough money to fund three museums: The Victoria and Albert, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum. Other profits were used to set up scholarships and grants for those furthering industrial research. They continue to be awarded to this day.
The event was meant to showcase modern industrial advances as well as art and design. Visitors were awed by the newest technologies, along with gorgeous sculpture, models, furniture, jewels, linen, stained glass and ornamental everything. They oohed and awed over marvels from across Britain and its colonies as well as forty-four other nations. It occurred so long ago, but if we could visit from today, we would be surprised at some of the exhibits—some for their strangeness and some if only because we might not have expected them to be prominent so far in the past.
Fizzy Water
Today’s consumers are all about flavored bubbling waters, but many visitors at the Exhibition were shocked to try them for the first time. Jacob Schweppe had developed fizzy mineral waters and touted their health benefits. He received his first Royal Warrant from King William IV. Young Princess Victoria loved his products and renewed his warrant when she gained the throne. Her husband, Prince Albert, and his committees granted the Schweppes company the privilege to sell their products at the refreshment rooms in the Crystal Palace—for a cool £ 5,500. And sell them, he did—over one million bottles! The great fountain under the barrel vault inside the palace was reputed to be filled with his mineral water and perfumed. The fountain is still a part of the company logo, all these years later.
The First Pay Restrooms
If you are drinking lots of fizzy water, you are going to need a restroom! Visitors inside the Crystal Palace were shocked and titillated to encounter the world’s first pay toilets. You paid a penny and besides a clean toilet, you received a towel, a comb and a shoeshine. Over 820,000 visitors paid to use them.
A Collection of Corsets
Today’s young ladies might be used to cruising by the lingerie/underwear boutique at the mall, but in Victorian times, a lady didn’t even mention her underwear—literally calling them unmentionables when she had to speak of them at all.
But Roxey Ann Caplin was a corset maker who had an exhibit in the Crystal Palace. Married to a medical doctor, she consulted with her husband to fashion corsets that were fitted specially to each customer and designed to support freer movement and even exercise. Mrs. Caplin set up a collection of twenty-three corsets, following all the phases of a woman’s life, from childhood through pregnancy and on to old age. Several of the corsets she showed at the Exhibition are in the Museum of London now. Mrs. Caplin received an award at the end of the Exhibition, to recognize her status as a Manufacturer, Designer and Inventor for corset designs. She continued to advocate for women and their health, writing books and opening special gymnasiums to encourage exercise.
Weather Predictor
There were many technological marvels at the Great Exhibition, including an advanced telescope, the world’s first six shooter, hydraulic jacks, and a mechanized press printing the day’s edition of The Times. But one of the strangest had to be the Tempest Prognositicator.
A Dr. Merryweather—you can’t make this up!—knew that leeches, kept in a jar, will swim upwards and even try to crawl out if they sense a drop in barometric pressure. He created a device with twelve leeches in jars. When the creatures sensed a storm coming, their antics would trigger a bell to ring to warn of the approaching weather.
Celebrity Sightings
The Great Exhibition was famous far and wide. It ran from May to October and six million visitors came from all over the world. It represented a chance for the lower orders to mix with the higher echelons of Society and for workers and ordinary people to rub elbows with the celebrities of the day. Queen Victoria visited the Exhibition thirty-seven times. Other distinguished visitors included Charles Darwin, Lewis Carroll, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens and Alfred Lord Tennyson.
A grand success overall, the Great Exhibition raised enough money to fund three museums: The Victoria and Albert, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum. Other profits were used to set up scholarships and grants for those furthering industrial research. They continue to be awarded to this day.