Religion and the Great Exhibition of 1851

R E L I G I O N A N D T H E GR E A T E X H I B I T I O N O F 1 8 5 1

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Religion and the Great Exhibition of 1851 GEOFFREY CANTOR

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York # Geoffrey Cantor 2011 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by MPG Books Group, Bodmin and King’s Lynn ISBN 978–0–19–959667–6 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Contents List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations Preface and Acknowledgements

vii ix x

Introduction The religious landscape in 1851 1. Fears and Dangers Religion under siege: the threat from—and to—foreigners Protestantism under siege: the threat from Catholicism Biblical prophecies: the Tower of Babel and Belshazzar’s Feast

1 10 19 21 27 30

2. Preparing for the Exhibition Organizing the Exhibition The prize essay competition Guides to London and the Exhibition The opening ceremony

41 41 53 57 63

3. Religious Organizations Religious services and other facilities for visitors Publications directed at visitors Religious societies as exhibitors

72 73 80 89

4. On Display: The Building, Its Contents, and English Protestantism The Crystal Palace Its contents Protestantism on display

102 102 110 124

5. Things Seen and Unseen Things seen: ‘The Earth is the Lord’s’ Things unseen: ‘Love not the World’

128 129 137

6. Catholic, Secular, and Jewish Perceptions Roman Catholic reactions The secular temple Jewish responses

144 144 151 157

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Contents

7. Paradise Regained Compensating for Babel The unity of nations, progress, and the millennium Internationalism and pacifism The 1851 Peace Congress

166 166 169 174 183

8. The Exhibition: Close and Retrospect The closing ceremonies Religious diversity

188 188 196

Bibliography Index

205 219

List of Illustrations 1. Handbill: ‘EVERY EYE SHALL SEE HIM’

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2. Frightened out of their wits by foreigners

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3. Masthead of John Bull

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4. Father Gavazzi

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5. John Martin’s powerful evocation of Belshazzar’s Feast

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6. Banquet at the Mansion House on 21 March 1851

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7. Joseph Van Halle’s lace and gold embroidery

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8. Emerton’s Moral and Religious Guide

56

9. Christian Visitor’s Hand-book

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10. Sanscrit rendition of Martin Tupper’s Hymn for All Nations

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11. Memorial of the Great Exhibition

62

12. The Archbishop of Canterbury’s benediction

65

13. The Archbishop in procession following the opening ceremony

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14. Exeter Hall, 1841

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15. An Address to Foreigners—in Dutch

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16. Advertisement placed by the Religious Tract Society in the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue

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17. The Religious Tract Society’s stand inside the Crystal Palace

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18. Map of ground floor, west, of the Crystal Palace

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19. Bible on display in Class XVII

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20. The Crystal Palace

103

21. Workmen constructing the building

105

22. Medieval Court

113

23. Custodia from Lima Cathedral

115

24. Koh-i-noor diamond

117

25. Prince Albert’s model lodging house

120

26. Crucifix on display in the French section

121

27. Francis Walter’s moral and religious clock

122

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List of Illustrations

28. Frontispiece of Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue

131

29. Title page of the Official Catalogue

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30. Lord Ashley

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31. Testimonial presented to Sir Moses Montefiore

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32. Staffel’s calculating machine

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33. The Greek Slave

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34. A display of guns

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35. David Brewster addressing the Peace Congress in Exeter Hall

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List of Abbreviations BFBS CWCC

British and Foreign Bible Society Central Working Classes Committee

FCEC RTS SPCK YMCA

Foreign Conference and Evangelisation Committee Religious Tract Society Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Young Men’s Christian Association

Preface and Acknowledgements In my first semester as a post-doctoral student at Indiana University I attended an introductory course on Victorian history offered by the Victorian Studies department and taught by Eric Sigsworth, a visiting lecturer from the University of York. His first session devoted to the Great Exhibition unwittingly sowed the seed from which this book emerged more than four decades later. Although my subsequent career trajectory was in the History and Philosophy of Science, it was always my intention to return to the Great Exhibition. My education in Victorian Studies was further enhanced by a subsequent visitor to Indiana University, Roy MacLeod, who at that time held a post at the University of Sussex. Roy taught a superb course on Victorian science for which he earns my abiding gratitude, which should also be extended to include Lindsay Farrell, Terry Shinn, and Stephen Straker, who likewise participated in the weekly discussion group. I spent most of my professional life at the University of Leeds working with a group of congenial colleagues—John Christie, Steve French, Graeme Gooday, Jonathan Hodge, Chris Kenny, Greg Radick, Jonathan Topham, and Adrian Wilson—who provided both friendship and intellectual stimulation. In the wider academic community I have greatly benefited from interacting with many other scholars, especially Historians of Science, including John Hedley Brooke, Hasok Chang, Gowan Dawson, Thomas Dixon, Noah Efron, Menachem Fisch, the late David Gooding, Frank James, Larry Laudan, Bernie Lightman, Jack Morrell, Richard Noakes, Ron Numbers, Jerry Ravetz, Norbert Samuelson, Jim Secord, Sally Shuttleworth, Jacqui Stewart, Marc Swetlitz, and Paul Wood. They have all enriched my understanding of history and have thus influenced this book, some more directly than others. Moreover, working with other members of the SciPer (Science in the Nineteenth Century Periodicals) Project, which I co-directed with Sally Shuttleworth, greatly enhanced my appreciation of the value of periodicals as historical sources. Although my early research was directed principally to the history of nineteenth-century British science, I repeatedly found that the scientists whom I studied had deep religious commitments that were often highly relevant to their scientific activities. In researching Michael Faraday, Sandemanian and Scientist, published in 1991, I began to address the historical interrelations between science and religion. In the present secular age, however, most historians—myself included—possess neither the experience nor the training to enable them to appreciate the depth and significance of religion in earlier and more religious epochs. In this present analysis of religious

Preface and Acknowledgements

xi

perceptions of the Great Exhibition I have therefore drawn heavily and gratefully on historians of religion, such as David Bebbington, Clyde Binfield, Boyd Hilton, and Frank Turner in order to gain some appreciation—however imperfect—of the religious mindset of the mid-nineteenth century. The reader will find discussion of a wide range of religious positions, which I have attempted to address from an impartial stance. But unfamiliarity with the religious landscape of earlier periods is not the only problem facing contemporary historians. Within British academia there has been a strong but largely implicit opposition to religion which often results in an undervaluing of the role of religion in earlier periods and thus risks imposing a secular bias upon our understanding of history. Although this predisposition is perhaps inevitable, recognition of that bias should encourage historians to take religion more seriously, not less. In writing this book I am particularly grateful to Malcolm Chase, Diarmid Finnegan, Nick Fisher, Aileen Fyfe, Robert Geraci, Tony Simcock, Sujit Sivasundaram, Jonathan Topham, and the two referees who reviewed the book for Oxford University Press for providing helpful suggestions, advice, and feedback on the contents of this book. This research was facilitated by access to the rich holdings of many libraries and archives. My most extensive debt over many years has been to the library staff at Leeds University, especially Chris Sheppard, Oliver Pickering, and their colleagues in Special Collections and also to Geoffrey Forster and his assistants at the Leeds Library. Angela Kenny has given stalwart help with the archives of the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 and I am likewise indebted to the archivists and librarians at the National Art Library, the British Library, Cambridge University Library, the Library of the Religious Society of Friends in Britain, Special Libraries and Archives at the University of Aberdeen, the Guildhall Library, the University of Michigan Library, the New Britain Public Library (Connecticut), the Hartley Library (University of Southampton), Imperial College, London, University College, London, and SOAS. A travel grant from the British Society for the History of Science enabled me to visit some of the London libraries when I was still living in Yorkshire. For permission to quote material and/or reproduce illustrations I gratefully acknowledge the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851; the Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum; the Bible Society Library, Cambridge University Library; the Trustees of the Broadlands Archives; the Library of the Religious Society of Friends in Britain; the Trustees of the British Library; Special Collections, UCL Library Services; Archives, Imperial College Library; Local History Room, New Britain Public Library, and Feed the Minds. My grateful thanks go to Tom Perridge, Lizzie Robottom, Emma Barber, Charles Lauder, and their colleagues at Oxford University Press for their generous assistance and advice. Last, but by no means least, I am indebted to my wife, Barbara, whose unstinting help and support made this book possible.

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Introduction We all know—or at least think we know—about the Great Exhibition of 1851. Standing symbolically at the very middle of the nineteenth century, it connotes the optimism of the Victorian period and the ineluctable progress in science, technology, and manufacturing that has come to characterize today’s world. Many of the well-known illustrations of the Exhibition draw attention to such exhibits as the steam engine, the combine harvester, and the mechanical loom—the very technologies that formed the basis of the increasingly industrialized society in which we live. Paxton’s light and airy Crystal Palace likewise evokes modernity in its architecture and is reminiscent of the buildings that occupy today’s cityscapes. It was also the precursor of many subsequent exhibitions, such as the 1893 World Fair in Chicago and the 1951 Festival of Britain. From all these perspectives the Great Exhibition looks comfortingly modern so that we can readily relate to it. It takes no great leap of the imagination to envisage ourselves wandering through the Crystal Palace and staring with admiration at Osler’s crystal fountain and the rows upon rows of luxurious goods on display. Yet historians rightly insist that we should be critical of reconstructions that portray past events simply as antecedents to the present. Such readings often lead to anachronistic interpretations of the past; on closer inspection the past usually looks increasingly unfamiliar and subject to its own contemporary concerns, not ours. One recent book stands out from the extensive historical literature on the Great Exhibition as particularly sophisticated in its approach and wide-ranging in its scope. In his The Great Exhibition of 1851: A Nation on Display Jeffrey Auerbach is careful not to restrict the Exhibition’s historical meaning by imposing a teleological perspective of the kind suggested above but instead recognizes that it ‘was throughout a protean event, its meaning diffuse and subjective’.1 Every social group—indeed, each individual—forged its own narratives in comprehending, describing, and assessing that most 1 Auerbach, Great Exhibition, 56. Auerbach has developed this theme in his ‘Introduction’ to Auerbach and Hoffenberg, Britain, the Empire, and the World. See also Purbrick, Great Exhibition, 1–19.

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public and pivotal event in mid-nineteenth-century British—if not world— history. Yet despite an extensive secondary literature on the Exhibition historians have paid scant attention to the perceptions and reactions of some of the most important and influential communities of the period—religious communities.2 Given the centrality of religion in the lives of Victorians, in the art and literature of the period, and in the machinery of state, it would be surprising if religion did not play a significant role in the history of the Exhibition. What, then, were the religious responses to the massive glass and iron structure erected in Hyde Park, the thousands of exhibits garnered from the four corners of the earth, and the large numbers of foreign visitors— including many ‘heathens’—who flocked to London and clogged it streets? In seeking to answer these questions the present study offers a reassessment of the historical significance of the Great Exhibition by interpreting it as a religious event or, more precisely, an event possessing many diverse religious dimensions. At first sight this may seem an unlikely topic since, according to Prince Albert and other prominent proponents, the Exhibition was ostensibly concerned with exhibiting material artefacts and was clearly intended to advance trade and industry, not religion. It was, after all, the Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations. What could be more secular than Joseph Paxton’s immense iconic building of glass and iron? The exhibits were likewise material objects—principally the products of manual labour, ranging from steam-powered looms to fine embroidery and from kitchen stoves to carefully sculpted statues—including a wide variety of raw materials. Although most accounts of the Exhibition mention that the Archbishop of Canterbury intoned a dedicatory prayer at the opening ceremony, this is generally viewed simply as an example of the Victorian predilection for involving the Church in state pageantry. However, the Archbishop’s prayer, which was applauded by some sections of the religious press and utterly condemned by others, was only 2 Four collections of essays have recently been published on the Exhibition, but none of their chapters addresses directly religious responses to the Exhibition: See Auerbach and Hoffenberg, Britain, the Empire and the World; Bennett, Brockmann, and Filmer-Sankey, Die Weltausstellung; Buzard, Childers, and Gillooly, Victorian Prism; Purbrick, Great Exhibition. The only exceptions are Nick Fisher’s paper ‘Who Really Needed the Idea of Progress?’, John P. Burris’s Exhibiting Religion, and Paul Young’s Globalization and the Great Exhibition. Burris’s main thesis is that in the period 1851–93 international exhibitions provided an important meeting point for different cultures and a focus for an emerging concern with the comparative study of religion. His chapter on the 1851 Exhibition (23–62, esp. 49–59) engages some of the issues discussed in the present study. Young seeks to show that the Exhibition was an exemplar of globalization, involving the ‘integration of all global communities into a supposedly free-and-open world economy’ powered by industrial capitalism (4). Although he briefly discusses (47–53) a few of the religious commentators examined in the following chapters and recognizes that some of them supported ‘globalization’ with religious arguments, he does not appreciate the religious lines of reasoning underpinning their views or the deep historical divisions within mid-nineteenth-century Christianity. He also misidentifies William Forster, the Congregationalist minister, as a ‘Quaker minister’ (155).

Introduction

3

the most visible instance of the extensive religious engagement with the Exhibition beginning in the autumn of 1849 and extending at least until its close in mid-October 1851. Like the Archbishop, Albert embedded his own vision of the Exhibition within a religious framework—as we shall see Albert’s brief allusions to the Exhibition’s religious significance were enthusiastically welcomed by most religious commentators. Moreover, for vast numbers of its contemporaries, the Exhibition was not to be understood solely in terms of material exhibits or its purported objective of boosting manufacturing industries through international cooperation; instead this celebration of the material world was viewed through a religious lens and it was often perceived in relation to the life of the spirit and the prospect of life hereafter—at least for those who sought salvation. The putative religious significance of the Exhibition became a pressing and recurrent topic in sermons and pamphlets as clergymen and others struggled to make religious sense of this unique event in their midst. The sheer volume of primary source material available on this topic indicates the prominence of religious issues among contemporary reactions to the Exhibition. Hundreds of sermons were delivered in pulpits throughout Britain, especially on 4 May 1851, the Sunday following the magnificent opening ceremony, and more than fifty of these sermons were subsequently published. Special guides to London were produced to enable visitors to the Exhibition to appreciate the religious life of the metropolis and, if away from home on the Sabbath, to select an appropriate church or chapel in which to worship. Numerous religious books, pamphlets, and handbills were also produced to coincide with the Exhibition (for example the handbill shown in Figure 1), including tracts issued by religious publishing organizations, such as the Religious Tract Society (RTS), the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS), and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK). Many of these publications advised British Christians how to respond to the Exhibition, while others were addressed to visitors, both Christian and otherwise, informing them that Britain is a Protestant country where the Bible is revered and the holiness of the Sabbath is respected. Faced with the prospect of large numbers of visitors residing in London, several evangelical and missionary societies expended significant amounts of money and considerable effort in trying to save their souls. For some evangelicals the Exhibition appeared divinely ordained with the intention of bringing numerous visitors to London for the purpose of conversion. Moreover, the exhibits were not limited to those gross material objects that would appeal to the physical senses but also included Bibles for spiritual nourishment. The BFBS and RTS even succeeded in mounting stands inside the Crystal Palace itself and were thus included among the authorized exhibitors listed in the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue.

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Religion and the Great Exhibition of 1851

Figure 1 This handbill distributed to visitors was also published in Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and three Arabic languages. A private address appears at the foot of one of the English copies, suggesting that the handbill was produced by an individual, rather than by a religious society. Reproduced with permission of V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum.

Introduction

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The burgeoning religious periodical press, which by mid-century had become a major sector of the publishing industry, carried extensive commentary on the Exhibition. The combination of improved technology and a reduction in the stamp tax levied on newspapers had resulted in a proliferation of newspaper and periodical titles during the late 1830s and the 1840s. An estimated 149 religious periodicals were published in London alone during the years 1841 to 1851, and these constituted 17.6% of the metropolis’s periodical publications.3 Thus by 1851 most religious denominations, sects, and factions possessed or were closely associated with specific periodical publications.4 Although a few religious periodicals were determined to ignore it—which, in itself, is a noteworthy reaction—most addressed some aspects of the Great Exhibition and in many cases carried significant numbers of articles, including editorials and other commentary, on this most prominent contemporary event. As a contributor to the Baptist Magazine noted, one ‘can scarcely take up a newspaper, read a periodical, listen to an address, or hold conversation with a friend, but he finds reference is made to the well known building— the Crystal Palace’. Likewise, the author of a tract opposing the Exhibition reported that it ‘heads every new periodical and shows itself on every lucifer match box’.5 The religious press carried articles that not only reported on the construction of the Crystal Palace, its manifold contents, and the magnificent opening ceremony, but also frequently assessed the religious significance of the Exhibition and advised members of the respective denominations or sects how they should comprehend the happenings in Hyde Park. The correspondence and diaries of religious contemporaries, such as the Earls of Shaftesbury and of Sheffield, are also useful sources for ascertaining their personal views on the Exhibition and its significance for religion. Indeed, the ubiquity of the Exhibition compelled writers from across the religious spectrum to reflect on its meaning. Religious reactions to the Exhibition addressed a number of issues, including the problem of finding language appropriate for describing contemporaries’ experiences when visiting this singular event. ‘The character of this Exhibition’, wrote one Independent minister, ‘is altogether peculiar, not to say unique’. ‘[W]e behold a new thing in the earth.’ Even the Free Church Magazine, which was not given to hyperbole, struggled to describe the 3 Altholz, Religious Press in Britain, 1–13, esp. 2. This figure does not include the many periodicals that may not have been primarily religious but were strongly oriented to a religious viewpoint, such as the Tory, High Church Quarterly Review. 4 In his 1853 review of contemporary ‘Church Parties’ in the Edinburgh Review (p. 334), William Daniel Conybeare pointed out that the Broad Church was not an organized church party and was ‘even destitute of that instrument, which every factional subdivision of the smallest sects possesses, an organ in the periodical press’. 5 Standen Pearce, ‘The Crystal Palace’, Baptist Magazine 43 (1851), 545–51, on 545; Anon., England’s Doom, 3.

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Religion and the Great Exhibition of 1851

building and concluded its account by claiming that ‘it is more like a dream or enchanted vision. The seven ancient “wonders of the world,” if brought together, would have cut a poor figure beside the Great Exhibition.’ Most visitors, like this twenty-three-year-old Scottish woman, struggled to find an appropriate vocabulary: ‘All attempt at description would be vain; it is beyond anything I had anticipated—a wonder of the world! . . . For a long time I was quite dazzled.’6 She fought for words, but the Exhibition far transcended the repertoire she had gleaned from her past experience. Likewise, reflecting on the contemporary periodical press, the literary historian Isobel Armstrong has noted that in their ‘reporting on the Crystal Palace [journalists and other writers] write as if the unprecedented scopic experience has reorganized the senses and exempted the building from ordinary rules of perception and judgement’.7 Yet, in seeking to make sense of the Exhibition, Christians often invoked certain passages from the Bible that illuminated its significance in the context of biblical history. For example, some students of prophecy conceived a strong similarity between Belshazzar’s Feast, as related in the Book of Daniel, and the godless celebration of material wealth being held in Hyde Park. Not surprisingly, they considered that the Crystal Palace would suffer a fate similar to Belshazzar’s Babylon. For more moderate evangelicals, however, the most appropriate biblical passages were to be found in the Book of Revelation, which predicted that, like the Crystal Palace, the heavenly city would be constructed of ‘pure gold, like unto clear glass’ (Rev. 21:18). From this perspective the Crystal Palace could be located within an existing prophetic framework in which it could be interpreted as an earthly prototype of the new heavenly Jerusalem. These two examples aptly illustrate how the Exhibition could be rendered within a biblical framework and also the very different biblical images it evoked for those maintaining dissimilar religious stances. The very materiality of the Crystal Palace and its extensive display of material artefacts—the largest ever seen—also raised some significant issues for those of spiritual sensibility. Although some Christians condemned the Exhibition as a prime example of rank materialism, many clergymen struggled to identify the spiritual meanings underlying what otherwise appeared to be a temple dedicated to matter and to Mammon. A second, and related, concern was that the Exhibition, as a celebration of humankind’s mastery over nature, encouraged overweening pride in human achievement. The Exhibition was therefore a source of sin. While some religious writers were repelled by these

6 Clayton, Great Exhibition, 4 and 14; ‘The Great Exhibition’, Free Church Magazine 8 (1851), 202–5, on 203; Story, Early Reminiscences, 161. See also Flower, Great Exhibition 3; ‘A Glance at the Exhibition’, Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal 15 (1851), 337–40, on 337; Armstrong, Victorian Glassworlds, 150–1. 7 Ibid. 142.

Introduction

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facets of the Exhibition, others sought to address these issues using a variety of intellectual resources in order to make the Exhibition acceptable to Christians. Indeed, for many, the Great Exhibition was a timely celebration of God’s providence and an undoubted boon to Christianity. But the religious parameters of the Great Exhibition were not confined to the building and its contents. Large numbers of foreigners flocked to London to accompany their exhibits or merely to visit the Exhibition. Many were not members of Protestant Churches, but included Jews, Muslims, Catholics, and ‘heathens’, so-called. Their presence in London raised several issues. Did these foreigners pose a threat to English Protestantism or was their convergence on London an unrivalled opportunity to facilitate mass conversions? Also, what did it mean in prophetic terms to gather the nations, especially in the light of such texts as Genesis 11:1–9, which describes a not dissimilar gathering at Babel? Far more subtle and personal questions also surfaced. For example, members of the congregation at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, were asked by Charles Kingsley in his 4 May 1851 sermon whether the Exhibition seemed ‘anything but a matter of personal gain or curiosity, for national aggrandisement, insular self-glorification, and selfish—had almost said, treacherous—rivalry with the very foreigners whom we invited as our guests?’8 As Kingsley made clear, it behoved Christians to subject their own responses to the Exhibition to rigorous spiritual examination. The wide range of religious issues that the Exhibition engendered drove many clergymen to advise their congregations of the appropriate response to this extraordinary event. For example, preaching in Westminster Abbey, Canon Christopher Wordsworth indicated that the ‘magnificent Spectacle’ in Hyde Park would be either a great blessing or a great curse. What mattered, he insisted, was how individuals engaged the Exhibition. It could be viewed as merely a transient event—an ‘Emporium of Trade’ or a ‘gorgeous pageant’—or its meaning could be savoured and its implications for religion appreciated; if the latter, the Exhibition could become ‘to you like a Christian Church, and preach to you divine truths’. While Wordsworth opted for this latter possibility, he nevertheless acknowledged that the Exhibition was subject to a diversity of religious interpretations.9 As he indicated, there was indeed no consensus over the Exhibition’s religious meaning; instead we hear a cacophony of voices reflecting a wide range of religious positions. The following section will therefore explore the religious landscape at the mid-century in order to identify the main denominations and divisions within contemporary Christianity. As Boyd Hilton, David Bebbington, and other historians of religion have rightly insisted, religion at the mid-century should not be understood in isolation since it was intimately bound up with a wide range of contemporary 8 9

Kingsley, ‘Fount of Science’, 112. Wordsworth, On the Great Exhibition, 3–4 and 13.

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social issues, including philanthropy and economics, but especially politics.10 As a recent work on nineteenth-century history has noted, ‘it is hard to find political issues that were not overlaid and influenced by religious debate, and nobody could be in any doubt that religious conformism or dissent carried as their corollaries strong voting dispositions’.11 Thus not only was there a strong alignment between, say, the High Church and Tory party, but attitudes to the contentious issue of Free Trade usually divided along both religious and political lines. To take two more specific examples of relevance to the present study: In the mid-nineteenth century Dissenters generally supported the voluntary principle—the principle that enterprises like the Great Exhibition should be funded by voluntary subscription and not by the government. Secondly, Quakers possessed a strong social conscience and were mostly pacifists and also vociferously opposed the slave trade. Thus, religious commentary on the Exhibition was not confined to theological matters but frequently addressed such diverse issues as the threats posed by Roman Catholicism, arguments over economic protectionism, and reactions to working-class radicalism.12 Likewise, religious commentators often expressed their views on the increasing prominence of science and technology. The focus on religious responses to the Great Exhibition thus inevitably addresses how religious communities engaged a range of other pertinent issues and illuminates many parts of the larger canvas of mid-nineteenth-century history. In adopting a religious perspective on the Exhibition this study not only confronts the view that it was simply a secular event but also challenges the historiographical assumptions that underpin such secular interpretations. It is certainly tempting to subsume the Exhibition within a framework of emerging modernity since the Exhibition can be seen as a crucial moment in the development of the modern world, perhaps even the beginning of modernity. Thus the editors of a recent volume on the Exhibition portray it as ‘an undeniably crucial point of orientation in the mapping of modernity’.13 Yet there are many ways to map modernity. For example, in her book Consuming Passions, Judith Flanders portrays the Exhibition as initiating the now commonplace phenomenon of mass consumerism (whereas previously material luxuries had been accessible to only a few). In rather more colourful language Thomas Richards proclaimed the Exhibition as ‘the first outburst of the 10 For example, Bebbington, Evangelicalism; Hilton, Age of Atonement; Larsen, Friends of Religious Equality. 11 Snell and Ell, Rival Jerusalems, 27. 12 For example, Fisher (op. cit.) has argued that Congregationalists generally portrayed the Exhibition as a sign of social, moral and economic progress. My thanks to Nick Fisher for providing me with a copy of his paper. I discuss Quaker and Anglo-Jewish responses to the Great Exhibition in my Quakers, Jews, and Science, 147–58. 13 Buzard, Childers, and Gillooly, Victorian Prism, 2; Young, Globalization and the Great Exhibition.

Introduction

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phantasmagoria of commodity culture . . . [It] fashioned a mythology of consumerism that has endured to this day.’14 Several historians have recently focused on the related phenomenon of spectacle and display and have explored the ways in which shows, exhibitions, museums, and other public displays presented science and technology to the wider Victorian public.15 There is also an older historiography that depicts the Exhibition as a crucial event in the development of science and technology and as the most prominent display in history of ‘industrialisation and the values that went with it’.16 Prince Albert and the other main proponents of the Exhibition would have happily endorsed this view, since one of the principal rationales of the Exhibition was to stimulate innovation and trade. However, as a number of historians have argued, the Exhibition’s history cannot simply be viewed as an endorsement of its official ideology, since it served a variety of functions, some of which were highly subversive to the views not only of Albert but also of such staunch supporters as Henry Cole (who held a paid position on the Executive Committee) and were propagated through such statements as the introductory essay included in the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue.17 Moreover, although the Exhibition can be located in the histories of science, technology, design, consumerism, and industrialization, its historical significance is greater than any or all of these perspectives and its meaning should not be limited to these or any other topics. Most importantly, to interpret the Exhibition solely from the Whiggish perspective of teleological progress towards our present-day technologies (or indeed developments in any other field) is to impose our own values and preoccupations uncritically on the early Victorians.18 Popular narratives of progress and modernity either ignore religion or portray it as sidelined by the emergence of modern consciousness. Indeed, for many present-day commentators in both Europe and America, one of the defining features of the past century and a half has been the decline of religion; progress in science and technology has often been linked to the declining influence of religion over people’s lives and its increasing marginalization in

14

Flanders, Consuming Passions, 3–41; Richards, Commodity Culture, 18. For example, Carroll, Science and Eccentricity; Kriegel, Grand Designs; O’Connor, Earth on Show. 16 Davis, Great Exhibition, quotation on 211–16; Fay, Palace of Industry. Similarly, in Globalization and the Great Exhibition Young emphasizes the Exhibition as the paradigm for global capitalism. 17 See, for example, Bellon, ‘Science at the Crystal Focus of the World’; Buzard, ‘Conflicting Cartographies’; Fisher, ‘ “Nothing Can Be More Successful” ’; Gurney, ‘Appropriate Space’; Pearson, ‘Thackeray and Punch’; Young, ‘Mission Impossible’; but especially Hoffenberg, ‘Equipoise and its Discontents’. 18 Historians—and their interpretations of the past—are of course affected by contemporary interests and values. Thus Auerbach (‘Introduction’ to Auerbach and Hoffenberg, Britain, the Empire, and the World) has identified some of the ways in which interpretations of the Exhibition have been influenced by the values maintained by historians. 15

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Religion and the Great Exhibition of 1851

Western culture.19 Although many religious commentators at the time of the Great Exhibition viewed it as a significant symbol of human progress, we should appreciate that their understanding of progress was not secular but was centred on progress in religion and morality, rather than impose our modern highly secularized version of progress. More generally, however, undue attention to notions of progress and modernity can cloud our appreciation of the religious commitments of the period. Instead, this study pays close attention to contemporary religious views, to the divisions between the different religious communities, and to those religious events that intersected with the Exhibition. For example, in 1851 probably the most contentious religious issue under public discussion arose from the then recent re-establishment of the Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales, which many Protestants perceived as a dire act of ‘papal aggression’. A close connection was sometimes adduced between this ‘aggression’ and the Exhibition, which included examples of Catholic ecclesiastical art in the Medieval Court (containing a number of exhibits by Augustus Pugin) and on the stands of Spain and other Catholic countries. Some Protestants therefore perceived popery to have invaded London under the cloak of the Exhibition. However, the Catholic press viewed the Exhibition as a stunt by the Protestant establishment to show its superiority over Catholicism while simultaneously crushing the Catholics in Ireland. Thus religious controversy found an appropriate outlet through the medium of the Exhibition itself and in the display of specific exhibits. Likewise, as we shall see in Chapter 6, the Exhibition intersected with the contemporary arguments over the political emancipation of the Jews. Indeed, given the high profile of the Exhibition, both visually and culturally, it would be surprising if it was not perceived to have a bearing— sometimes a profound bearing—on many aspects of contemporary religion.

THE RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE IN 1851 The religious map of mid-nineteenth-century Britain offers a complex picture with many denominations, sects, parties, and individuals who were divided over doctrinal, social, and political issues. Each such position possessed its own history, usually involving schism and controversy. In this section the reader will find a very brief overview of the main Christian groupings that will be encountered in later chapters. At the outset we need to appreciate that the power of religion was highly visible in many aspects of society and that the Church of England exerted 19 Ronald Numbers (‘Epilogue’) reminds us that we in the West should not take our experience as typical. As religion is thriving in most other parts of the world, it is perhaps the West that is atypical.

Introduction

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considerable leverage within the state. Thus, for example, not only was the Queen Supreme Governor of the Church, but the twenty-six bishops sitting in the House of Lords influenced legislation. The activities of non-Anglicans were circumscribed by a number of legal disabilities, including non-access to many schools and non-bestowal of degrees from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. But a rather different appreciation of the contemporary importance of religion can be gained from the size of the religious constituency. The Religious Census carried out a month before the start of the Exhibition is difficult to interpret but showed that a significant proportion of the adult population of England and Wales attended church service on the chosen Sunday, 30 March 1851. Seven and a quarter million attendances were logged in the census. Although the total population numbered about eighteen million, it is not possible to infer from this the number of individual worshippers or the proportion of that population who attended services on that date, since an indeterminate number attended more than one service.20 Moreover, attendance at a place of worship is at best a very crude indicator of religious belief— itself a problematic term.21 Yet taken with other overwhelming evidence, and notwithstanding the rising influence of free-thinking and secularism, it is clear that a significant proportion of the population had some commitment to religion and many of those took their religion seriously. At least some— perhaps many—of those who attended church or chapel during the summer of 1851 listened to sermons that engaged some aspects of the Exhibition. Despite the millions who were counted by the enumerators on that Sunday, when the Religious Census was published in 1852 some contemporaries were horrified to discover that the attendance figures were far smaller than they had expected and that the lower echelons of the labouring classes were particularly remiss in attending church. Skilled artisans represented another group that contemporaries often identified as likely to reject Christianity and the Anglican Church in particular. They were also thought to be in danger from the seductive influence of radical political and anti-religious ideas, such as the atheism preached in George Jacob Holyoake’s controversial weekly the Reasoner and Theological Examiner. One clergyman specified that among those artisans who were likely to forsake Christianity were ‘the men who make our steamengines and railway carriages, our presses and telegraphs, the furniture of our houses and the clothing of our persons’—the very constituency whose output was displayed at the Exhibition.22 Hence leading secularists, such as Robert Owen, saw the Exhibition as a natural recruiting ground for their cause.23

20 As Snell and Ell (Rival Jerusalems, 37) have stressed, the Religious Census can be used to determine the relative strengths of denominations, not the absolute numbers of worshippers. 21 See, for example, Williams, Religious Belief, 1–23. 22 [Conybeare], ‘Church Parties’, 300–1. 23 Secularist responses to the Exhibition will be discussed below, pp. 151–7.

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Religion and the Great Exhibition of 1851

The divisions within contemporary Protestantism are highly relevant to understanding religious reactions to the Exhibition. Leaving aside Jews—the only substantial non-Christian religious community—and Catholics (both of whom will be discussed in Chapter 6), the Protestant churches in England and Wales can be divided between the Established Church and a variety of dissenting bodies. At the mid-century the Church was still powerful but was losing its previous domination over people’s lives, especially in the rapidly expanding industrial cities, not only to the rising tide of irreligion but also to Dissent.24 Yet the Church was itself racked by controversy—such as the Gorham case, which raised the question whether spiritual regeneration was conferred on children at baptism—and by deep internal divisions, such as those engendered by the Tractarian Movement. It is usual to divide the Church of England clergy into three factions—High Church, Low Church, and Broad Church. One of the most helpful contemporary maps of the Established Church is provided by an anonymous article entitled ‘Church Parties’ that appeared in the Edinburgh Review in 1853.25 Its author, William John Conybeare, the vicar of Axminster, accepted this tripartite division but he also argued that within each party there existed a wide range of views that necessitated further subclassifications. Thus, he suggested, both the High Church and the Low Church parties included not only those clergymen who were dogmatic enthusiasts and overstated the uniqueness of their own position, but also traditionalists who were unreceptive to change, and also those of more moderate inclination who allowed for a natural development of religious principles. A moderate Broad Churchman himself, Conybeare was highly critical of both the extremists and the traditionalists within the High and Low Church factions. Yet, despite his analysis attracting criticism both from contemporaries and from modern historians, his characterization of these positions accords fairly well with the work of recent historians and will prove helpful in the ensuing chapters.26 It is also clear from Conybeare’s article that on many issues there was a fair range of cross-party agreement and that, although certain clergymen were paradigm examples of one faction or another, many individuals cannot easily be pigeonholed. The term ‘High Church’ is usually applied to that section of the Church of England that emphasizes the tradition, liturgy, and rituals specific to Anglicanism. In particular, it places much value on the authority wielded by the religious hierarchy and sets the clergyman apart from the laity. Its liturgical practice is based on the Book of Common Prayer and on such rituals as baptism. Throughout the nineteenth century the High Church was aligned

24 For a detailed analysis of the geographical distribution of attendance, etc., at the Established and Dissenting churches in 1851, see Snell and Ell, Rival Jerusalems. 25 [Conybeare], ‘Church Parties’. 26 Arthur Burns (‘W. J. Conybeare’) offers a useful and balanced assessment of Conybeare’s analysis and also reviews its critics, both contemporary and modern.

Introduction

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with the political establishment and tended to support the Tories. Its main following was in rural areas where it was supported by both the squirarchy and the labouring poor. The term ‘High and Dry’ has been applied to the substantial number of High Churchmen who, basking in tradition, enjoyed their comfortable livings, but avoided injecting much fervour into their preaching, declined to engage contemporary theological issues, and took a modicum of paternal interest in the poor of the parish. Partly in reaction to this inactivity within High Anglicanism and partly owing to the growing influence of evangelicalism, a major rift had occurred in the 1830s with the rise of Tractarianism or the Oxford Movement; one contemporary likened the situation to a ‘civil war . . . furiously raging in the Anglican Church’.27 Under the guidance of John Henry Newman, Edward Pusey, John Keble, and others, this movement sought to address the theological laxity of the Anglican Church by reasserting the Church’s strong Catholic traditions exemplified by medieval Christianity. They also objected to the Church having become a weak hostage of the political establishment. Instead they insisted that it should exert power, authority, and discipline over people’s lives by being a strong and steadfast episcopal institution that was rooted in tradition and could offer a source for serious religious reflection. By 1851 a number of the leading Tractarians had abandoned the Church of England and defected to Rome. In turn, many of the High Anglicans who remained within the Church were vehement critics of Catholicism and of those clergy who had converted to Catholicism. By the early eighteenth century the term ‘Low Church’ was applied to those clergy who rejected the authority of the High Church, with its emphasis on episcopacy and on the sacraments. Instead some of them sought greater latitude in both discipline and faith, an approach often characterized as latitudinarian. Thus latitudinarianism offered Christians a fair degree of freedom to employ their reasoning powers in framing their religious views. Latitudinarians also often applied their Christian principles in supporting progressive social issues. Although the relationship between the Low Church and evangelicalism is complex, by the mid-century this older latitudinarian tradition had been largely displaced by the evangelical insistence on religion being a personal commitment to justification by faith. For Low Church evangelicals the focus had become the individual’s belief in Gospel Christianity and the need to save the souls of others. Thus Anglican evangelicals were prominent in missionary and conversion societies. The ‘Broad Church’ is the most difficult to characterize as it needs to be located at the mid-century in relation to both the evangelical drift within the Low Church and the conflicts over Tractarianism within High Anglicanism. In some respects it carried the mantle of the Latitudinarians of the previous

27

Christian Reformer n.s. 7 (1840), 382, cited in Turner, John Henry Newman, 2.

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century. ‘Its distinctive character is the desire of comprehension. Its watchwords are Charity and Toleration’, wrote Conybeare. Like High Anglicans, Broad Churchmen accepted the role of the Church as ‘divinely instituted for the purpose of manifesting God’s presence, and bearing witness to his attributes, by their reflection in its ordinances and in its members’. But they also emphasized intellectual freedom and the duty of moral and intellectual improvement. Thus, as Conybeare noted, Broad Churchmen not only valued education and were involved in educational projects but a number of them were prominent intellectuals, including several eminent scientists.28 Towards the end of his 1853 article Conybeare offered a rough estimate of the number of clergymen in each party and subgroup.29 One of the methods he used was based on the current edition of the published Clergy List, which covered clergymen in England and Wales. Out of the 18,000 clergy listed he identified 500 whose party allegiances he knew. In order to infer the total population from his sample, he scaled up his results by a factor of 36. In percentage terms he estimated that roughly 40% were High Church, 40% were Low Church, and 20% Broad Church, and he also provided figures for the subgroups within each party. These figures are of course very approximate and his estimate for the latitudinarian Broad Church is probably far too high. Conybeare’s estimates are also of limited assistance in determining the religious views of the population at large, since some groups, such as moderate evangelicals, sought to attract members and engaged extensively in missionary and philanthropic endeavours, while others (especially the ultra-evangelicals) did not mobilize much support from among the laity. Although nearly 3.8 million attendances at Church of England services were logged by the 1851 Religious Census, it also showed that the Protestant Dissenting sects attracted almost as many—nearly 3.2 million attendances. The Established Church therefore appears barely representative of the religious population of the country as a whole, but was indeed unrepresentative in the larger industrial cities where Dissent was particularly strong. But religious Dissent was itself divided among many different factions, each with its own vision of Christianity and with its unique history: Baptists, Congregationalists (Independents), Quakers, Unitarians, the several varieties of Methodists, and many smaller sects. Since the Exhibition featured prominently in the periodicals and other publications associated with many of these dissenting groups, they likewise feature prominently in the following chapters. For reasons that will be discussed in Chapter 8, several dissenting groups, but particularly Congregationalists, were highly enthusiastic about the Exhibition and understood it in the context of their own views of prophetic history.

28 29

[Conybeare], ‘Church Parties’, 330–7. Ibid. 337–8. See also Burns, ‘W. J. Conybeare’.

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In many contexts it is helpful for the historian to contrast the Church of England with Dissent, and church with chapel. However, one crucially important religious orientation crosses this divide—evangelicalism. Significant sections of both the Established Church and Dissent, including Methodists, Baptists, Independents, and even members of the Society of Friends, shared not dissimilar evangelical outlooks. Evangelicals, especially moderate evangelicals, from across this broad denominational spectrum could put aside their sometimes not inconsiderable theological differences and work together to propagate the Gospels in such interdenominational organizations as the Evangelical Alliance, the BFBS, and also various missionary societies. David Bebbington has identified four primary and recurrent features of evangelicalism, although, as he notes, different emphases have been placed on these characteristics not only by different individuals but also at different times. The first is the call to conversion; given humankind’s fallen, sinful nature, evangelicals are committed to saving souls by inculcating the need to repent and to forsake evil by adopting Christ’s message. The gathering of putative sinners in London for the 1851 Exhibition thus provided evangelicals with an unrivalled opportunity for performing conversions. Bebbington’s second characteristic is their activism. Those who had seen the light were bound to exert themselves tirelessly in order to bring others to Christ. For the mid-century generation, aspects of this activism included seeking out visitors to the Exhibition, providing them with religious services and with tracts and copies of the Gospels in various languages. The third characteristic is their commitment to the Bible, as the Word of God. While accepting that it contains inerrant truth and that it should be the compass for directing their lives, evangelicals generally employ fairly literal interpretations of the text and reject more critical readings of the Bible. Fourthly, evangelicals focus on the Gospels and thereby internalize the doctrine of the Cross. To quote Gladstone, evangelicals ‘aimed at bringing back, and by an aggressive movement, the Cross, and all that the Cross essentially implies’. Thus, especially in the third quarter of the nineteenth century, they encompassed the doctrine of atonement as central to their Christianity.30 Evangelicals constituted a powerful and numerically significant grouping at the mid-century and one that was strongly represented in the contemporary periodical press. One historian has estimated that Anglican evangelicals numbered between two and three million within an adult population of eighteen million. Evangelicals from dissenting groups would account for a similar if not higher figure. Moreover, as Boyd Hilton has argued, we should not confine our discussion to those who belonged to the Evangelical party within the Established Church since evangelicalism encompassed ‘an amorphous set of ideas and attitudes, 30

Bebbington, Evangelicalism, 2–17. Gladstone quotation on p. 14.

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Religion and the Great Exhibition of 1851

capable of seeping into minds that were sometimes formally hostile to the type of churchmanship they represented’.31 Evangelicalism, then, was widely diffused through a significant section of the religious population. Although evangelicalism was to lose much of its intellectual drive and some of its popular following during the latter decades of the nineteenth century, it was highly prevalent at the midcentury. Given this large constituency of committed followers, evangelical writers were prominent in responding to the Great Exhibition. Boyd Hilton has argued that within the broad compass of Anglican evangelicalism a distinction needs to be drawn between its moderate and more radical forms. Attributing the roots of the moderate evangelicalism to the Wesleyan revival, he portrays this tradition as subsequently including many Anglicans, Scottish Presbyterians, and the members of the Clapham Sect. Although recognizing that God would subject believers to many torments and punishments in this life, moderates were, in Hilton’s words, ‘generally able to take a more cheerful view of private and even national misfortunes’. Such misfortunes they considered were part of God’s plan to persuade people to free themselves from the power of sin. While these moderate evangelicals looked to the future life beyond the grave, they nevertheless placed great emphasis on living in the present by serving God and by striving for moral self-improvement. Likewise, they were strongly committed to social improvement and supported many philanthropic schemes, such as the temperance movement and the abolition of the slave trade. Believing that providence operates through the laws of cause and effect, they were generally supportive of rational argument and encouraged the pursuit of science.32 Although moderate evangelicalism attracted many followers throughout the first half of the century, by the mid-1820s it was facing a challenge from a darker and more dogmatic form of evangelicalism that arose first in Scotland, soon permeated Britain, and was exported to America. These more radical evangelicals strongly criticized what they perceived as the prevailing laxity in religious belief, insisting by contrast that justification could only be attained by unswerving faith. With the biblical text at the centre of their religion, these ultra-evangelicals adopted a narrow and literal interpretation of God’s Word that stressed its apocalyptic and other-worldly aspects. Preoccupied with the biblical prophecy of the coming millennium and firmly committed to the belief that the world will descend into chaos before Christ’s return, these premillennialists looked for signs of the impending Apocalypse in recent history and in contemporary events, including the construction of the Great Exhibition. National misfortunes, which moderates perceived as aids for religious instruction, were deemed to be indications of worldly decay and signs of God’s 31

Hilton, Age of Atonement, 30. On the moderates’ engagement with science see Livingstone, Hart, and Noll (eds), Evangelicals and Science, esp. Bebbington, ‘Science and Evangelical Theology’. 32

Introduction

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wrath. A major source for exploring ultra-evangelical responses to contemporary events is the twice-weekly Record, founded in 1828 and greatly influenced by Alexander Haldane, its principal proprietor. So strong was the alignment between the ultra-evangelicals and the Record that they were often called Recordites. As the pages of the Record indicate, radical evangelicals paid little attention to science and were particularly opposed to the secular and speculative scientific theories gaining increasing support from the scientific community around the mid-century. Thus when the best-known ultra-evangelical naturalist, Philip Gosse, published his Omphalos (1857)—his most explicit attempt to bring Scripture to the aid of geology—this work was widely criticized by fellow scientists as inadequate and outmoded. Not surprisingly, Gosse, a member of the Plymouth Brethren, rejected Darwin’s theory of evolution.33 As will be discussed in the next chapter one of the sternest critics of the Exhibition was also a member of that sect. In the following chapters an attempt will be made to indicate the denominational allegiance of each writer and periodical discussed. In many cases this is fairly straightforward; for example, when discussing an editorial in a periodical with a clear religious orientation or when the writer of a pamphlet is named and sufficient biographical evidence exists to determine his position. However, there are a number of anonymous works and also works by less wellknown authors where it has proved difficult or impossible to determine the author’s denomination. In such problematic cases I have sometimes resorted to making an educated guess. However, some individuals have proved impossible to classify as they do not fit neatly into any one party but appear to hold views that cut across party lines. Moreover, it is important to note that the religious views of some individuals underwent significant shifts over their lifetimes. For example, David Bebbington has charted William Gladstone’s move from his youthful evangelicalism ‘to a personal form of Orthodox High Churchmanship before moving on again into Tractarianism. Subsequently, without repudiating his High Churchmanship, he continued his pilgrimage in a Broad Church direction.’ Likewise, John Henry Newman’s religious odyssey began with evangelicalism and ended in Roman Catholicism.34 These examples, like many others, suggest that individuals often should not be aligned with any single party. Thus while acknowledging that labels like ‘High Anglican’, ‘ultra-evangelical’, and ‘Baptist’ help to locate writers within the broader patterns of religious history, I have refrained from assigning individuals to parties where the evidence is uncertain or confused.

33

Hilton, Age of Atonement, 7–26; Turner, John Henry Newman, 39–64; Gosse, Father and Son, 105. For Conybeare’s characterization of the ‘old’ (i.e. moderate) and radical versions of evangelicalism see his ‘Church Parties’, 276–300. 34 Bebbington, Mind of Gladstone, 12; Turner, John Henry Newman.

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Religion and the Great Exhibition of 1851

The many religious organizations that fulfilled benevolent, charitable, political, or educational functions constitute a further facet of the religious landscape that will be encountered in the following chapters. These ranged from the Evangelical Alliance—a powerful coalition of evangelicals drawn both from the Established Church and from Dissent—to the many missionary societies, such as the London Missionary Society and the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews. They also included many religiously based philanthropic institutions; for example, the Ragged School Union, the Church Pastoral Aid Society, the Society for Promoting the Due Observance of the Lord’s Day, and the Female Aid Society.35 Two functions of these organizations are pertinent to the present study. They generated much religious commentary on the Exhibition, through the tracts, periodicals, and other literature that they published, and also through their proceedings, which were reported in the religious periodical press and sometimes in separate publications. For example, detailed accounts of the annual meetings were carried in such periodicals as the Missionary Register and the ultra-evangelical Record. Moreover, several religiously based organizations were prominent publishers, including the RTS and the BFBS. Secondly, a large number of religious organizations held their annual (May) meetings in London in the period between late April and late May, with Exeter Hall on the Strand (shown in Figure 14) being the preferred venue for evangelicals. Before the opening of the Exhibition, some commentators had feared that the Exhibition would disrupt these key events in the religious calendar. However, the May 1851 anniversary meetings proved very successful, one contemporary noting that they ‘have been better attended than usual, and an admirable spirit has pervaded them’.36 It seems likely that the presence of the Exhibition attracted a greater number of participants (and even possibly promoted the ‘admirable spirit’ of the proceedings), since religious visitors to London often combined attendance at the annual meeting of a religious organization with a visit to the Great Exhibition.37 Thus not only did this important period in the religious calendar coincide with the first few weeks when the Exhibition was open, but the attractions at Exeter Hall conspired with the attractions at the Crystal Palace to bring people of firm religious persuasion to London.

35

Low, Charities of London. Record, 7 May 1851, 4. 37 For example, the Quaker Edward Pease combined the Yearly Meeting with a visit to the Exhibition. See Pease, Diaries of Edward Pease, 295. 36

1 Fears and Dangers The July 1851 number of the Free Church Magazine carried an article on the Great Exhibition that opened by congratulating the organizers for having triumphed over the many objections that had been raised against their project. The author listed several frequently cited criticisms, adding, ‘in short, there was no kind of evil and danger that did not loom ominously through this great Exhibition’.1 While some of these objections were not directly concerned with religion—for example, some claimed that the Exhibition would severely damage Britain’s manufacturing base—religious themes were prominent in this list of ‘evil[s] and danger[s]’ and also in many of the anti-Exhibition tracts and periodical articles published principally in the months prior to the official opening on 1 May 1851. In this chapter we examine three of the recurrent religious themes contained in these documents: first, the threat to religion from the expected invasion of foreigners; second, the more specific threat to Protestantism—and especially to the Established Church with its intimate connection to the state—posed by Roman Catholicism; and finally, the ways in which the Crystal Palace was understood in relation to such portentous biblical events as Balshazzar’s Feast, which, in turn, cast the Exhibition as a harbinger of doom. Before turning to these we need to examine a direct challenge to Prince Albert from within the royal household. The Oxford-educated the Honourable Arthur Perceval, a brother of the Earl of Egmont, had been appointed chaplain to George IV in 1826 and remained in that post during the early years of Victoria’s reign. From its inception he had been active in the Oxford Movement and contributed to Tracts for the Times (1833–41), which articulated the Tractarians’ position on a variety of issues. Of relevance to the present discussion is Perceval’s Tract 36 in which he surveyed the teachings of the different religious sects and denominations and concluded that only the Anglican Church taught ‘the Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth’. Moreover, he was convinced that all other religious groups were conspiring to destroy the divinely ordained Church of England.2 During the 1840s he 1 2

‘The Great Exhibition’, Free Church Magazine 8 (1851), 202–5, on 202. [Perceval], Account, 1 and 7; see also Turner, John Henry Newman, 182.

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became increasingly critical of the government and considered that a number of its actions were intent on undermining the Anglican Church. He therefore tried to warn the Queen that the country was in danger. However, his attempts to alert Victoria were scuppered by other members of the royal household. Being placed in this untenable position, he resigned his post (either in late 1850 or early in 1851). However, several contemporary periodicals questioned Perceval’s own account of his actions and considered that his insolence in lecturing Albert on the evils that would ensue from the Exhibition was a contributory—if not the main—factor leading to his resignation. In a letter dated 10 September 1850 Perceval had advised Albert that the forthcoming Exhibition was unchristian, because it emphasized ‘the skill and ingenuity, the arts and sciences, the intelligence and power of man’, but failed to ‘connect all this with the glory of Him who made’ humankind. ‘Yet,’ Perceval added, if the Exhibition shall be set out and carried through with the apparent disregard of things sacred and of the Supreme, its resemblance to Nebuchadnezzar’s pride and Belshazzar’s feast will be too striking not to cause reasonable uneasiness to those who believe the Scriptures, who fear God, who love their country, and desire the preservation and well-being of that gracious person who has been called to preside over its counsels.

Not having received a reply to this letter, Perceval subsequently published an article complaining that the political establishment, especially the Whig party, was committed to denigrating religion and to disregarding the clergy. He also identified several parliamentary bills passed during Victoria’s reign that he believed undermined the power and influence of the clergy, such as the recent royal charter establishing the Queen’s University in Ireland, which failed to provide students with Christian instruction. Moreover, he considered that parliament had unconstitutionally encouraged ‘the Jew, the Jesuit, the Incestuous and the Infidel’. He therefore proposed that the ‘opening of the Exhibition should be [marked] by a day of national humiliation and deprecation of the wrath of God’, rather than by a celebration.3 Whatever role Perceval’s objections to the Exhibition played in his resignation, he conceived the Exhibition as a thoroughly secular event and as part of a far broader programme to undermine the central role of the Anglican Church in the country. But Percival was not alone. He reflected the views of a not insignificant number of Christians, both evangelicals and High Churchmen, who in the months preceding the opening of the exhibition were discomforted by its ‘resemblance to Nebuchadnezzar’s pride and Belshazzar’s feast’. 3 Perceval’s text appeared in the High Tory English Churchman, 27 February 1851, 135. See also British Banner, 5 March 1851, 161–2; Reynold’s Newspaper, 2 March 1851, 6; Hampshire Telegraph and Sussex Chronicle, 15 March 1851, 6.

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RELIGION UNDER SIEGE: THE THREAT FROM—AND TO—FOR EIGNE RS Although immigrant groups, such as Huguenots and Jews, had emigrated to London in significant numbers over many generations, the Great Exhibition attracted unprecedentedly large numbers of foreigners. Long before the Exhibition opened rumours circulated in the press suggesting that the local population would be overwhelmed by this influx, with one source estimating that a million foreigners would descend on London, together with another million from Scotland, Ireland, and the provinces.4 The number of foreigners who actually attended is difficult to determine and was certainly significantly lower than a million and probably less than 100,000.5 Nevertheless, the Exhibition provided an unparalleled occasion for Londoners to rub shoulders with people from many parts of the world; people whose physiognomy and shades of skin colour varied immensely; people wearing an amazing variety of national costumes and speaking many strange languages. Thus one Scottish visitor recorded in her diary: ‘Not the least astonishing part of it [the Exhibition] is the extraordinary collection of foreigners. French one hears spoken as frequently as English, and the jabber of tongues sounds truly absurd, combined with their uncommon gestures and animated comments on all around them.’ Many years later the artist Henrietta Mary Ward vividly recounted her youthful visual experience: From every part of the globe came representatives, many gorgeous in oriental robes. Dusky Indian Princes with turbans and jewels on their foreheads; sallow-faced Chinese Mandarins in silken embroidered dress; sedate little Japanese potentates with inscrutable faces; broad-faced, woolly-headed African Chiefs wearing bright colours; travellers from America, Australia, Canada . . . mingling with Russians, Poles, Frenchmen, Italians and Austrians.6

Although Ward was greatly enamoured of the diversity and flamboyance of the visitors, not all Londoners reacted so favourably to this influx. The population of the metropolis was often welcoming, but it was also fascinated, repelled, and appalled to varying degrees by the prospect of visiting hordes ‘London in 1851’, Fraser’s Magazine 43 (1851), 127–37, on 130–1. The First Report of the Commissioners (112–14) estimated that almost 60,000 foreigners had arrived in England during the six months commencing 1 April 1851. 6 Story, Early Reminiscences, 162; Ward, Memories, 63–4, cited in Auerbach, Great Exhibition, 180. See also Howitt, Mary Howitt, 2: 75–6; Anon., What I Thought, 19. According to the historian of anthropology George Stocking, the novelty of seeing artefacts made by the inhabitants of different cultures ‘forced some to think about the origins and progress of the civilization[s they] . . . epitomized’. More particularly, visits to the Exhibition encouraged the Quaker Henry Christie and Capt. Lane Fox (later General Pitt Rivers), who both later made significant contributions to anthropology, to embark on their ethnological collections. See Stocking, Victorian Anthropology, 4; Benedict, ‘Ethnic Identities’. 4 5

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Figure 2 The Brown family were frightened out of their wits by foreigners: Onwhyn, Mr & Mrs Brown’s Visit. Many of the other cartoons in this volume likewise played on fear of foreigners. Reproduced by permission of the British Library.

filling London’s streets. These concerns were reflected in contemporary literature and cartoons. For example, Thomas Onwhyn’s book of cartoons illustrating Mr and Mrs Brown’s visit to the Exhibition played on their fear of foreigners—see Figure 2. Foreigners were also caricatured in William Brough’s hilarious comedy staged at the Princess’s Theatre and entitled ‘Apartments: Visitors to the Exhibition may be Accommodated’, in which an American, an (American) Indian, a Frenchman, and a Scot invade a London family’s normally sedate home for the duration of the Exhibition and cause mayhem.7 Likewise, George Augustus Sala satirized ‘The Foreign Invasion’ in Dickens’s 7 William Brough, ‘Apartments, “Visitors to the Exhibition may be Accommodated” &c, &c.,’ first performed on 14 May 1851.

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Household Words. Among his many chilling predictions was the elimination of religion by the invading army of foreigners. Sala envisaged that ‘England [will be] unchristianised; the Archbishop of Canterbury guillotined in Lambeth Walk; and [the Presbyterian and anti-Catholic] Dr [John] Cumming sewed up in a sack with Cardinal Wiseman, the head Rabbi of the [Spanish and] Portuguese Synagogue, and the Chief Elder of the Mormonites . . . and cast into the Victoria Sewer’.8 Although Sala used satire, he identified one of the recurrent anxieties that accompanied the Exhibition: Foreigners posed a threat to religion. From the outset Albert and his supporters had vociferously argued that the Exhibition would improve the trade between nations and encourage international brotherhood. Although many religious commentators fully supported this vision as a means of promoting God’s glory, soon after the Exhibition was first mooted, a wave of antipathy towards foreigners surfaced in the press. There was, for example, a considerable outcry against allowing any foreigners to participate in the Exhibition. Many protectionists among both manufacturers and workers opposed the Exhibition, fearing that it would increase competition and result in foreigners grasping a greater market share, thereby significantly eroding the English market. ‘Surely we have enough competition at home without inviting that of foreigners’, opined the editor of the proChartist Reynolds’s Weekly Newspaper.9 Moreover, although foreign manufacturers were generally considered inferior to their British counterparts, it was feared that they would attend the Exhibition specifically to plagiarize British innovations and subsequently produce the goods more cheaply on their return home. But the fears of a foreign invasion went well beyond concerns with trade, with many commentators expressing their anxieties that foreigners would cause political unrest, disease, and especially spread atheism. A correspondent in the North Wales Chronicle reflected the mood in some quarters when he complained about the large number of ‘suspicious-looking foreigners’ living in disreputable parts of London. He saw an obvious connection between this influx, the concentration of troops in the metropolis, and the intention of many noble families to flee to the countryside before the Exhibition opened. Taking these suspicious developments together he detected a conspiracy and described the Crystal Palace as the ‘Horse of Troy’, predicting that republicans from all parts of Europe would congregate in London in order to overthrow Church and State. Revolution was already in the air and the Exhibition would be its trigger.10 This frightened writer was joined by, among others, the respectable middle-class Tory Fraser’s Magazine, which predicted [George Augustus Sala], ‘The Foreign Invasion’, Household Words 4 (1851), 60–4, on 60. ‘The Approaching Commercial Crisis and the Great Exhibition of 1851’, Reynolds’s Weekly Newspaper, 27 October 1850, 1. 10 North Wales Chronicle, 19 April 1851, 4. 8 9

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that London would be unable to cope with the vast number of visitors. It painted a grim picture of pavements overflowing with people, of omnibuses overwhelmed with visitors, and of a police force unable to maintain law and order. Only pick-pockets and lodging-house keepers would benefit from this invasion.11 The redoubtable Colonel Sibthorp, the Tory member for Lincoln, is usually taken as the lone and somewhat buffoonish opponent of the Exhibition and the scourge of foreigners. Thus in one of his speeches in the House of Commons he cautioned the people of London that if the Exhibition were to proceed, a multitude of foreigners would fill their streets. ‘[T]ake care among thieves and pickpockets and whoremongers—take care of your wives and daughters—take care of your lives and property’.12 Yet, judging by the number of pamphlets and periodicals that adopted a not dissimilar line, Sibthorp spoke for a significant minority. His views were typical of the protectionist, High Church, and Tory wing of the Anglican Church and he was merely its most outspoken representative. The principal periodical to reflect this political and religious position was John Bull, which displayed on its masthead the motto ‘FOR GOD, THE SOVEREIGN, AND THE PEOPLE’ (Figure 3), together with an illustration showing the crown and sceptre standing on the Holy Bible. With a circulation probably in excess of ten thousand this highly opinionated Tory sixpenny weekly found its way into many vicarages and into the homes of conservative squires. Although it carried numerous reports on the preparations underway at the Crystal Palace, its German-born editor, the Revd Dr George Edward

Figure 3 Masthead of John Bull, a High Church Tory weekly that was highly critical of the Great Exhibition. This issue dates from the reign of George IV. During Victoria’s reign ‘THE SOVEREIGN’ replaced ‘THE KING’.

11 12

‘London in 1851’. Times, 5 February 1851, 4.

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Biber, fulminated against the forthcoming Exhibition. This staunchly protectionist periodical repeatedly opposed the Exhibition, which it portrayed as a vehicle for Free Trade. However, from the summer of 1850 it found several other compelling reasons for keeping foreigners at bay. Biber, the High Church vicar of Holy Trinity, Roehampton, conjured up a picture of vast numbers of Socialist revolutionaries and desperadoes rushing to enter England under cover of the Exhibition and linking up with Chartists and with 150–200,000 Irish vagrants in order to ferment riot and revolution. All the ‘scum of the Continent’ would come to England, he predicted. After news reached Britain of an outbreak of cholera in Jamaica, John Bull found a further reason to oppose the Exhibition; visiting foreigners would doubtless import terrible diseases into Britain.13 In the pages of John Bull foreigners were not only carriers of disease and of revolutionary politics but they also posed a dire threat to religion. Thus in an editorial published in December 1850 Biber asked: ‘What will be the religious aspect of the metropolis, while filled to overflowing with this motley multitude?’ Although he was aware that many British people failed to respect the Sabbath, he asked rhetorically: ‘what a desecration of it [the Sabbath] will ensue, when our streets shall swarm with foreigners who all their lives have been utter strangers to the duty of keeping it holy?’ The Sabbath—that most sacred of Protestant practices—would be rendered void by the influx of irreverent foreigners. He was also totally dismissive of the proposal by the Bishop of London to mount extra services during the Exhibition. Foreigners, he argued, who have never entered a church won’t suddenly decide to spend their Sundays in pews when they visit London. He concluded that ‘[a]gainst this mischief, we fear, no remedy can be provided. We have invited a torrent of ungodliness into our streets, and we shall have to submit to its inundation.’ Therefore all that could be expected from these impious visitors was rioting and much debauchery.14 A correspondent in the Low Church Christian Guardian likewise expressed ‘the earnest hope, that this forthcoming exhibition may not still further increase the fearful amount of Sabbath desecration under which the land mourns, and for which God will surely punish us as a nation.’15 Like Biber and this anonymous evangelical, many assumed a direct connection between irreligion and immorality. Thus the writer of one religious tract complained that foreigners visiting the Exhibition would bring with them ‘a flood of immorality and pollution’, and he cited the example of a respectable 13 ‘Hyde Park in 1851’, John Bull, 27 July 1850, 473; ‘The World’s Show and the World’s Democracy’, ibid. 8 February 1851, 88–9; ‘The Gathering of All Vagabonds’, ibid. 29 March 1851, 201–2; ‘Cholera Outbreak’, ibid. 11 January 1851, 24–5. 14 ‘Collateral Blessing of the Exhibition of 1851’, John Bull, 7 December 1850, 777. 15 Christian Guardian 42 (1850), 577.

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woman who had let out her house to foreigners, only to discover that they were using it for immoral purposes.16 A scurrilous songsheet of the time entitled ‘The Exhibition and Foreigners’ likewise painted a similar gloomy picture of the invaders trampling underfoot every aspect of British life. Like many such diatribes, the jingoistic text identified foreigners as being of another religion—Jews and Muslim Turks in this case.17 Although political and economic concerns were prominently articulated by the widely circulated John Bull and by other opponents of the Exhibition, these were closely associated with the recurrent fear that Protestantism, the religion of the state headed by the Queen, was under threat. A concerned but less combative tone was adopted by the editor of the Friend, Joseph Barrett, in the issue for the fifth month—May—1851. While enthusiastically welcoming the Exhibition, he also warned his fellow Quakers to be on their guard against ‘all those enticements of dishonesty, intemperance, and vice’ that attend such large gatherings. But, he added, he expected that ‘there will be an attempt [by foreigners] to introduce’ other (unspecified) forms of temptation ‘which are as yet peculiar to continental countries, and in this way there will be an aggregation of evil influences at work amongst the masses, the unhappy effects of which can scarcely at present be estimated’.18 In expressing his concern about the moral impact of so many foreign visitors, Barrett probably reflected the feelings of many Christians in the period shortly before the Exhibition opened. Never before had London experienced such an influx and its inhabitants were worried lest some of the more alarmist predictions might possess some degree of credence. However, for some Christians the threat came not so much from foreign visitors but from the failure of many of their fellow countrymen to live according to religious principles. A general pessimism prevailed about the spiritual state of Britain at the mid-century. There were frequent complaints about low attendance at church and about the lack of religious commitment, especially among the working classes in London and in the rapidly expanding industrial cities. Thus while the Cambridge-educated curate of St Nicholas, Rochester, William Conway, welcomed the Exhibition, believing that it would enhance the glory of God, he nevertheless considered that London was already witnessing ‘a vast increase of vice, and Sabbath-breaking, and profaneness’. Every opportunity should therefore be taken during the Exhibition to raise the level of Christian piety and duty among the metropolis’s own inhabitants. He was particularly concerned that having witnessed the appalling level of debauchery prevalent in London, foreign visitors would succumb to a worse moral condition than they had possessed before they arrived. Thus, rather 16 17 18

Spiritual Watchman, Theology and Morality, 14. Reproduced in Auerbach, Great Exhibition, 181. Friend 9 (1851), 89.

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than seeing foreigners as the source of immorality, he viewed London’s population as so irreligious that foreign visitors to the Exhibition were likely to aid the spread of immorality throughout the world.19 The author of an article in the Congregationalist British Quarterly Review was unusual in pointing out that the British should try to avoid imposing national stereotypes on foreign visitors to the Exhibition, but should instead exercise ‘a large and liberal judgment’ in their dealings with these visitors.20 However, stereotypes abounded in the religious press among those who expressed the fear that visitors to the Exhibition would undermine the Protestant heritage. As we shall see in the next section, for many Protestants the greatest threat to that heritage was posed by Roman Catholicism through the machinations of the Papacy.

PROTESTANTISM UNDER SIEGE: THE THREAT FROM CATHOLICISM The inside cover of the March 1851 issue of the Baptist Reporter carried a note by the editor, Joseph Foulkes Winks, in response to a worried correspondent: ‘Don[’]t be alarmed,’ he wrote. ‘We don[’]t believe a word of it. The Exhibition got up by papists indeed! Is either Mr. [Richard] Cobden, or Mr. [Samuel] Peto, or Prince Albert, a papist? Never mind that preacher; he has said things as hard as Irons many times in his life; and will again.’ Winks therefore refused to allow his anxious correspondent to air his concerns in the Baptist Reporter.21 The ‘Irons’ in the above quotation referred to Joseph Irons, minister at the Grove Independent Chapel in Camberwell. Prompted by the recent ‘papal aggression’, Irons had delivered a vituperative anti-Catholic sermon on 5 November 1850 in which he alleged that the forthcoming Exhibition was a Papist conspiracy. He warned that ‘the Jesuits are at the bottom of the deep-laid plot of the Babel-building in Hyde Park’ and that they had planned the Exhibition in order to vanquish Protestantism and take control of England. Catholic agents, he confidently asserted, were manipulating Prince Albert into mounting the Exhibition and a civil war would occur in 1851 unless the event was cancelled.22 His denunciation of the Exhibition may have been extreme but he was not alone in his fiery censure. Many preachers and writers—High 19

Conway, Great Exhibition, 9–10. [Martha Jones?], ‘French, Germans, and English’, British Quarterly Review 13 (1851), 331–57. 21 Baptist Reporter 25 (1851), facing 89. 22 Joseph Irons, ‘Zion under a Cloud. A Discourse Delivered in Grove Chapel, Camberwell, on Tuesday Evening, Nov. 5th, 1850’, in Irons, Grove Chapel Pulpit, 3: 229–39, on 235. This sermon was condemned as intolerant by the Baptist Gospel Herald (19 (1851), 20), itself no friend of Catholicism, and also by the Catholic Lamp, 28 December 1850, 28. 20

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Anglicans along with some evangelicals, especially ultra-evangelicals—were also alarmed that the forthcoming Exhibition would enable hordes of Catholics to congregate in London and thereby subvert Protestantism from inside its citadel. The Exhibition provided an occasion for anti-Catholic polemics, but these need to be understood against a background of fierce anti-Catholicism in the period immediately preceding the Exhibition. During the two decades following the passage of the 1829 act granting political emancipation to Roman Catholics (but not addressing many of their other grievances), anti-Catholic feeling reached virulent proportions among certain groups of Protestants, especially evangelicals and High Churchmen. A variety of factors contributed to this fear and hatred of Catholics, among which were the defection to Rome, often via the Tractarian Movement, of a not insignificant cohort of Anglicans including several high-profile clergymen, and the influx of numerous poor Irish Catholics fleeing the potato famine. In the 1840s and early 1850s several more specific events added impetus to this antiCatholicism. In 1845, for example, Peel’s administration made a permanent endowment to the seminary at Maynooth, where Catholic priests were trained, in order to curry favour with the Catholic clergy, who were thought able to exert control over the potentially dangerous Irish masses. Yet many Protestants viewed this as unjustified state support for Catholicism. Well-attended protest meetings were held throughout the country and the Protestant press abounded with vociferous articles opposing the endowment and vilifying Catholics. Acting in sympathy with this widespread anti-Catholic feeling, a number of Tory backbenchers deserted Peel, almost bringing down his administration. Just five years later, in September 1850, Pope Pius IX initiated what was seen as a manifest act of ‘papal aggression’ when he re-established the Catholic hierarchy in England by creating the Archdiocese of Westminster. Nicholas Wiseman was appointed Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, with twelve English bishoprics under his jurisdiction. The flames were further fanned by Wiseman’s incautious first pastoral letter and by an over-enthusiastic sermon by Newman. Russell’s government came under increasing pressure and introduced the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill in February 1851, which sought to prevent Catholic bishops from adopting territorial titles. In the ensuing months arguments raged over this bill, contributing to the collapse of Russell’s administration. In addition, several high-profile legal cases seemed to highlight the chicanery of Catholics. Thus during the closing weeks of 1850 and throughout 1851 public agitation intensified against what was viewed as the Pope’s outrageous act of aggression.23 In stark contrast to the contemporary political conflicts over Catholicism, Albert and the main proponents of the Exhibition preached a message of peace

23

Paz, Popular Anti-Catholicism.

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and unity. Although liberal Protestants often followed their lead in viewing the Exhibition as an opportunity to heal religious divisions,24 the many opponents of Catholicism could draw a direct connection between the Exhibition and Catholic aggression. One example is the anonymous tract The Duty for the Crisis of 1851, in England; the Time of its Invasion by Rome, and its Invitation to All Nations, which sold for one penny or seven shillings per hundred copies. The author complained that since 1814, when the Papacy had been reinstated and the Jesuit order restored, the power of the Catholic Church had continually increased. Thus by 1851 ‘the insidious advance and open aggression of Romanism’ had produced ‘a most serious and most important crisis’ exposing England to ‘danger . . . in a religious and moral point of view’. He was particularly concerned about the activities of a Passionist priest, George Spencer (the son of the Second Earl Spencer and a convert to Rome), who was conducting an aggressive campaign to convert English Protestants with support from both the Pope and the Archbishop of Armagh, Paul Cullen. This anonymous author considered that under cover of the Great Exhibition a vast influx of people, mainly Catholics, was arriving in England and was poised to aid Spencer in implementing his treacherous plan. In this writer’s view England faced great danger and all true Protestants were advised to resist Catholicism by keeping alert and by taking every opportunity to recite anti-Catholic prayers, such as the following ejaculations: ‘Gracious God! preserve this country from the devices of Romish agents,’ and ‘O Blessed Saviour! maintain the light of Thy truth amongst us, and save us from the darkness of Romanism.’25 A number of contemporary tracts and periodical articles reiterated the fear that the Exhibition would assist the Papacy in achieving its long-term goal of conquering English Protestantism. Thus one author, who styled himself ‘A Spiritual Watchman of the Church of England’, argued that the Exhibition would greatly advance the influence of Catholicism in Britain. He also sought to spread alarm among his readers by conjuring up an image of the opening ceremony that included a solemn mass and the procession of the host in place of Protestant prayers. Such an event, he speculated, would cause Cardinal Wiseman and the Pope to rub their hands with glee.26 While some writers stirred up public fear of Catholicism, stouter hearts conceived the possibility of using the Exhibition to defeat the Papacy by exposing its alleged pretensions and dishonesty. Thus the author of one tract challenged the Pope to attend the Exhibition in person in order to prove before the assembled royalty that he is indeed the Vicar of Christ. If he declines this 24 The October 1850 issue of the Journal of Design and Manufactures (4 (1850–1) 59) carried an announcement that the Pope had appointed a committee to prepare various Roman artefacts for display at the Exhibition. The writer hoped that the Exhibition would reduce hostilities between England and Rome and speculated that the Pope might even attend. 25 Anon., Duty for the Crisis of 1851. 26 Spiritual Watchman, Theology and Morality, 10.

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invitation, claimed the author, he will have shown himself to be the antiChrist.27 Similarly, a contributor to the United Presbyterian Magazine, published by the staunchly anti-Catholic Secessionist church in Scotland, proposed that Catholic Members of Parliament should ask the Pope to send to London ‘the veil and chemise of the Virgin Mary’ so that these items could be displayed at the Exhibition and subjected to critical scientific examination.28 Although the Pope would not have responded to such a request, the Exhibition provided an occasion for these Protestants to engage in anti-Catholic banter. The evils of Catholicism were loudly trumpeted by Alessandro Gavazzi (shown in Figure 4), an apostate Italian priest, who seems to have made a living by writing a number of anti-Catholic works and by touring the country delivering lectures to large audiences of shocked Protestants. One of the stories he told his listeners related to the Exhibition. A package had been sent from Italy and when the Commissioners opened it they found that it contained ‘Twelve bishops, with mitres on their reverend heads, and robes rich and sanctified on their anointed bodies, and—singular curiosity—a cardinal!’—a clear reference to the recent act of ‘papal aggression’. Not surprisingly the Catholic periodical the Rambler condemned Gavazzi’s cheap jibes at Catholicism.29 Yet the circulation of such anti-Catholic stories provides evidence of the concern among many Protestants that the Exhibition would be a flashpoint for the mounting antagonism towards Catholics.

BIBLICAL PROPHECIES: THE TOWER OF BABEL AND BELSHAZZAR’S FE AS T Two weeks before the opening of the Exhibition The Times noted the recent flurry of pamphlets predicting an imminent disaster and commented that ‘[o]n the strength of some rather violent Scriptural analogies, a certain class of pietists have run wild on the catastrophes which they conceive to be a natural and proper retribution for any great scheme of secular unity.’30 Likewise a leading Presbyterian minister in London recounted that he had been bombarded with letters asking whether he regarded the Exhibition as ‘a repetition of Belshazzar’s feast’ (Figure 5).31 For the many contemporaries who felt themselves threatened by the profound social, political, and economic changes

27

J.D., Challenge to Cardinal Wiseman, 7. Philo, ‘Romanism at Head Quarters—Marian Relics and Images’, United Presbyterian Magazine 5 (1851), 198–9. 29 ‘Father Gavazzi’, Rambler 9 (1852), 242. See also Paz, Popular Anti-Catholicism, 28. 30 Editorial, The Times, 18 April 1851, 4. 31 Cumming, Great Exhibition, 60. 28

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Figure 4 Father Gavazzi, the apostate Catholic priest, as portrayed in the Illustrated London News, 8 March 1851, 193.

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Religion and the Great Exhibition of 1851

Figure 5 A mid-nineteenth-century engraving of John Martin’s powerful evocation of Belshazzar’s Feast.

that had occurred during the previous two or three decades, the Great Exhibition could be understood in relation to certain biblical passages, especially the account of Belshazzar’s feast (Dan. 5) and the dispersion that occurred at the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1–9). Some outward similarities could readily be perceived between Belshazzar’s Babylon and Victorian London; most obviously, they could both be viewed as decadent and materialistic civilizations. As Lynda Nead has noted in Victorian Babylon, the Babylon of the ancient world offered ‘a paradoxical image for the nineteenth-century city. It not only represented the most magnificent imperial city of the ancient world, but also conjured up images of the mystical Babylon of the Apocalypse. It was a place that symbolised material wonder and tumultuous destruction; a city whose splendour was its downfall.’32 Just as Babylon had been destroyed as divine punishment for Belshazzar’s ungodly ways, a number of Victorian prophetic writers conceived a similar fate for London. Interest in Babylon was also fuelled by the contemporary accounts of travellers, archaeologists, and scholars, such as Austen Layard and Henry Rawlinson. The events at the Tower of Babel likewise offered some striking similarities to the contemporary happenings at the Crystal Palace; in particular, both involved a great gathering of people from many nations. Moreover, with the 32

Nead, Victorian Babylon, 3.

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dispersal at Babel a confusion of tongues had occurred, reminiscent of the many languages spoken in London by the people drawn to the Exhibition from the four corners of the Earth. Thus both religious and other commentators portrayed the Exhibition as ‘a second Tower of Babel’, although those who perceived it in prophetic terms often viewed this simile with alarm. For example, shortly before the opening John Bull reported under the heading ‘The Gathering of All Vagabonds’ that the scenes recorded in Genesis 11:1–9 were being repeated in contemporary London.33 The use of passages from biblical history as a tool to articulate the meaning of the Exhibition is inextricably linked to the considerable interest in biblical prophecy evident in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Much of this commentary was influenced by Edward Irving’s pre-millennial views, such as his Babylon and Infidelity Doomed by God (1826), in which he sought to relate the Daniel narrative to recent historical events. As he explained, ‘when each generation looketh upon the handwriting of prophecy . . . it might both know and feel, that the destinies of men and of kingdoms are in the hand of the Lord, and, in their utmost violences, are governed and restrained by his will’. In his analysis he dated the French Revolution (1792–3) as marking the termination of the period of papal reign and he calculated that the Apocalypse and the reign of Christ would commence 75 years thereafter—in or about the year 1868.34 Among Irving’s many followers was Edward Elliott of Trinity College, Cambridge, who published a massive three-volume work, Horæ Apocalypticæ (1844), in which he analysed the Book of Revelation and the prophecies of Daniel in order to demonstrate that the Pope was indeed the Antichrist.35 Although there was disagreement over dating, Irving, Elliott, and a number of other pre-millennialists predicted that the new millennium would occur in the short period spanning 1866 to 1868. This chronology was highly relevant to interpretations of the Exhibition since it was to be held a mere fifteen to seventeen years before the great upheaval would occur. From the perspective of prophetic chronology the Exhibition was seen as a portent of disastrous things to come in the fairly near future. Hence such scriptural passages as Belshazzar’s feast were accorded considerable contemporary significance. Other evidence of the contemporary interest in prophecy is the founding in 1842 of the Prophecy Investigation Society, which held an annual series of lectures at St George’s, Bloomsbury—lectures that were subsequently published. Six years later the Quarterly Journal of Prophecy was founded by Horatius Bonar, a minister in the Free Church of Scotland and an avid 33 [Dudley Costello], ‘All the World and His Wife; or, what Brought Everyone to London in 1851. Chapters XIII–XV’, New Monthly Magazine 92 (1851), 1–21, on 8; ‘The Gathering of All Vagabonds’, John Bull, 29 March 1851, 201–2. 34 Irving, Babylon and Infidelity, 8 and 82. 35 Bebbington, Evangelicalism, 78–86. A fourth edition of Elliott’s Horæ Apocalypticæ appeared in 1851. Now in 4 volumes, it included an Apocalyptic Chart and engravings of medals.

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contributor to evangelical literature. It carried the passage ‘Not the wisdom of this world’ (1 Cor. 2:6) on its title page and included many articles discussing the significance of events at Babylon, with titles like ‘Antichrist and Babylon’ and ‘Is Rome Babylon, and Why?’ The prophetic literature of the period indicates not only a deep concern with prophecy and how it relates to the historical past, present, and future, but also reveals that there was considerable disagreement among cognoscenti on these issues. Likewise, as the following examples indicate, there was no consensus among the Victorian writers on prophecy over which biblical passages were most pertinent to understanding the Great Exhibition and what precisely was its meaning within a prophetic view of history.36 Among the ‘certain class of pietists’ identified by The Times was the anonymous author of Belshazzar’s Feast in Its Application to the Great Exhibition (1851). Written by John Gifford Bellett, one of the founders of the ultraevangelical Plymouth Brethren, this pamphlet recounted the great banquet that Belshazzar, the last Babylonian king, held for a thousand of his retainers, accompanied by their wives and concubines. The assembled guests consumed much wine and praised ‘the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone’ (Dan. 5:4). Hedonism and the worship of material things were rampant at Belshazzar’s court. A striking similarity could readily be drawn between the time of Belshazzar and the epoch of materialistic values that characterized the mid-nineteenth century and was especially manifest in the Great Exhibition. ‘The present’, wrote Bellett, ‘is an easy, self-indulgent, worldly moment. The gods of gold and of silver, of brass, of wood and of iron, are praised.’ With its vast collection of attractive and valuable artefacts from around the world, the Exhibition was ‘dedicated to the works of man and does homage to man’; it was definitely not dedicated to God. Bellett also considered that many of the objectives of the Great Exhibition, as urged by Prince Albert and its other leading proponents, were directly contrary to God’s purpose. Take, for example, the frequently stated aim of gathering the nations and thereby encouraging international brotherhood. By contrast, Bellett conceived these to be human conceits that were contrary to God’s plan, which had been to scatter the nations at Babel and only to gather them again at Shiloh at the appropriate time—a time to be decided by God, not man. Bellett was also contemptuous of promoting ‘the great business of social comfort and happiness as wide as the human family’. Instead, he contended, people should be content with their God-given destinies and should not strive to better themselves, especially in ways that would lead them to forsake God. He also noted with disgust that many self-proclaimed Christians were rushing to endorse the Great Exhibition on religious grounds but in doing so they were exploiting 36 Among the other publications that took a similar tack was Spiritual Watchman, ‘The Great National Exhibition’, British Millennial Harbinger, 3rd ser., 4 (1851), 138–9.

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Christian religion for their own ends, not God’s. ‘The Exhibition’, wrote this ardent member of the Plymouth Brethren, ‘is therefore in full collision with the mind of God. Christ exposes the world; the Exhibition displays it. Christ would alarm it, and call it to a sense of judgment; the Exhibition makes it on better terms with itself than ever.’ Balshazzar’s Feast therefore advised its readers not to attend the Exhibition, urging them instead to follow the example of Daniel who separated himself from Belshazzar and declined to participate in the king’s self-indulgent feast. This course of action, Bellett urged, was the right one for all true believers to adopt. Moreover, just as the writing on the wall was a portent of doom for Belshazzar, so he conceived that the very public flaunting of riches in his own day was hastening the coming destruction. While he did not predict a major catastrophe at the Crystal Palace itself, Bellett considered the Exhibition to be the sign of the impending Apocalypse.37 In Adopting this view he was probably expecting the apocalypse to occur c.1868. A second anonymous pamphleteer, who styled himself ‘An Observer of the Times’, adopted Joel 2:1 as his text—‘Blow ye the trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in my Holy mountain’—and objected that a ‘favourite dogma of the present day, is, that commerce and manufacturers are to regenerate and civilize mankind’. However, he argued, this will not lead to spiritual or moral improvement since commerce is not benign but results in love of money, which in turn encourages evil and contributes to the vanquishing of religion. He quoted at length from Chapters 27 and 28 of the Book of Ezekiel, which described the commercial activities of the merchants at Tyre. There commerce became the merchants’ idol and money their god. ‘Is not your crystal building a second Babel?’ he asked rhetorically. ‘Yes, and I fear confusion will be the end of it. . . . This Tower of Pride will be your ruin.’ The specific judgment he envisaged was based on Ezekiel 28:7, in which God foretold the destruction of merchants of Tyre: ‘I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations; and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.’ This verse seemed particularly apposite, given the large number of foreigners flocking to London for the Great Exhibition. London was the latter-day Tyre. This ‘Observer of the Times’ also knew which visitors posed the real threat. While many contemporaries feared an invasion of Catholics and anti-Catholic sentiment was rife during the passage of the 1851 Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, this writer noted that the main threat to Protestantism, Queen, and country came instead from atheistical French republicans. He described the Great Exhibition as ‘a second Horse of Troy, under cover of which, a body of French Republicans will be lodged in the heart of London, who in concert with our Chartists, 37 [Bellett], Belshazzar’s Feast, passim. My thanks to the anonymous reviewer who identified Bellett as the author of this pamphlet.

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Irish, and English, and the disaffected of our manufacturing population, will then effect, what they attempted in [the revolutions of] 1848.’ Those disruptive revolutions that had engulfed much of Europe just three years earlier were deemed likely to recur, but this time in Britain. Revolutionaries would overwhelm the country and sweep away its socially stratified Christian society. A number of other recent events also presaged an imminent catastrophe. One was the way in which mechanics and artisans, many of whom were attracted to the Exhibition, had adopted radical ideas and were allegedly ready to overthrow Britain’s social and religious institutions. Recent legislation by Parliament had also contributed to the purported decline of religion; in particular, a bill allowing alcohol to be sold on the Sabbath had been passed, while another had diverted taxpayers’ money to support the Catholic seminary at Maynooth. These were among the many signs of an imminent catastrophe, but the Exhibition was deemed the most conspicuous.38 The Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, which Horatius Bonar edited, included an anonymous article entitled the ‘Prophetic Character of the Great Exhibition’ in its August 1851 issue. Its author explicitly aligned the Exhibition with Babel—‘yea, the Babel renewed’—and was concerned that the Exhibition placed too much emphasis on worldly things and thus undervalued the spiritual. Yet he did not relate the Exhibition to Chapter 11 of Genesis but rather selected those verses in Genesis Chapter 3 concerning Eve eating from the Tree of Knowledge, since he considered that the increase in knowledge of God’s creation would ultimately lead to humankind’s downfall. He saw ‘all man’s discoveries and inventions’ on display at the Exhibition fitting into a scenario that originated with the expulsion from Eden and continued through to the great scientific, technological, commercial, and cultural progress he witnessed in his own day. This historical trajectory would culminate in the eventual destruction of the world. Quoting James 4:4—‘the friend of the world is the enemy of God’—he conceived the pursuit of human progress in the mundane sphere to be utterly incompatible with the life of the spirit. The Christian was thus faced with the classic choice between serving Mammon and serving God. (Matt. 6:24; Luke 16:13) However, he did not envisage the imminent destruction of the Great Exhibition; rather, he considered that the Exhibition would be a resounding success; it would indeed manifest the state of ‘peace and safety’ (1 Thess. 5:3) and prosperity on earth that had been prophesied. But, he insisted, the same prophecy also predicted that this state of peace and prosperity would soon be followed by strife and the ‘sudden destruction cometh upon them . . . and they shall not escape’. Hence the writer did not predict the destruction of the Exhibition itself, but rather related it to an 38 An Observer of the Times, England and the Exhibition of 1851, esp. 4–7. In his Sermon (5), J. F. Denham contrasted the current situation with that at Tyre, since civilization and especially science and communication had advanced so much since then.

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historical scenario in which humankind’s ultimate destruction—perhaps in the period 1866–8 as many pre-millennialists had predicted—was assured.39 But not all writers on prophecy concurred with the above interpretations. The next issue of the Quarterly Journal of Prophecy contained a short editorial note, presumably written by Bonar, arguing that Christians should not deprecate developments in science and technology but should nevertheless be alert to the many dangers posed by the Exhibition. While not discouraging believers from attending the Exhibition, the editor cautioned that they should enter ‘in a more prayerful spirit’ and he listed a number of dangers that the Exhibition posed to Christianity, including its encouragement of vanity and its appeal to the ‘lust of the eye’.40 Yet rather surprisingly this note did not allude to prophecy and its insertion would appear to indicate the editor’s disagreement with the prophetic interpretation of the Exhibition offered by the earlier author discussed above. Probably the most sophisticated work that sought to demonstrate the disasters that must result from the Exhibition was written under the pseudonym ‘Historia’—a writer who promulgated the close analogies between the Great Exhibition and similar events in history. In order to draw comparisons between past and present Historia appealed to events in biblical history, especially the account in Genesis, Chapter 11, of the dispersion at Babel. Thus, just like the gathering at Babel, the Commissions had sought to bring unity to the nations. Likewise, the people who converged on Babel ‘journeyed from the East’ (Gen. 11:2), which would be direction of travel for most nonChristian visitors to the Exhibition. Indeed, he viewed London as the modern Babel and therefore predicted that it was destined to suffer the same fate. Using these and a number of other perceived similarities between the two events, Historia predicted that some great evil would occur in tandem with the Exhibition. While Historia’s predictions were similar to those articulated by other prophets of doom, he advocated a scientific approach to prophecy by articulating what he claimed to be a law of history, similar to the laws of nature that natural philosophers used in explaining natural phenomena. Moreover, to justify his argument he discussed the use of different types of evidence. Despite this apparent sophistication, Historia’s essay failed to secure an essay prize offered by the Society of Arts.41 As these examples indicate, even among those who understood the Great Exhibition to signal impending doom, there was no consensus over which biblical text was the most relevant or how it should be interpreted. Yet these and many other prophetic writers viewed the mid-nineteenth century as a period when the citadel of Christianity was under attack, from both within and 39 40 41

‘Prophetic Character of the Great Exhibition’, Quarterly Journal of Prophecy 3 (1851), 267–75. ‘Note’, ibid. 367–8. Historia, To-morrow!, passim.

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without. The rise of Tractarianism was causing a substantial number of Anglicans to adopt High Church principles and even to desert to Rome, while another significant segment of the Anglican Church and many Dissenters were being drawn away from a simple faith in the Bible and towards natural theology and the rational study of both of God’s books. With the recent ‘aggression’ by the Papacy and the influx of Irish Catholics, the threat from Roman Catholicism was perceived to have increased dramatically. Believers troubled by increasing social unrest glimpsed the breakdown of society in the radical atheistical movements that had swept much of Europe in the late 1840s. For the writers of the above tracts, materialism, Mammon, and moral decay were increasingly prominent vices of early Victorian England, while God and spiritual values were ignored. These conservatives experienced difficulty in confronting an age of rapid social and economic change and found in the Bible an explanation that made sense both of the time in which they were living and of the hubristic gleaming palace that had sprung up in Hyde Park. Many of them found a close similarity between ancient Babylon and modern London; in line with that similitude London would soon be consumed by the Apocalypse and Christ would be reborn. Yet even writers on prophecy were deeply divided over whether the Exhibition should be accorded a place in their histories. In opposition to the above prophets of doom, John Cumming, the influential minister at the Scottish National Church in Covent Garden who himself contributed significantly to the literature on prophecy, wrote, I cannot see the least point of coincidence whatever; and if you will read the fifth chapter of Daniel, which describes the feast of Belshazzar, and the gathering of the nobles of his kingdom to worship gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, and then take the ordinary daily newspaper, and read the account of the opening of the Crystal Palace, adorned by the presence of our beloved Queen, consecrated by the prayers of the chief minister of religion . . . you will see that . . . there is abundant point of contrast, but not one single point of contact or comparison.42

The Free Church Magazine, like a number of other religious periodicals, also chastised the pamphleteers who denounced the Exhibition ‘as, next to the building of the Tower of Babel, the most gigantic attempt at a godless confederacy of the nations that the world has ever witnessed’.43 Likewise, not unsurprisingly the Nonconformist rebuked those who viewed the Exhibition through the medium of gloomy and melancholic dispositions—whose notions of religion, born, perhaps, of disordered livers, and fed by whatever in the Bible can be made to assimilate to their own unhappy temperaments, are shocked by whatever 42 Cumming, Great Exhibition, 60. Unlike several of the doom-laden pamphlets, Cumming’s comments postdated the opening of the Exhibition. 43 ‘The Great Exhibition’, Free Church Magazine 8 (1851), 202–5, on 202.

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would minister to the human gladness, and can discover nothing in the anticipated concourse of peoples but a resemblance to Babel—nothing in the display of industrial triumph but a repetition of Hezekiah’s sin—who believe that God looks down upon this spectacle with angry disapprobation—and who prophesy judgments the most fearful as the well-merited punishment of our pride and folly.44

Several of the prophetic pamphlets discussed above were also subject to scathing reviews in the religious periodical press. For example, the Primitive Church Magazine dismissed the views of ‘An Observer of the Times’ and the Monthly Christian Spectator poured scorn on another scaremongering pamphlet.45 Judging by such responses the merchants of doom were rebuffed by a wide section of the religious spectrum. Nevertheless, they constituted a small but noisy minority of conservative Christians—principally ultra-evangelicals— who saw the Exhibition through dark prophetic glasses. *** Most of the strong religious opposition to the Exhibition dated from late 1850 and the early months of 1851 but had largely disappeared by the time of the grand opening. Even some of the periodicals that had earlier criticized the Exhibition changed their opinion after the official opening and participated in the widespread euphoria and optimism that the Exhibition engendered. Consider, for example, the High Church English Churchman, which had earlier published articles critical of the Exhibition. The editor had, he claimed, ‘felt, from the beginning, a strong and unfavourable impression about it’. He also expressed deep concern about the lack of religion in the Exhibition itself and also considered that women would be especially vulnerable to the vast numbers of foreigner predators about to descend on London. Yet after the Exhibition opened, this sixpenny weekly carried a number of enthusiastic reports and even published two full-page ground plans of the Crystal Palace. Following the close of the Exhibition the editor wrote: ‘Thus has ended one of the great modern combinations, and the good conduct, good order, and good management, which have attended it, from first to last, must be thankfully recorded, and will be inseparably connected with its marvels and its attractions.’46 As with the editor of the English Churchman, expectation often proved far more frightening than reality, especially as none of the dire predictions transpired. No major catastrophe occurred during the Exhibition’s five–anda-half-month duration. The building was not destroyed by storm nor even suffered significant damage. The Queen still occupied the throne at the 44 Nonconformist, 23 April 1851, 326. A similar point was made in ‘The Opening of the Great Exhibition’, Evangelical Magazine n.s. 29 (1851), 330–2, on 331. 45 Primitive Church Magazine n.s. 8 (1851), 121; Monthly Christian Spectator 1 (1851), 520–1. 46 English Churchman, esp. 27 February 1851, 135–6; 13 March 1851, 169; 24 April 1851, 262; 8 May 1851, 286–92; 15 May 1851, 302–3; 16 October 1851, 661.

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Exhibition’s close on 11 October and the Church of England remained intact (but divided). While some had feared the presence of large crowds, especially of working-class radicals who would use the Exhibition for their own malevolent purposes, the visitors were remarkably well behaved and no riots occurred. As was often noted, especially by the more conservative periodicals, the working classes had proved unexpectedly congenial and posed no threat to their social betters, even showing due regard to the royal visitors. Nothing worse transpired than a few visitors’ pockets were picked. At least outwardly, the Exhibition provided no evidence of an impending apocalypse. Yet, although the prophets of doom appeared to have been firmly refuted by the success of the Exhibition, many Christians who outwardly supported it nevertheless retained a degree of ambivalence concerning its underlying significance and saw it as connoting some vague threat to religion. Thus after the Exhibition closed the Bishop of London publicly expressed thanks to God for taking it under His beneficent care and a group of evangelical churches held a service of thanksgiving at Exeter Hall.47 Even if the prophets of doom had been proved wrong, the Exhibition had still required God’s active protection. The Times, 16 October 1851, 2; ‘The Great Exhibition: A Thanksgiving Service at Exeter Hall’, in Forty-Four Sermons, 549–64. See also Chapters 3 and 8 below. 47

2 Preparing for the Exhibition ORGANIZING THE EXHIBITION Although the Prince Consort, Henry Cole, and a committee of the Society of Arts had been planning a major international exhibition for some months and had already taken soundings from various individuals and from meetings throughout the country, the first significant Exhibition-related event in London was held at the Mansion House on 17 October 1849. Cole, speaking on behalf of Prince Albert and the Society of Arts, explained the rationale for the Exhibition to an audience of 3–400 influential merchants, bankers, and city traders. In order for the project to proceed he sought the endorsement of this wealthy and prominent sector of London society. In his speech Cole proposed that this Exhibition of industry should be international in scope, with the nations competing for prizes for the best manufactured goods in a number of different categories. He pictured a grand affair: ‘London will act the part of host to all the world at an intellectual festival of peaceful industry . . . a festival such as the world never before has seen’. To demonstrate that the proposal had already achieved widespread support, he conveyed to the meeting some of the opinions canvassed previously. While most of the views he cited were from manufacturers who welcomed the opportunity to compete against foreign producers, one respondent offered a different perspective. The Revd William Yate of St John’s Mariner Church in Dover, who had earlier served as a missionary in New Zealand, ‘expressed the hope and belief that the proposed exhibition would hasten the period when men shall beat “their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruninghooks” [Isa. 2:4]’.1 Yate’s optimism was subsequently shared by many religious supporters of the Exhibition. Nor was religion overlooked at the second Mansion House meeting, held on 25 January 1850, when the subscription lists were opened and the assembled city merchants, bankers, and traders pledged over £10,000 towards mounting the 1 ‘Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations’, The Times, 18 October 1849, 6. Yate had earlier been dismissed from the Church Missionary Society for alleged sexual impropriety. On Yate see Binney, ‘Yate, William’.

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Exhibition. Although most of the speakers argued that the Exhibition would confer on Britain various benefits, especially economic ones arising from enhanced trade, Lord Robert Grosvenor, the evangelical Whig MP for Middlesex, also perceived the Exhibition in religious terms: ‘The project recommended itself principally to him from the Christian view it took of the promotion of permanent and universal peace,’ reported The Times.2 The sumptuous banquet held in the Egyptian Hall of the Mansion House and hosted by the Lord Mayor of London on 21 March 1850 was the most impressive of the three preparatory events (Figure 6). Albert was the guest of honour and the other guests included the Royal Commissioners, mayors from towns across the country, the aldermen of the City of London, the masters of the livery companies, representatives of foreign governments, together with a cross-section of other eminent people. This banquet provided Albert with the opportunity to launch a high-profile promotion of the Exhibition. Unlike the

Figure 6 Banquet at the Mansion House on 21 March 1850, hosted by the Lord Mayor of London, at which Prince Albert gained the support of the City for his scheme. Illustrated London News, 23 March 1850, 188. 2 ‘The Great Exhibition of Industry, 1851’, The Times, 26 January 1850, 5. See also Charles Grey to Henry Cole, 26 January 1850: Cole Collection, 55.BB, box 1 (2), ff. 27–8.

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two previous meetings at which Cole and other supporters of the project had argued its case, the Prince now publicly proclaimed his personal vision for the Exhibition, with other speakers adding to the rising sense of euphoria. According to one of the guests, ‘Albert’s speech was extremely good—high German certainly, but full of thought, sense, and progress.’3 Religious themes were repeatedly evoked. For example, in his paean to progress Albert portrayed nature as God’s creation and offered a religious interpretation of human progress: Man’s ‘reason being created after the image of God, he has to use it to discover the laws by which the Almighty governs His creation, and, by making these laws his standard of action, to conquer nature to his use— himself a divine instrument’. The scientist, the inventor, the manufacturer, and the artisan were thus proclaimed ‘divine instrument[s]’ and the Exhibition was firmly set in a religious framework, not a secular one. Moreover, Albert expressed the hope that, on witnessing the vast array of evidence of human progress to be displayed at the Exhibition, the visitor would experience ‘a deep thankfulness to the Almighty for the blessings which He has bestowed upon us already here below’. Albert’s insistence that the Exhibition should be seen as part of God’s providential plan proved attractive to many Christians. He also spoke in prophetic terms portraying the Exhibition as a turning point in human history when ‘the realization of the unity of mankind’ would at last be achieved. By portraying the Exhibition as a catalyst for international peace and unity Albert was likewise according legitimacy to the Exhibition in prophetic Christian terms.4 Responding to the religious resonances of Albert’s speech, William Gladstone claimed that while it filled him ‘with much respect, [it] was like a 5th Gospel, a new Evangel’.5 Following Albert’s speech and toasts to other members of the royal family and to the Lord Mayor and the City of London, a toast was accorded to the next speaker, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop—John Bird Sumner, a moderate evangelical—expressed his pleasure at being invited to pledge his support for the Exhibition. Although the Exhibition was, he admitted, ‘in a great degree of a secular character’, he insisted that clergymen should not be perceived solely as spiritual leaders but also as ‘citizens, and we do not cease to be patriots (cheers); and as citizens and as patriots we must take a lively interest in whatever tends to promote the national prosperity and to aggrandize our country. (Hear, hear.)’ The Church, he implied, stood four square behind Albert’s plans. While welcoming the prospect of increased prosperity resulting from the Exhibition, he particularly appreciated its aim of improving ‘social relations and add[ing] to the amicable intercourse of the 3

Lascelles, Extracts from Journals, 106. ‘The Exhibition of All Nations: Grand Banquet at the Mansion-House’, The Times, 22 March 1850, 5. 5 Diary entry for 21 March 1850 in Foot and Matthew, Gladstone Diaries, 4: 194. 4

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different nations of Europe with our own. (Hear, hear.) We shall rejoice in this because it will carry into effect that glorious characteristic of our holy religion—goodwill amongst men’. Thus the Archbishop extended the scope of the Exhibition beyond the secular and imposed on it a distinct religious character. Another speaker, Sir Robert Peel, emulated Albert in portraying the natural world as God’s creation and intimated that God created raw materials and intended them to be used for commercial purposes in order to meet human needs. He also conceived the Exhibition as fulfilling a moral purpose by teaching people ‘gratitude towards their Almighty Creator by the exhibition of the wonderful contrivances of nature for the happiness of mankind’ and in bringing people closer together.6 Thus several religious justifications of the Exhibition were offered at three Mansion House events, but especially the banquet on 21 March 1850 at which the project for the Exhibition was decisively launched by Albert and received the Primate’s sanction. The proposals for a major international exhibition promoted at these three events were welcomed by most sections of the religious periodical press. For example, the Nonconformist, edited by the Congregationalist Edward Miall, proclaimed the proposed exhibition ‘a sign of the times, and a pleasing one’. Likewise, the Eclectic Review, another influential voice of dissent, described the grand Mansion House banquet addressed by Albert as ‘a magnificent herald of the future’, while the ultra-evangelical Record declared the Exhibition a ‘magnificent scheme’.7 Even the conservative High Church John Bull, which was later to become one of the Exhibition’s sternest critics, applauded the plans announced by Cole and Prince Albert. It did, however, caution against the supporters of Free Trade turning the Exhibition to their own political advantage and it also expressed scepticism about the Revd Yate’s attempt to align the Exhibition with Isaiah’s prophecy.8 Given the significant place of religion in Victorian public life it is perhaps surprising that not a single churchman was included among the twenty-two Royal Commissions appointed in January 1850 to assist Albert in overseeing and organizing the Exhibition. There were representatives of several learned societies, including the Presidents of the Royal Society, the Royal Academy, and the Geological Society. Among the leading politicians were Robert Peel, William Gladstone, Lord John Russell, and the Radical MP Richard Cobden, a major opponent of protectionism. Manufacturing and commercial interests were represented by a Leeds woollen manufacturer (John Gott), a Spitalfields silk merchant (Thomas Gibson), the Chairman of the East India Company 6

The Times, 22 March 1850, 5. See also Auerbach, Great Exhibition, 59–60. Nonconformist, 24 October 1849, 846; Eclectic Review n.s. 27 (1850), 486; Record, 18 October 1849, 4. 8 John Bull, 20 October 1849, 661, and 23 March 1850, 185. The less reactionary High Church Guardian (3 July 1850, 473, and 10 July 1850, 493) was also initially unenthusiastic about the proposed Exhibition. See also Baptist Magazine 42 (1850), 368–70. 7

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(Archibald Galloway), the President of the Board of Trade (Henry Labouchere), and a banker (Thomas Baring). Albert probably decided against inviting any clergymen or any leading representatives of Dissent to become a Commissioner to avoid engendering religious controversy to an ostensibly secular project. Yet despite the outwardly secular appearance of the Commissioners, there was a large predominance of Anglicans—including Gladstone, Thomas Bazley, and Philip Pusey (brother of the Tractarian Edward Pusey)— several of whom tended towards the High Church. Lord Overstone was the most evangelical among the Commissioners. Dissent was poorly represented; the principal example being the geologist Charles Lyell, who leaned towards Unitarianism.9 By contrast the earliest major subscribers included two Jews, a Quaker, and two prominent evangelicals.10 Yet the success of the Exhibition depended not only on the cooperation of the powerful and influential men drawn to the highprofile events held in London’s Mansion House but also on the support of artisans and manufacturers throughout the country. It would appear that the exhibitors and members of local committees were drawn from a wide range of religious backgrounds, with Dissenters prominent in the manufacturing districts. Five respectable men of business were soon appointed as treasurers, in whose names the Exhibition’s account was opened at the Bank of England. They were the brewer Arthur Kett Barclay, the merchant William Cotton, the banker and astronomer Sir John Lubbock, the builder Samuel Morton Peto, and the financier Baron Lionel Nathan de Rothschild. Three of the five— Cotton, Peto, and Rothschild—were widely known for their philanthropic activities. The choice of treasurers also reflected an interesting diversity of religious opinion since although three were Anglican, Peto was a prominent Baptist, and Rothschild a Jew. Although the Mansion House meetings are usually taken to mark significant moments in the early history of the Exhibition, a rather different, but also important, source of support was sought at a packed meeting held at Willis’s Rooms in Westminster on 21 February 1850, just a month after the Commissioners accepted their appointments. At their meeting on 14 February the Commissioners had received a letter signed by two hundred and eight ‘noblemen, clergy, gentlemen and tradesmen of the first class’ requesting an opportunity for the residents of Westminster to be informed about the proposed Exhibition.11 In response a number of speakers, including the 9 On the composition of the Royal Commission see Hobhouse, Crystal Palace, 14–16 and 403. Lord Overstone complained to his father that ‘the Commissioners are most of them Ornaments rather than efficient instruments of business’: S. J. Loyd to L. Loyd (Snr.), 30 January 1850: O’Brien, Correspondence of Lord Overstone, 2: 477. 10 ‘We have now seven subscriptions of that amount [£500], viz. T. Baring—[Joshua] Bates— Baron Rothschild—Sir Anthony Rothschild [both Jewish]—S. Gurney [Quaker]—Yourself—and I [both Evangelicals]’: S. J. Loyd to L. Loyd (Snr.), 22 January 1850: ibid. 2: 474–5. 11 Minutes of . . . Her Majesty’s Commissioners, Minutes of 14 February 1850, 5.

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French Ambassador, the Prussian Ambassador (Christian Bunsen), the Earl of Carlisle, Lord Brougham, Lord Ashley, the Bishop of London, and the Bishop of Oxford, appeared at the meeting in Willis’s Rooms in order to promote the Exhibition by proclaiming its many advantages amid hearty applause from the audience. Bunsen, for example, publicly reflected on the honour it would bestow on England in the eyes of the rest of the world. Among the speakers, the Bishop of London, the High Churchman Charles Blomfield, seconded a motion by the French Ambassador advocating the Exhibition as a means of encouraging universal peace. The Bishop considered the Exhibition to be ‘a measure eminently, though indirectly, calculated to promote the progress of religion, the growth of Christian principles, and the best interests of that family of nations of which this country formed so important a member’. The promotion of peace, he argued, was a truly Christian ideal. While the love of one’s own country is noble, he considered that the ideal of loving ‘as ourselves all the common children of the Almighty Father, who made of one blood all the nations of the earth’, was to be valued even more highly. Thus at this early stage in the Exhibition’s history a leading Anglican publicly endorsed one of its principal aims.12 Later in the proceedings a further prominent Anglican, the Bishop of Oxford, spoke strongly in favour of the Exhibition and in even more expansive tones. According to the Earl of Carlisle, the Bishop ‘really out-did himself in fervid eloquence. The room was delighted, so were the ladies.’13 Rather than simply proposing the motion that the Exhibition would benefit ‘all consumers, especially the working classes’, he reflected on its social and religious significance. Responding to those Christians who believed there was ‘any intestine warfare between Christianity and science or manufactures’, the Bishop argued that there was no conflict between knowledge of God’s creation and religious faith. Moreover, he viewed technological progress as closely allied with Christianity since it helped to ameliorate the condition of the poor. Indeed, he insisted that the development of science and technology should be warmly encouraged ‘not in spite of my Christianity, but because of my Christianity’. Christians were therefore duty bound ‘to reign over the elements—to replenish the earth, and to subdue it’. He did, however, warn his audience that in the pursuit of science and technology they should not lose sight of the social needs of working men. These assertions strongly in favour of science may come as a surprise, since the Bishop of Oxford—Samuel Wilberforce (who was generally aligned with the High Church)—is usually remembered for his confrontation with Thomas Henry Huxley over Darwin’s theory of evolution at the British Association meeting in Oxford almost a decade later, which is often interpreted as a paradigm example to support the claim that science and religion 12 13

‘Industrial Exhibition of 1851’, The Times, 22 February 1850, 8. Lascelles, Extracts from Journals, 99–100. The ‘ladies’ were his companions.

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are in conflict. Such an interpretation is, however, incompatible with Wilberforce’s firm rejection in his Westminster speech of the very idea that Christianity and science were locked in ‘intestine warfare’. Moreover, historians have shown that this interpretation of the ‘Huxley–Wilberforce debate’ lacks a firm evidential base. Furthermore, in this mythic account Wilberforce is portrayed as intellectually vacuous and stridently opposed to science, whereas he was fairly well-versed in the sciences, especially natural history, had graduated from Oxford in mathematics and classics, was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and served on the councils of the Geological and Zoological Societies.14 Furthermore in his speech at Westminster, Wilberforce next reflected on the nobility of work and the dignity of labour and argued that the Exhibition would benefit the working classes considerably. Citing the use of magnetic gauze to protect workers from inhaling iron filings, he indicated that at the Exhibition artisans would see exhibits demonstrating how science could ameliorate their own working conditions. He was also highly critical of dehumanizing working practices, such as the continuous performance of a single repetitive task by button-makers, and he argued that by seeing the endproducts of industrial processes on display at the Exhibition the working lives of artisans would be enriched. Likewise, producers and capitalists would, he insisted, come to appreciate each other better. In supporting the Exhibition both as aiding man’s divinely ordained ability to use nature for human benefit and as a means of improving the conditions of the working classes, Wilberforce further argued that working men should become involved in the Exhibition. Not only should they visit it but they should also have a stake in it by making a small financial investment: while the rich were being encouraged to subscribe £100, ‘I want you to encourage the poor artisan to give his 1s[hilling] subscription (Loud applause)’. Wilberforce’s speech was seconded by the ultra-evangelical Lord Ashley.15 That Wilberforce was a chaplain to Albert may help to explain his enthusiastic support for the Exhibition at this very public event; nevertheless, his arguments were sincere, pertinent, and forceful. With Albert’s encouragement the organizers of the Westminster meeting

14 For two recent reinterpretations of the ‘Huxley–Wilberforce debate’ see James, ‘An “Open Clash” ’; Livingstone, ‘That Huxley Defeated Wilberforce’. 15 The Times, 22 February 1850, 8; a copy of Wilberforce’s On the Dignity of Labour is in Albert’s Correspondence, vol. 2, item 95. The Times did not publish Lord Ashley’s speech seconding Wilberforce’s motion. However, according to the Record, 25 February 1850, 3, Ashley claimed that ‘if the tendency of this exhibition would be to establish the principle of reciprocity he could have no doubt of the great benefit that would arise from it to the working classes, not of this country alone, but of the whole civilized world, in the more easy interchange of their industrial products, which it would offer up for the future. He hoped this exhibition would be the commencement of a new order of things, and a general combination of all mankind to magnify the Almighty in the exposition of his works.’

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issued Wilberforce’s powerful oration as a pamphlet entitled On the Dignity of Labour, which sold for threepence for 25 copies. Wilberforce’s well-received speech at Westminster arguing for the involvement of the working classes resulted in the formation of the Working Class Committee, ‘for communicating with the Working Classes on the subject of the Exhibition’. Among its proposed activities were the enabling of working men to attend the Exhibition and arranging their accommodation in London. Wilberforce was clearly the prime mover behind this committee and he recruited a diverse array of socially concerned members, including the evangelical philanthropist and social reformer Lord Ashley, John Cumming (a leading Scottish Presbyterian), the radical preacher George Dawson, Charles Dickens, and (rather surprisingly given Wilberforce’s Toryism and antipathy towards working-class radicalism) the former Chartists William Lovett and Henry Vincent. Albert was keen to encourage this Committee, which was soon expanded under Henry Cole’s guidance to become the Central Working Classes Committee—hereafter CWCC. The Commissioners were informed of this initiative at their meeting on 9 May 1850. However, concern was expressed about the CWCC’s composition and role. Colonel William Reid, who chaired the Commission’s Executive Committee, objected that by sanctioning the existence of the CWCC Albert would be seen as granting legitimacy to a ‘democratic movement’. Reid—and doubtless others—considered that, despite Wilberforce’s active presence, this group was too tarred with radicalism and would therefore damage the respectable image that the Commissions were seeking to promote. The Commissioners responded to the CWCC on 13 May, but as the response did not contain ‘the recognition this Committee sought’, at its next meeting Dickens proposed that the CWCC should be disbanded, ‘considering that without such recognition it can neither effectively render the services it seeks to perform, nor command the confidences of the Working Classes’.16 In short, through their manifest lack of enthusiasm and support the Commissioners killed it off. Albert was clearly annoyed by this development, since working-class involvement in the Exhibition would thereby be curtailed and the working classes would not benefit as much from the Exhibition as they would otherwise have done. Albert’s secretary, Colonel Charles Grey, informed Cole ‘that there has been some imprudence in the selection of names for this Commee & that the notoriety of some of those who formed 16

Auerbach, Great Exhibition, 129–34; Lord Granville to Charles Grey, 17 May 1850: Prince Albert’s Correspondence, vol. 3, item 79; Henry Cole to Charles Grey, 5 June 1850: ibid. item 108; Bishop of Oxford to Prince Albert, 6 June 1850: ibid. item 109; Henry Cole to Charles Grey, 6 June 1850: ibid. item 110; Lord Granville to Charles Grey, 9 June 1850: ibid. item 117; Henry Cole to Charles Grey, 7 June 1850: ibid. item 118; Minutes of . . . Her Majesty’s Commissioners, Minutes of 9 May 1850, 5–6, and 21 June 1850, 16–17; Cole, Fifty Years, 1: 192. See also Sanders, Charles Dickens, 45; Short, ‘Workers under Glass’, 193–5.

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part of it indisposed several members of the Commission towards adopting this Committee as acting directly under themselves’. He even named one of the proposed new members, the Anglican clergyman and philanthropist Sidney Godolphin Osborne, as particularly unacceptable, because he was ‘too notorious as a writer in the Times &c’.17 Rebuffed by the Commissioners Wilberforce appears to have abandoned any further attempts to involve working men in the Exhibition and to have subsequently eschewed any prominent role in its preparations. However, by their involvement in the Westminster meeting Wilberforce and, to a lesser extent, Blomfield publicly showed that the Anglican establishment supported the Exhibition. (Four weeks later the Archbishop of Canterbury added his support at the Mansion House banquet.) The censorship of Wilberforce’s CWCC also illustrated the danger of tying the Exhibition too closely to Christian philanthropy with a perceived political hue. A number of clergymen were involved in the vast organizational framework underpinning the Exhibition, including its country-wide nexus of local committees. For example, the Anglican Revd Stephen Reed Cattley served as one of the two secretaries of the City of London Committee that had been formed at the first Mansion House meeting. The Dean of St Paul’s, Henry Milman, served on the committee that devised the Latin inscriptions that appeared on the medals awarded by the juries.18 Among the jurors were several clergymen, including the Free Churchman David Brewster and the Anglican Henry Moseley, who had been professor of natural philosophy and astronomy at King’s College, London, and was currently an Inspector of Schools.19 Several ministers and clergymen served on various London Local Committees, including the Revd John Barlow, who was appointed a Local Commissioner for Finsbury with responsibility for machinery.20 Barlow, Brewster, and Moseley were all Fellows of the Royal Society of London with significant publications on scientific subjects. Of the 300 provincial committees, 21 were chaired by ministers or clergymen, of whom most were Anglican, including three bishops. There were also two Congregational ministers and a Catholic priest.21 The Commission’s correspondence files contain a number of letters that cast light on the religious issues raised during preparations for the Exhibition. 17 Charles Grey to Henry Cole, 7 (?) June 1850: Cole Collection, 55.BB, box 1 (2), ff. 43–4. Writing under his initials ‘S.G.O.’, Osborne publicized in The Times the plight of Irish peasants afflicted by the famine. See also Henry Cole to Charles Grey, 5 June 1850: Cole Collection, 55.BB, box 1 (1), f. 12. 18 Henry Milman to Stafford Northcote, 9 July 1850: 1851 Commission Correspondence, 1850/220; Minutes of . . . Her Majesty’s Commissioners, Minutes of 6 July 1850, 2. 19 Ibid. Minutes of 15 April 1851, 10–11. 20 Ibid. Minutes of 14 February 1850, 6, and of 5 December 1850, 6; First Report of the Commissioners, 180. 21 Ibid. 180–95. George Best, a Catholic priest (see Catholic Directory, 52), chaired the Selby committee.

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For example, an exhibitor from Belgium raised a particularly thorny issue in the context of the recent uproar in response to the ‘papal aggression’. An embroiderer from Brussels named Joseph Van Halle had constructed a display consisting of ‘un pape et une suite de 12 Cardinaux’, one of whom, it was said, looked remarkably like Cardinal Wiseman, the newly appointed leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. While it was clear that the Commissioners were willing to exhibit the magnificent church vestments produced by Van Halle, they considered that Protestants would be offended if the vestments were given substance by being displayed on dummies. Sylvain Van de Weyer, the Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to His Majesty the King of the Belgians, was approached and concurred with this judgement. He argued that as Van Halle only claimed skill as an embroiderer, it would be appropriate to display the clothes but without the dummies; therefore, ‘Les vêtements, oui; les poupées, non’.22 When the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue was published Van Halle’s exhibit bore the uncontentious title of ‘Church ornaments and Brussels lace’.23 The Illustrated London News was sufficiently impressed by the standard of workmanship as to publish four illustrations of Van Halle’s ecclesiastical embroidery (Figure 7). Religious organizations also entered the wider discussion, especially of admission charges. Probably in response to an approach by the Commissioners, the Sub-Dean of Westminster informed them that during the previous five years visitors had not been charged for admission to the public parts of the Abbey. From the tone of the Sub-Dean’s letter he expected the Commissioners to follow the Abbey’s example; however, the Commissioners subsequently decided to levy an entry charge of 5/- throughout most of May and, after 26 May, 2/6 on Fridays and 5/- on Saturdays. Beginning on 26 May there was also a reduced charge of one shilling on Mondays through to Thursdays in order to enable working men and their families to attend, although this price still excluded the less affluent labourers and others who could not afford even that reduced fee.24 After the Exhibition opened several religious groups petitioned the Commissioners requesting free or reduced price access to the Exhibition. Thus in what appears to have been a coordinated approach both the Church of England Sunday School Institute and the Sunday School Union requested free admission for their pupils, many of whom could not even afford the minimum entrance fee of one shilling. A Sunday School teacher also proposed 22

Belgian Commissioners (signed Ed. Bomberg) to S. van de Weyer, 14 February 1851: Albert’s Correspondence, vol. 6, item 15; S. van de Weyer to Belgian Commissioners, 16 February 1851: ibid. vol. 6, item 16. 23 Belgium, no. 303 in Official Catalogue, 210; Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, 3: 1160. 24 Revd Lord John Thynne to Edgar Bowring, 15 February 1851: 1851 Commission Correspondence, 1851/45. There were also season tickets costing 3 gns for men and 2 gns for ladies.

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Figure 7 An example of Joseph Van Halle’s lace and gold embroidery. This exquisitely embroidered priest’s cope is said to have taken seven years to manufacture. Illustrated London News, 2 August 1851, 156. Other examples of Van Halle’s ecclesiastical garments can be found on pp. 22 and 290.

that free admission be coupled with a public display involving 50–60,000 children who would demonstrate to foreign visitors that ‘we are not only a religious nation in name but in practice as well’.25 Likewise, the Nonconformist carried a letter from a country pastor complaining that dissenting ministers were so poorly paid that he could not afford to travel to London and visit the Exhibition. He therefore sought assistance from fellow Dissenters. His request, however, brought a strong rebuke from another pastor who objected to such a plea for charity and argued instead that ministers should be adequately paid.26 25

Letters from a Sunday School teacher (6 June, 1851), John George Fleet (Hon. Sec. of Church of England Sunday School Institute, 3 July 1851), and William Groser (Sunday School Union, 3 July 1851): 1851 Commission Correspondence, 1851/335, 360, and 362. 26 Nonconformist, 9 July 1851, 541, and 16 July 1851, 559.

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Mid-century evangelicals were very active in addressing two social issues— temperance and Sabbath observance—both of which pertained to the Exhibition. The strong temperance lobby applauded the Commissioners’ decision to exclude the exhibit of alcohol, ‘unless derived from unusual sources’, and to prohibit the sale of beer, wine, and other intoxicating drinks inside the Crystal Palace. This latter prohibition formed part of the specification for contractors supplying the Exhibition with refreshments. Visitors could purchase such beverages as tea, coffee, soda water, ginger beer, and spruce beer, but contractors were also required to supply gratis fresh filtered water in glasses. In the light of these decisions the publisher John Cassell dubbed the Crystal Palace ‘that great temperance house’. Moreover, during the first week of August 1851, temperance groups took the opportunity offered by the Exhibition to undertake missionary activities in the Hyde Park area, including a series of temperance sermons on the Sunday. Among the temperance works directed to visitors to the Exhibition was James Silk Buckingham’s Earnest Plea for the Reign of Temperance and Peace, as Conducive to the Prosperity of Nations.27 As with the issue of temperance, in the months preceding the Exhibition the advocates of strict Sabbath observance were much in evidence. For example, Lord Ashley, the rising star in the evangelical firmament, had lobbied hard for the cessation of post office deliveries on Sundays, organized petitions, and even initiated a successful motion in the House of Commons on 30 May 1850. Sabbatarians also exerted considerable pressure on train companies not to run services on Sundays. However, no such lobby was mounted against the Commissioners who, at an early stage in their deliberations, ruled that no construction work was to be carried out on the Crystal Palace on the Sabbath. During the months leading up to the opening there were occasional calls for it to close on the Sabbath, but the issue never attracted the furore directed against Sunday postal deliveries.28 Only in early February 1851, when the prices of admission were announced, was there an unequivocal statement from the Commissioners that the Exhibition would be ‘open every day (Sundays excepted)’. This announcement was carried by The Times and many other newspapers, but perhaps rather surprisingly the religious press does not appear to have paid it much attention—they may have simply assumed that the Sabbath would be observed.29 In late July 1851 an unfortunate incident occurred that inflamed the Sabbatarians. The London-based Italian sculptor Raffaelle Monti discovered that photographs of some of his sculptures had been taken without his permission. He also found that three fingers had been broken off his statue Minutes of . . . Her Majesty’s Commissioners, Minutes of 14 November 1850, 7–8; Bristol Temperance Herald 15 (1851), 27 and 119; Buckingham, Earnest Plea. 28 Daily News, 25 April 1850, p. 8; Christian Guardian 42 (1850), 577. 29 The Times, 10 February 1851, 2; Leader, 15 February 1851, 147. 27

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of a veiled nymph. Following further enquiries, it was discovered that certain Commissioners had entered the Exhibition on a Sunday in order to take photographs of the statue and that an accident had occurred during their visit resulting in damage to the statue. This incident revealed that the Commissioners permitted themselves access to the Crystal Palace on the Sabbath. A howl of criticism ensued and the Commissioners’ actions were condemned by the religious press; one evangelical describing them as ‘a great national evil’.30 By contrast, none of the religious periodicals expressed concern about the damage to the nymph or about Signor Monti’s grievances. Clearly these were trivial matters compared with the wilful desecration of the Sabbath.

T H E P R I Z E ES S A Y C O M P E TI T I O N In the months preceding the formal opening of the Exhibition on 1 May 1851, the Royal Commissioners and their various committees were not alone in making preparations. A group of eight evangelical missionaries was active from the start of construction and claimed to have distributed 10,000 tracts among the large workforce. Perhaps rather gratuitously another evangelical subsequently attributed the good behaviour of the labourers to the presence of the missionaries.31 Several religious organizations were also planning for this momentous event, including the religious publishing houses which, as we shall see in the next chapter, printed large numbers of tracts, Bibles, and other publications especially for distribution to visitors to the Exhibition. They also opened depots near Hyde Park, hired agents, arranged special services, and lined up preachers and speakers. There was, however, one religiously based initiative explicitly mounted to counteract the widespread opposition to the Exhibition especially prior to its opening. This initiative was the brainchild of the Revd James Emerton, the Oxford-educated perpetual curate of New Brentford and the principal of Hanwell College, which specialized in educating boys intending to enter military careers. During the autumn of 1850 Emerton became increasingly concerned by the widespread hostility to the proposed Exhibition, especially among the opponents of Free Trade and those who feared that foreigners attending the Exhibition would import their (allegedly) immoral habits into Britain. To provide an antidote to what he considered to be the prevailing mood in the country he proposed a prize essay of 100 guineas—a very substantial sum. This proposal appears to have originated in conversation with one of the Special 30 See letter of William Coningham, The Times, 30 July 1851, 8; Record, 7 August 1851, 3; Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, 3rd series, vol. 118 (1851), cols. 1736–7. 31 Weylland, Thought for the World, 25.

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Commissioners, the engineer Lieutenant-Colonel John Lloyd. Emerton subsequently wrote to Lloyd arguing that ‘the religious portion of the public, should be more directed to the moral advantages to be derived from the Union of all Nations at the Great Exhibition’. He was particularly concerned that while many religious people were indifferent to the Exhibition’s commercial potential, they failed to grasp its importance for religion. Not only would it improve people’s moral welfare, he argued, but it would also promote the glory of God. Emerton therefore offered to raise the prize money and asked Lloyd to seek Prince Albert’s patronage for the scheme. However, although Albert expressed his support for the proposal, he advised Lloyd that as a Commissioner he could not contribute financially or be involved in the competition, which should be organized and adjudicated by Emerton and other private individuals. It is not clear whether Emerton donated the full amount or whether others contributed, but advertisements soon appeared in the press inviting essays addressing the question: In what respect is the Union of All Nations at the Great Exhibition in 1851 calculated to further the MORAL AND RELIGIOUS WELFARE OF MANKIND, and thus conduce to the Glory of God; and in what manner may we, as individuals and as a nation, most effectively promote this object?

The closing date for the competition was chosen as 1 May 1851, and two Oxford clergymen were named as adjudicators: Richard Michell, the University’s Public Orator and vice-principal of Magdalen Hall, and Robert Walker, who was Reader in Experimental Philosophy. With Oxford deeply divided on the issue of Tractarianism and evangelicals being in the minority within the university, Emerton’s choice of adjudicators is significant. Neither was a High Churchman: although Michell was a leading Oxford Tory he was sympathetic to aspects of evangelicalism, while Walker appears to have adopted a Broad Church position.32 The competition attracted a large number of entries, probably over a hundred, from which the essay by John Charles Whish, the incumbent of Trinity Church, East Peckham, was selected and subsequently published.33 Whish’s Great Exhibition Prize Essay, entitled ‘Non Sine Deo’, fulfilled Emerton’s aspiration for a positive religious response to the forthcoming Exhibition. Adopting a broad providentialist position, Whish insisted that both the natural materials and the man-made artefacts on display should be appreciated as evidence of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God. The 32 Reynolds, Evangelicals at Oxford, 120–5 and 177. Reynolds (121) claims that Walker was evangelical but may have confused him with his son. In a private communication Tony Simcock has suggested that Walker was probably a Broad Churchman. 33 Whish, Great Exhibition Prize Essay, pp. vii–xx. Among the unsuccessful submissions were Hulbert, Reciprocity for 1851, and an essay by Robert Owen, which was reprinted in Robert Owen’s Journal, 28 June 1851, 72–5.

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Exhibition, he argued, would benefit humankind—intellectually, materially, and morally. ‘Everything’, he wrote, ‘that furthers the progress of science, or makes our life and the scene of it appear full of comfort and beauty, brings honour to God.’ Responding to the criticism that the Exhibition would lead to foreign manufacturers undercutting British products, Whish asserted that working men should not feel threatened, since they would benefit from the dignity the Exhibition would confer on labour, and he also stressed the value of sharing knowledge of science and production processes with workers from other countries. He particularly looked forward to the Exhibition as ‘the means of promoting the brotherly union, the peace and prosperity of mankind!’34 Whish’s emphasis not only on scientific progress and the improvement of manufacturing, but also on the moral and religious advance towards a better world society reflected Albert’s widely articulated vision of the Exhibition. In this essay Whish thus brought together the pro-Exhibition arguments generally used by Anglicans, especially Broad Churchmen; indeed, one periodical castigated him for his lack of originality.35 Not surprisingly the published Prize Essay was dedicated by Emerton to Albert and the Commissioners. Emerton also produced a small work entitled A Moral and Religious Guide to the Great Exhibition, which reprinted many of the suggestions made by unsuccessful entrants to his essay competition (Figure 8). These often reiterated themes that had appeared in contemporary tracts and religious periodicals, such as the proposal that foreigners should be treated with kindness, that extra effort should be made to keep the Sabbath holy, and that foreign visitors should receive free copies of the Bible in their own languages. But there were also some more unusual proposals. One entrant suggested that the Queen should pardon all those prisoners who had not been found guilty of criminal acts, while another suggested that both Houses of Parliament should avoid discussing contentious issues for the duration of the Exhibition. Another idealistic proposal was to ‘Let the coming confederation lay the foundation of a moral telegraph, by which the whispers of peace will be transmitted round the globe—the electric spark of love circulating through distant and divers nations, and linking hemispheres together in a holy and indissoluble brotherhood.’36 The final section of Emerton’s book contained rather more prosaic information, including a list of Christian organizations with their plans for engaging with visitors to the Exhibition. Thus the Bishop of London’s Committee of 1851 indicated that it would provide additional services and hire temporary curates and lecturers for the duration of the Exhibition, while the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews hoped to hire 34

Whish, Great Exhibition Prize Essay, passim. Quotations on pp. xvi, 38–9 (italics in original) and 8. 35 Critic 10 (1851), 288. 36 Emerton, Moral and Religious Guide, 9 and 29.

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Figure 8 Title page of James Emerton’s A Moral and Religious Guide to the Great Exhibition (1851). Reproduced with permission of V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum.

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‘one or two Missionaries’ who would ‘be specially occupied in seeking the spiritual good of our Jewish visitors’.37 While there is little evidence that Emerton’s Moral and Religious Guide attracted much attention, his prize essay competition was widely publicized. Whish’s Prize Essay passed through four editions and was extensively and often appreciatively reviewed in the religious press.38 By these means Emerton succeeded in raising interest in the Exhibition among Christians—presumably principally Anglicans—and encouraging both individuals and religious organizations to appreciate its religious significance and its potential for advancing the cause of Christianity.

GUIDES TO LONDON AND THE EXHIBITION The Exhibition offered publishers an unrivalled opportunity to profit from the sale of books, periodicals, pamphlets, and prints directed not only to the large numbers of visitors likely to descend on London during the summer of 1851 but also to the many people at home and abroad who were unable to visit the Exhibition but depended on print media to access this major international event. Thus, for example, the publisher John Cassell produced weekly issues of the Illustrated Exhibitor from 7 June 1851 to the end of the year, each 2p issue containing profusely illustrated articles on the Crystal Palace itself and on innumerable artefacts exhibited. It is said to have achieved a circulation of 100,000 and was subsequently reprinted as a single volume. Cassell then issued its Illustrated Exhibitor and Magazine of Art (1852) in two volumes. Another publisher, Routledge, produced a pocket-sized Guide to the Great Exhibition, which visitors could consult for directions to noteworthy exhibits as they made their way through the Crystal Palace.39 This detailed Guide, like several similar publications, would also have been used by those unable to visit the Crystal Palace to obtain a virtual tour of the Exhibition. The Exhibition prompted the publication of new guides to London as well as new editions of existing guidebooks. Thus the bookseller John Weale produced his London Exhibited in 1851, James Gilbert published Gilbert’s Visitor’s Guide to London (which was also issued in French and German), and the publisher H. G. Clarke issued both London in All Its Glory; or How to Enjoy London during the Great Exhibition and the weightier and profusely 37

Ibid. 37–46, esp. 46. Notices of Whish’s Great Exhibition Prize Essay appeared in the Eclectic Review n.s. 2 (1851), 623–40; New Monthly Magazine 92 (1851), 462–3; Baptist Reporter 25 (1851), 489; Morning Chronicle, 8 July 1851, 8; Daily News, 9 July 1851, 8. For a more critical view of the essay competition see Christian Remembrancer 22 (1851), 250, and also the Critic 10 (1851), 288. 39 Illustrated Exhibitor, passim; Guide to the Great Exhibition. On the Illustrated Exhibitor see Maidment, ‘Entrepreneurship and the Artisans’. 38

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illustrated London as It Is To-Day, Where to Go, and What to See, during the Great Exhibition. Crutchley’s Picture of London appeared in a sixteenth edition that opened with a plan of the Crystal Palace and a brief overview of its history and contents. These works contained information about the history and buildings of the metropolis. Religious topics were well covered in these guides, which included information about its churches, chapels, and sometimes synagogues. For example, Clarke devoted almost seventy pages of his London as It Is To-Day to ‘Religious Edifices’, which included not only such major tourist sights as St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, but also many smaller churches, Roman Catholic churches, Dissenting chapels, and even the Greek Church and the Great Synagogue.40 In conjunction with the Exhibition and as an added attraction for tourists, a number of buildings were opened to the public, including St Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, and Christopher Wren’s masterpiece St Stephen’s, Walbrooke.41 Leaving aside for the present the activities of the religious publishing societies, commercial publishers produced a variety of Exhibition-related works directed to a religious readership. For example, Longmans published both Whish’s Prize Essay and Emerton’s Moral and Religious Guide. Visitors to the Exhibition could also purchase two pocket-sized guidebooks that contained information about the religious life of London. Both included details of services and other religious events specifically for visitors in the summer of 1851. The Christian Visitor’s Hand-Book to London. Specially Adapted to Strangers in London, at the Present Time of the World’s Exhibition was produced by the evangelical publisher Partridge and Oakey and sold at sixpence (Figure 9). This guide offered visitors a full listing of the Anglican churches, Baptist, Independent, and Wesleyan chapels in London, together with information about the numerous religious and benevolent organizations in the metropolis. The RTS’s entry was explicit about the opportunity facing Christians to exploit the Exhibition for salvationist ends: ‘Thus, an Exhibition, designed only for the display of Human skill and science, will be rendered subservient to nobler ends.’ The special arrangements for the Exhibition occupied three pages and included details of lectures being offered and the extra Sabbath services mounted at Exeter Hall. Also, facing the title page was an advertisement for the Exeter Hall Sabbath-day services offered throughout the period of the Exhibition, with a list of presiding ministers.42 For their spiritual comfort purchasers of this pocketbook could consult a section of inspiring quotations and, at the foot of each page, an appropriate aphorism, 40 London Exhibited in 1851; Gilbert’s Visitor’s Guide to London; London in All Its Glory; London as It Is To-Day; Crutchley’s Picture of London. This is just a small sample of the many guides and handbooks directed to visitors to the Exhibition. 41 First Report of the Commissioners, 120–1, indicates that large numbers visited these three religious buildings, which (apart from the galleries of St Paul’s) offered free admission. 42 See the Chapter 3 section ‘Religious services and other facilities for visitors’.

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Figure 9 Title page of The Christian Visitor’s Hand-Book to London (1851), which was produced for visitors to the Exhibition. On the facing page is an advertisement for Sabbath services to be held at Exeter Hall for the duration of the Exhibition. Reproduced by permission of the British Library.

such as ‘The integrity of the upright shall guide them’ or ‘Thou shalt open thy hand to the needy’, was printed.43 Another commercial publisher, Sampson Low, produced a new edition of its Handbook to the Places of Public Worship in London (1851) especially for visitors to the Exhibition. This work, which sold for one shilling and sixpence, was more ecumenical than the Christian Visitor’s Hand-Book as it listed not only Anglican churches and Baptist, Independent, and Wesleyan chapels but also other non-conformist, Roman Catholic, and Jewish places of worship, together with brief details, such as times of services and names of ministers. Special services connected with the Exhibition were also listed.44 Armed with either of these guides the visitor to London could appreciate the religious infrastructure of the metropolis and decide which Sabbath services to attend. Visitors from out of town who needed to stay in London over a weekend often 43 44

Christian Visitor’s Hand-Book to London. Handbook to the Places of Public Worship in London.

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took the opportunity to hear a renowned London preacher. For example, a visiting clergyman was perturbed to discover that the Sabbath in London was very different from the contemplative day he usually experienced in his quite rural parish in Scotland. However, after some reflection he first attended the Tower Church, but was disappointed to learn that Henry Melville was not scheduled to preach. He was, nevertheless, fairly impressed by the sermon that was delivered by an unnamed clergyman. Next he moved to the Temple Church but was horrified by the preacher, whom he described as ‘an outand-out Tractarian’. In the evening he retreated to a safer option and enjoyed the sermon by his compatriot Dr John Cumming at the National Scotch Church in Crown Court (off Drury Lane).45 Other publications evoked the Exhibition’s international ethos by reproducing religious texts in many languages. The popular poet Martin Tupper composed a short Hymn for All Nations, which was published in English together with translations into 23 other languages. For some languages two or more translations were offered—four versions in the case of Hebrew—some of the translations (or, more exactly, elaborations on Tupper’s theme) being more literal than others. In compiling these texts Tupper had approached a number of eminent linguists, such as William Hodge Mill, the Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Cambridge, who had provided the Sanskrit translation (Figure 10). Purchasers were also able to sing the English version of Tupper’s hymn as his text was accompanied by a score composed by Samuel Sebastian Wesley.46 Another multi-language publication was A Memorial of the Great Industrial Exhibition of All Nations in London, 1851, issued by Partridge and Oakey as a large single sheet printed on linen. The main text—‘God hath made of one blood all nations of men’ (Acts 17:26), which Colin Kidd identifies as the principal biblical text underpinning the monogenist theology used by abolitionists47—was accompanied by translations into more than a hundred languages (Figure 11), the majority of these translations having been provided by an eminent orientalist, Solomon Cæsar Malan. The Memorial’s rather exorbitant price of 2s 6d, however, probably limited its circulation and therefore its impact.48 Numerous poems were printed as broadsheets or small pamphlets; although some were satirical, the more serious ones often alluded to God’s design and the brotherhood of man. Among the many sheets of music issued at the time was the composition for harp by John Balsir Chatterton, the Harpist to Queen Victoria, with the title

45 A Country Minister, ‘Notes on a Visit to the Great Exhibition’, MacPhail’s Journal 12 (1851), 352–8; 13 (1852), 84–101. 46 Tupper, Hymn. 47 Kidd, Forging the Races, 66. 48 Anon., Memorial; Malan, Solomon Cæsar Malan, 376. It is possible that one of the evangelical societies may have assisted in producing this Memorial.

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Figure 10 Sanscrit rendition by William Hodge Mill of Martin Tupper’s A Hymn for All Nations, 1851 (p. 63). Reproduced with permission of V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum.

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Figure 11 The top central section of A Memorial of the Great Industrial Exhibition of All Nations in London, 1851. Below this the text—‘God hath made of one blood all nations of men’—appears in about a hundred languages. The panel to the left contains a rather romanticized view of the Crystal Palace, as seen from the far side of the Serpentine, above which is the King James’s version of the first verse of Psalm 24— ‘The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; The world and they that dwell therein’—followed by ‘His tender mercies are over all his works’ (Ps. 145:9). The panel to the right shows an interior view of the Crystal Palace with a rather diminutive illustration of Osler’s crystal fountain, accompanied by the text ‘The works of the Lord are great and marvellous; Sought out by all those that have pleasure therein. The Earth is full of his riches’ (based on Psalms 112:2 and 104:24). Reproduced with permission of V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum.

‘Chords of Harmony and Peace, or Reflections of the Crystal Palace’.49 A large number of Exhibition sermons and other relevant tracts were also rushed into print, particularly by religious publishers such as Wertheim and Macintosh, Partridge and Oakey, Houlston and Stoneman, John Snow, and James Nisbet, 49 The 1851 archive at the National Art Library contains a number of examples of poetry and music addressing the Exhibition. The music composed for the Exhibition deserves a separate study.

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whose publication lists were swelled by works directed at religious visitors to the Exhibition. These and other publishers sought to boost their sales by producing a wide variety of works that they hoped would appeal to the crowds expected to descend on London over the summer of 1851.

THE OPENING CEREMONY In the weeks preceding the opening an issue that provoked considerable agitation was whether to admit the public to the opening ceremony, which would otherwise have been restricted to the exhibitors, the Commissioners, and a few other people of eminence.50 Despite much campaigning it would appear that the decision to hold a public opening ceremony was taken only at a very late date. At their meeting on 22 April—just 10 days before the Exhibition was due to open—the Commissioners were directed by the Queen that it was ‘her Royal Pleasure that arrangements should be made to enable Her Majesty to gratify a wish very generally expressed on the part of the Public to be present at the [opening] ceremony’. At the same meeting the Commissioners received and adopted the programme for the ceremony drawn up by Albert. For some time the religious press had been demanding that the opening ceremony should include an appropriate religious element. For example, the High Church English Churchman had urged the Commissioners to consecrate the Exhibition ‘at the opening . . . by some significant, though simple acknowledgment of this work [the Exhibition], which is so marvellous in our eyes, “is the Lord’s doing”’.51 Whether in response to such demands or from Albert’s own convictions, a prayer was introduced into the plan for the ceremony. On 22 April (the date of the Commissioners’ meeting) Albert wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury: ‘we the Com[m]iss[ion]ers felt anxious that the blessing of Almighty God upon the undertaking sh[oul]d be invoked in a short prayer, which we hope Your Grace would consent to offer’. In his reply the Archbishop was quick to assure ‘your Royal Highness and the Commissioners that the Exhibition should be opened on May 1st with a prayer for Divine blessing’.52 Also on 22 April, Edward Bowring, the acting secretary for the Commissioners, promulgated a letter containing Albert’s schedule for the opening ceremony, which was reprinted in a number of periodicals during the next few For example, ‘Opening of the Great Exhibition by the Queen’, Northern Star, 19 April 1851, 4. English Churchman, 24 April 1851, 265. On the arrangements for the opening see Hobhouse, Crystal Palace, 59–61. 52 Prince Albert to Archbishop of Canterbury, 22 April 1851, and Archbishop of Canterbury to Prince Albert, 22 April 1851: Albert’s Correspondence, vol. 6, items 91 and 92. 50 51

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days. Bowring’s letter specified the Archbishop of Canterbury’s role in the programme: ‘His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury will then say a prayer, invoking God’s blessing upon the undertaking, followed by a short anthem sung by the choir.’53 Thus the decision crystallized to include a religious component in the ceremony only a few days before the opening. The Low Church Christian Guardian expressed the views of many when it announced that the Queen would be opening the Exhibition ‘in the presence of and amid the rapturous welcome of her subjects’. It also expressed warm appreciation ‘that the undertaking is to be solemnly and most appropriately consecrated by a prayer from the lips of our venerable Primate’.54 A correspondent in the evangelical press also suggested that as well as the formal prayers, Christians should unite in asking God’s blessing on the Exhibition, and ‘that He may defend us and our beloved Queen from every danger, and from every erroneous and false doctrine’.55 The Archbishop’s benedictory prayer formed part of the colourful opening ceremony on 1 May 1851, in which religion was accorded even greater prominence; indeed, the Exhibition was blessed not once but thrice—by Albert (speaking on behalf of the Commissioners), by Queen Victoria, and by Archbishop Sumner. Albert initiated the formal proceedings by presenting the Commissioners’ report to the Queen. In it he drew attention to the fact that the Crystal Palace had been constructed in time for the opening and the exhibits assembled from all over the world. This, he argued, afforded ‘proof of what may, under God’s blessing’, be accomplished through cooperation between nations. Not only had God thus blessed the Exhibition during its preparatory stage, but Albert also offered the ‘heartfelt prayer’ that by promoting both human industry and ‘peace and friendship among the nations’, the Exhibition would ‘by the blessing of Divine Providence’ prove conducive to the welfare of the British people and be a milestone during the Queen’s reign. Victoria responded in similar terms: I cordially concur with you in the prayer, that by God’s blessing this undertaking may conduce to the welfare of my people and to the common interests of the human race, by encouraging the arts of peace and industry, strengthening the bonds of union among the nations of the earth, and promoting a friendly and honourable rivalry in the useful exercise of those faculties which have been conferred by a beneficent Providence for the good and the happiness of mankind.

Thus not only did the Queen invite God’s blessing on the Exhibition, but she also portrayed progress in the arts, sciences, and manufactures as part of the

53 54 55

Minutes of . . . Her Majesty’s Commissioners, Minutes of 22 April 1851, 1–2. Christian Guardian 43 (1851), 191. Letter from Clericus Cantabrigiensis, Record, 28 April 1851, 3.

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divine plan for humankind. Like so many of her contemporaries, Victoria endowed the Exhibition with providential meaning. After the Queen’s reply to the Commissioners, the Archbishop approached the throne and ‘with great fervency of manner’ offered his benediction on the Exhibition (Figure 12). He thanked God for bestowing His abundant goodness upon humankind and sought His blessing on ‘the work which Thou hast enabled us to begin, and to regard with Thy favour our purpose of knitting together in the bonds of peace and concord the different nations of the earth’. To bring peace and knowledge to this world, Sumner insisted, is not the result of human effort but is instead a benefit flowing from God: ‘Therefore, O Lord, [it is] not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy name be all the praise.’ Responding to the widespread concern expressed by many Christians that the fine artefacts on display should not engender immodest pride in human achievement, Sumner argued that when ‘we survey the works of art and [of]

Figure 12 Henry Courtney Selous’s stylized painting of the opening ceremony on 1 May 1851, showing the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Bird Sumner, blessing the Exhibition. Many of the individuals who appear in this painting are identified in the Descriptive Key to Mr H. C. Selous’ Picture of the Inauguration of the Great Exhibition of 1851 (London: Lloyd Bros., [1852?]) and on the Victoria and Albert Museum website—http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/british_galleries/explore_exhibition/. This painting was based on the engraving published in the Illustrated London News, 3 May 1851, 350–1, which shows Prince Albert reading his address before the Queen. Both the Archbishop and the Bishop of Winchester appear in this engraving, but not the Chinaman—the captain of a junk moored on the Thames—who features so prominently in Selous’s painting. Photo # Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

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industry’ at the Exhibition, ‘let not our hearts be lifted up that we forget the Lord our God’. Instead, ‘remember that all this store which we have prepared cometh of Thine hand and is all Thine own’. After having emphasized God’s role as the source of all creation, Sumner prayed for His blessing on the Exhibition and for its success: ‘Now, therefore, O God, we thank Thee; we praise Thee and intreat Thee so to overrule this assembly of many nations that it may tend to the advancement of Thy glory, to the diffusion of Thy holy word, to the increase of general prosperity, by promoting peace and goodwill among the different nations of mankind.’ He concluded by advising the vast assembled audience to make good use of ‘those earthly blessings which Thou givest us richly to enjoy’, but not to forsake their love of God and their willingness to serve Him. To bolster the significance of Sumner’s prayer a massed choir then sang the Hallelujah Chorus. The choristers included members of Her Majesty’s Chapels Royal, St George’s Chapel (Windsor), St Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, and 500 members of the Sacred Harmonic Society, who were joined by other singers and musicians. (In preparation for the musical part of the programme the Commissioners had organized a full-scale rehearsal on the previous afternoon.)56 After the Hallelujah Chorus the dignitaries formed a procession that marked the termination of the formal event. In this procession the Archbishop was accorded his prominent place—just behind the assembled Commissioners and a few paces in front of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (Figure 13). He was accompanied by the Bishop of Winchester, the Archbishop’s brother, Charles Richard Sumner, who substituted for the Bishop of London who was indisposed.57 One contemporary source alleged that the Archbishop, who was playfully described as ‘the High Priest of the Exposition’ by a radical weekly, kept stopping to look at exhibits and thereby almost disrupted the procession’s progress.58 For many Christians, especially Anglicans, the inclusion of the Archbishop’s prayer at the opening ceremony was of great significance since it transformed the Exhibition from a secular event devoted solely to the pursuit of science, commerce, and manufacturing into an occasion sanctioned by the Established Church and in which Christians could participate without endangering their souls.59 For example, in writing to the Commissioners one

56

Letters from Robert Lesley (28 April 1851), Charles Wesley (28 April 1851), George Neville Grenville (28 April 1851), Henry Milman (28 April 1851), and Anon. (29 April 1851): Commission Correspondence, 1851/231–4 and 1851/240. 57 ‘The Opening of the Great Exhibition’, The Times, 2 May 1851, 4–5. Arthur Stanley, soon to be appointed Canon at Canterbury Cathedral, reported that from where he sat he could not hear the Prince or the Queen’s response, whereas the Archbishop’s ‘was the only voice which made itself heard’: Prothero and Bradley, Life . . . of . . . Stanley, 1: 424. 58 Ibid. 425: Leader, 3 May 1851, 405. 59 ‘The Great Exhibition’, Christian Guardian 43 (1851) 237; ‘The Industrial Exhibition’, United Presbyterian Magazine 5 (1851), 283–4.

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Figure 13 The Archbishop (right) in procession after the opening of the Exhibition. He is followed by the white wands, who precede Victoria and Albert. This engraving appeared in the Illustrated Exhibitor, facing p. 101. See also Illustrated London News, 10 May 1851, 399, which shows the Bishop of Winchester accompanying the Archbishop.

clergyman expressed the view that the Archbishop’s prayer ‘was felt by multitudes to remove an unpleasant feeling in connection with exhibiting our doings’ at the Exhibition. He therefore urged that the Archbishop’s text be prominently displayed in the Crystal Palace. Drawing an analogy from the science of electricity this cleric also suggested that the Archbishop’s prayer would act like a lightning conductor in protecting the Crystal Palace from ‘boastful pride’ and, ultimately, from God’s wrath.60 Likewise, the ultraevangelical Record declared that the Archbishop’s prayer was ‘worthy of the occasion. There is in it a noble simplicity, fervently ascribing all praise to Him to whom all praise is due.’ The Congregationalist Evangelical Magazine was equally enthusiastic and praised Sumner for having ‘offered up a prayer peculiarly distinguished of its petitions, and the devout simplicity of its

60

F. H. Ashley to the Commissioners, 12 May 1851: Commission Correspondence, 1851/279.

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spirit’.61 The Archbishop’s participation was accorded a rather different significance by the rector at two of London’s most prominent churches, who pointed out that no such religious component had been included at any previous exhibition in any other European country. He also considered that foreigners would be particularly impressed by the Queen and her court publicly ‘acknowledging the supremacy of Providence, and giving a national testimony to the dependence of all things human to the might and mercy of Heaven’.62 The convergence of church and state at the opening ceremony was an important symbolic act. The RTS was so appreciative of the Archbishop’s intervention that it reprinted his prayer as a handbill and distributed it widely. For many Christians, not only Anglicans, the religious dimension of the opening ceremony served to legitimate the Exhibition. As one Baptist noted, it was a religiously gratifying event, when ‘a solemn dedication of the place was made to God’.63 But the Archbishop’s participation in the opening ceremony was not universally welcomed. Soon after Bowring had announced the plan for the ceremony the editor of the High Church Guardian protested that the Archbishop’s prayer and the anthem were like ‘an after thought’, being ‘stuck so incongruously into the strange piece of ceremonial upon which they are engrafted, form a very secondary feature in the opening of the Exhibition, coming, like a badly-muttered grace, between the second course and the dessert’.64 Likewise the editor of the Peelite Morning Chronicle, John Douglas Cook, complained that the order of events indicated that the Archbishop had been inserted into the programme ‘with somewhat of the clumsiness of an afterthought’ as he had been sandwiched between the addresses delivered by representatives of foreign nations and the marshalling of the concluding procession. More pointedly, Cook interpreted the order of proceedings as affirming the precedence of state over church: ‘first a speech to the earthly, then a speech to the heavenly, Sovereign’. But Cook’s main arguments turned on the inappropriateness of including a prayer by the Primate. It was nothing other than ‘bad taste’ and would, he complained, depress the tone of the occasion to the level of ‘a Freeman’s inauguration’. The Morning Chronicle also considered it tactless to impose an Anglican prayer on an audience that included many Catholics, Muslims, Jews, and people of other religions. Equally, it dismissed as inadequate the notion that the Primate of All England should evoke ‘a vague religion in general, and of no form or creed in particular’. Given that the Archbishop’s intervention was bound to offend some

61 Record, 5 May 1851, 8; ‘The Opening of the Great Exhibition’, Evangelical Magazine n.s. 29 (1851), 330–2, on 331. 62 Croly, Closing of the Exhibition, 4. 63 Standen Pearce, ‘The Crystal Palace’, Baptist Magazine 43 (1851), 545–51, on 549. 64 ‘The Exhibition’, Guardian, 30 April 1851, 312–13.

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sections of religious opinion, the Morning Chronicle thought that it would have been more appropriate if the Archbishop, whom it did not hold in high regard, were not to contribute a prayer at the opening ceremony. If prayer were to be offered, a proper service should be held at Westminster Abbey and be conducted by the Bishop of London, whose diocese included Hyde Park.65 The conservative John Bull voiced other objections both to the opening ceremony and to the Archbishop’s prayer in particular. Although unswervingly loyal to Her Majesty and greatly relieved that no riot had disturbed the opening ceremony, this High Anglican weekly objected to the Queen presiding over a public opening ceremony, since by participating in the event she had aligned herself with the damnable doctrine of Free Trade, thereby undermining her traditionally impartial stance. Yet the editor also envisaged some virtue in the Queen’s opening of the Exhibition as her presence would persuade foreigners that the British are a nation of free people.66 However, a far more vitriolic tone was adopted by ‘A CONSTANT READER’ from Cambridge whose letter was published in John Bull a few days before the opening ceremony. This correspondent denounced the Archbishop for praying in a building that had been neither consecrated nor licensed for public worship. ‘The Archbishop of Canterbury’, he wrote, ‘has no right to violate the Act of Uniformity; and I fear he will do so, if he uses any form of prayer whatever, either at the Crystal Palace, the Commercial Docks, or the Corn Exchange in Mark lane.’ For this High Anglican, Sumner’s participation in the opening ceremony undermined the distinction between the religious and the secular and he expressed his abhorrence at the attempt to import religion into an otherwise secular event. Noah, he noted, ‘built the “ARK”—but he never attempted to consecrate that Monument of Human Industry of all Nations, the Tower of Babel.’67 In its 3 May issue the Catholic Tablet was clearly pleased to repeat the complaints by both the Morning Chronicle and John Bull against the Archbishop’s prayer. This religious ceremony, it noted, ‘seems to give little satisfaction to the Protestants’.68 On this issue the Tablet was in agreement with John Bull, one of the most vehemently anti-Catholic publications of the day. This unusual alliance between the Catholic and High Church press against Sumner’s participation stands in contrast to the broad spectrum of Anglicans, and many Dissenters, who found the Archbishop’s words appropriate for the occasion. Through his prayer he had performed the ritual function of purifying the Crystal Palace. While not formally consecrating the Crystal Palace, the Archbishop’s prayer and the evocations of God’s blessing in both Albert’s 65 66 67 68

Morning Chronicle, 25 April 1851, 4. ‘Her Majesty at the Crystal Palace’, John Bull, 19 April 1851, 349. Letter from ‘A CONSTANT READER’, John Bull, 26 April 1851, 267. Tablet, 3 May 1851, 276.

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report and Victoria’s response helped legitimate the Exhibition and made it an acceptable venue for these Christians to visit. The door was now clearly open. *** The preceding discussion raises the question whether the stated ideology of the Exhibition included any reference to a religious dimension. The documents published at the Royal Commissioners’ behest portray it principally as a secular event. For example, the introductory essay appended to the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, which appeared under Henry Cole’s name, provided an account of how the Exhibition was mounted and stressed its role as a showcase of manufacturing industry and commerce. The only mention of religion occurred in the verbatim report of Albert’s Mansion House speech on 21 March 1850. Likewise, the First Report of the Commissioners, which was presented to both Houses of Parliament in 1852, described the Exhibition’s organization in elaborate detail and provided a vast range of statistical data—even recording the number of people (78,439) who used the washrooms! Religion featured only in verbatim reports of speeches, including the Archbishop’s prayer at the opening ceremony, and in an appendix written by Alexander Redgrave, a civil servant with responsibility for a range of issues affecting working-class visitors. Redgrave’s report included a short section on the preparations made by various religious bodies—to be discussed in the next chapter—wherein he justified the inclusion of this ‘important feature of the Exhibition’ by stressing that the Exhibition not only addressed the physical and intellectual improvement of the working classes but was also intended to ‘impress enduring lessons of a higher moment’.69 Thus although religious issues received brief acknowledgement in the introduction to the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, in the Commissioners’ First Report, and in other documents produced on behalf of the Commissioners, they were accorded a minor status relative to the high profile accorded to manufacturing, industry, and commerce. However, in his Mansion House speech and effusive contribution to the opening ceremony Albert firmly set the Exhibition in a Christian framework. Albert’s deployment of the first verse of Psalm 24 and other religious aphorisms on the flyleaf and title page of the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue and on other publications likewise emphasized the spiritual dimension of the Exhibition—see the Chapter 5 section ‘Things seen: “The Earth is the Lord’s . . .”’. It is clear that Albert’s vision of the Exhibition was essentially religious. Yet his vision was not shared by Henry Cole nor, I would surmise, by other members of the Executive Committee. Although the position taken on this issue by individual Commissioners is not apparent, there can be two 69 Henry Cole, ‘Introduction’, Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, 1: 1–35; First Report of the Commissioners, 125–6.

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constructions placed on the Exhibition’s ‘official’ ideology—the secular and the religious. The latter reading emphasizes Albert’s pronouncements; the former ignores them. This crucial disparity allowed many religious contemporaries to hail the Exhibition as a religious event while others, including most historians, view it as a thoroughly secular celebration of technology, industry, and commerce.

3 Religious Organizations Pray for those good and zealous men who are making wise and seasonable preparations to instruct and convert the multitude of foreigners from popish, Greek, Turkish, Jewish, and heathen lands and places, who are expected to visit this country at the time of the great exhibition. —Church of England Magazine1 The Great Exhibition has been a source of benefit in a variety of ways; but none more so than in the numerous publications to which it has given birth. Lessons social, political, intellectual, moral, and spiritual have been drawn from it and presented to the world through the press. And it cannot be doubted that these lessons are among the means which will contribute to the extension of peace, happiness, and religion throughout the world. —Evangelical Magazine2

The responses of several major religious organizations to the prospect of large numbers of visitors descending on London during the summer of 1851 illuminates the historical significance of the Exhibition.3 Although some denominations, such as the Quakers, made no special arrangement and expected visiting members to participate in existing services or meetings,4 other religious societies devoted much time, effort, and money to addressing the religious exigencies of the millions of people expected to visit the Crystal Palace. Thus while the Bishop G.E.S., ‘David’s Cure for Carefulness’, Church of England Magazine 30 (1851), 350–1. Review of Birch, Great Exhibition Spiritualised in Evangelical Magazine n.s. 29 (1851), 605. Space prevents more extensive discussion of several other religious organizations that sought to capitalize on the Exhibition, including the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA), the Christian Instruction Society, the London Missionary Society, the Weekly Tract Society, the Monthly Tract Society, and the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews. The First Report of the Commissioners (125–6) included a section detailing the activities undertaken by religious bodies in response to the Exhibition. 4 Indeed, both Quakers and the Latter-Day Saints were concerned lest the Exhibition would disrupt their annual meetings held in London, especially owing to the pressure on accommodation. Friend 8 (1850), 111; British Friend 8 (1850) 155 and 333; Latter-Day Saints’ Millennial Star 13 (1851), 137 and 141. 1 2 3

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of London sought to provide extra church services and public lectures in order to cater for the spiritual needs of Anglicans away from home, evangelicals grasped the opportunity offered by the Exhibition to propagate the Gospel vigorously and to save souls, especially the souls of visiting Catholics, Jews, and ‘heathens’. In contrast to missionaries who travelled to the far corners of the earth in order to spread Christianity among indigenous peoples, the Exhibition brought the heathen to London for the purpose of conversion; indeed, the Exhibition was often viewed as God’s means of bringing the potential convert to Christ. There was also the prospect of evangelizing among the vast numbers of merely nominal, or lapsed, British Christians who would be congregating for the Exhibition. The historian David Bebbington has drawn attention to the ‘activism’ of nineteenth-century evangelical groups.5 With the approaching Exhibition there was indeed much to be done. Possessing a well-developed infrastructure, these evangelical organizations were equipped to respond to the challenges posed by the 1851 Exhibition. The RTS and the BFBS were among the large and highly organized publishing houses that prepared, printed, and distributed tracts and Bibles. New depots were opened and colporteurs hired. Several Christian organizations laboured strenuously to mount extra services and designated lectures for visitors to London. Being very active, highly organized, and possessing considerable finances obtained from subscriptions, donations, legacies, and sales of their publications, the evangelical societies were particularly keen to engage with the crowds attracted to Hyde Park. Moreover, after considerable manoeuvring two active evangelical societies—the BFBS and the RTS—were permitted to mount stands inside the Crystal Palace and were therefore included among the formal exhibitors at the Exhibition. In so doing they brought religion within the glass and iron enclosure of the Crystal Palace.

RELIGIOUS SERVICES AND OTHER F A C I L I T I E S F O R V I S I TO R S Like a number of other contemporary publications, both the Christian Visitor’s Hand-Book to London and the 1851 edition of the Handbook to the Places of Public Worship in London carried information about the special services for visitors to the Exhibition. Some of these services were aimed at Englishspeakers while others were in French or German, but the offerings ranged from conventional Church of England services based on the liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer to evangelical gatherings at Exeter Hall addressed by

5 Bebbington, Evangelicalism, 10–12; for examples of activism in the nineteenth century see 105–50.

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fiery preachers. In this section three of the organizations responsible for providing both these services and related activities will be examined, starting with the SPCK and then turning to the Evangelical Alliance, and, finally, to the services held at Exeter Hall. In contrast to the emphasis on conversion adopted by the more evangelical societies, the Bishop of London, Charles James Blomfield, was primarily concerned with offering religious facilities to visitors already within the Anglican communion, especially foreign Anglicans. The Bishop, a High Anglican, sought the assistance of the SPCK, which was strongly aligned with the Established Church. Founded in 1698 the SPCK aided Anglican churches both at home and abroad both with grants towards purchasing Bibles, prayerbooks, and tracts, and with funds for such projects as building new churches and church schools. Moreover, by the mid-nineteenth century the SPCK had become a major publisher of Bibles, Books of Common Prayer, educational texts, and other devotional works, including translations in a variety of languages. Blomfield himself had a long and close association with the SPCK and frequently chaired its general meetings. One of the first indications that the Church had taken cognizance of the forthcoming Exhibition was a letter of October 1850 in which Blomfield asked the Standing Committee of the SPCK whether ‘some special provision [should be made] for the religious instruction of the great body of foreigners who may be expected to visit London, and to become temporary residents there, during the Exhibition of 1851’.6 Moreover, in a diocesan letter the following month, Blomfield alerted his clergy to the Exhibition and the need to provide visitors with places of worship, especially on the Sabbath. He also stressed the need to provide visitors with Bibles and with copies of the Book of Common Prayer translated into their own languages. By these means he hoped to impress on visitors that the British were ‘not mere worshippers of Mammon’ but were also committed Christians. The SPCK soon responded to these challenges.7 During the late autumn of 1850 at least one committee was formed to address these issues. The SPCK’s minutes show that the society convened a committee that included the society’s treasurers and other leading members and there is also some evidence of the existence of a committee composed of clergymen with the title ‘The Bishop of London’s 1851 Committee’.8 It is not clear how these two groups operated and were interrelated, or whether there was only one

6

SPCK Standing Committee Minutes, 4 November 1850: SPCK Archive, MS A5/13, ff. 76, 85; SPCK General Meeting Minutes, 3 December 1850: SPCK Archive MS A1/45, ff. 64–5. The Bishop’s letter was dated 10 October 1850. 7 Blomfield, Charge Delivered to the Clergy, 68–70. 8 Emerton, Moral and Religious Guide, 37–41; SPCK General Meeting Minutes, 3 December 1850: SPCK Archive, MS A1/45, f. 65. The Bishop’s proposals were supported by Alexander Levi in the Guardian (27 November 1850, 846).

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committee that sometimes went by different names, but the key figure was the Bishop’s assistant, John Sinclair, the Archdeacon of Middlesex. In a letter dated 23 November Sinclair outlined to the Bishop a series of proposals that had been generated by the SPCK. These included a sermon at St Paul’s Cathedral by the Bishop on 4 May 1851, the provision of extra services (some in foreign languages), the hiring of extra curates and lecturers, the use of reading rooms where visitors could meet local clergymen and have access to appropriate publications, the hire of extra rooms for services, and publicity for depositories where Bibles and other religious publications could be obtained. To help implement these initiatives the SPCK soon contributed £500.9 During the ensuing months there were many signs of activity. Special Sunday afternoon and evening services were arranged at Westminster Abbey10 and a Tuesday evening series of lectures was organized at the church of St Martin’s in the Fields, Trafalgar Square. However, the proposed foreign language services encountered the problem that it was illegal to hold services in consecrated Anglican churches in languages other than English. To circumvent this difficulty several unconsecrated buildings were hired for services in German and French, including Brompton Chapel in Kensington and the French Protestant Church in Bloomsbury.11 To serve these congregations a number of German- and French-speaking clergymen were identified. The SPCK also opened a new depository on Hanover Street, Marylebone, at an annual rent ‘not exceeding £160’, with the aim of attracting visitors to the Exhibition. Again with foreign visitors in mind, the SPCK embarked on a variety of publications, including translations. On 1 April Archdeacon Sinclair provided the Board of the SPCK with an account of ‘the measures adopted by the Bishop and Clergy of the metropolis’ that included those listed above. He concluded by relating the reasons why these steps were necessary: They were ‘to give our foreign visitors a friendly reception, to provide them with the means of public worship, and to counteract as far as possible, the moral and spiritual evils arising from a large and miscellaneous assemblage of strangers, including many of the worst and most dangerous characters, not only from other countries, but from our own’.12 Thus although the Archdeacon wanted to provide visiting Anglicans with religious facilities while in London, his—and the Church’s—response to the Exhibition was in part motivated by concern about the dangers that the Exhibition was perceived to pose to religion. 9

SPCK Standing Committee Minutes, 25 November 1850: SPCK Archive, MS A5/13, ff. 95, 100–2; SPCK General Meeting Minutes, 3 December 1850 and 7 January 1851: SPCK Archive, MS A1/45, ff. 65–8, 79. 10 First Report of the Commissioners, 126. 11 See letter from the Revd Thomas Dale in the Record, 1 May 1851, 7. 12 SPCK General Meeting Minutes, 1 April 1851: SPCK Archive, MS A1/45, ff. 128–31. Sinclair’s report was also published in the Ecclesiastical Gazette 13 (1850–1), 239.

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While the Anglican hierarchy and the SPCK catered principally for visiting Anglicans, the Evangelical Alliance was more concerned with making converts and especially with targeting foreign visitors of other religions or none.13 The Alliance, which had been founded five years earlier in 1846, was an umbrella organization bringing together many strands within the evangelical revival. In particular, it provided common ground between the evangelical wing of the Anglican Church and like-minded Dissenters. Thus the five signatories to its foundation document were a leading Anglican and representatives of the Wesleyan Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational, and Baptist churches. The leaders of the organization stressed the theme of unity—‘One body in Christ’ being its motto—and considered that evangelicals would gain strength by cooperating, especially when confronting the rising tide of secularism and the growing influence of the Tractarian movement, as well as the increasing threat that Catholicism was thought to pose. The new organization soon began to thrive, attracting large numbers to its meetings, with almost a thousand at its foundation event. Its monthly periodical, Evangelical Christendom, was launched the following year and rapidly achieved a wide circulation under the editorship of a prominent Baptist minister, Edward Steane. The Alliance not only pursued the theme of unity among Christians across the denominations but also sought to bring under its wing evangelicals from other countries, especially from Europe and America. This theme was reiterated a year prior to the opening of the Exhibition by the Revd Ridley Herschell, a convert from Judaism and a leading member of the British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews.14 In an advertisement inserted into The Times of 6 May 1850, Herschell alluded to Prince Albert’s invitation to all nations to participate in the forthcoming Exhibition but also suggested that while in London foreign visitors might ‘avail themselves of this opportunity of meeting with those who are like-minded for Christian conference and mutual edification’. While this would enable evangelical Christians to meet, talk, and pray together, he was particularly keen for visitors to ‘communicate information respecting the religious state and spiritual wants of the country they come from’. This was not out of idle curiosity since, as an active and widely travelled missionary, Herschell believed this networking would engender knowledge of 13 A contributor to the United Presbyterian Magazine compared the response of the Anglican Church to the Exhibition very unfavourably with the Evangelical Alliance, charging the Established Church with a lack of enthusiasm and commitment: ‘Evangelical Effort in Connection with the Great Exhibition’, United Presbyterian Magazine 5 (1851), 383. This perceived inadequacy of the Anglican Church’s response should not be taken at face value but is indicative of the very different agendas of evangelicals and of the Anglican hierarchy; for while the former saw the Exhibition as a way of making converts, the SPCK sought principally to provide facilities for visiting Anglicans. The writer also complained that an Episcopalian minister has been prevented from allowing a French evangelical to preach at his chapel. See also ‘Foreign Protestant Ministers’, Gospel Herald 19 (1851), 168. 14 On Herschell see Binfield, ‘Jews in Evangelical Dissent’; Henderson, All Love.

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other countries and thereby assist the efforts of missionaries. By the time this advertisement was published he had received several letters of support for this scheme, including one from Sir Culling Eardley, a staunch anti-Catholic and the prime mover in the Evangelical Alliance.15 Independently of Herschell’s initiative, the Evangelical Alliance sent letters to groups of foreign evangelicals inviting them to participate in a conference in London that would coincide with the Exhibition. Recognizing that the Exhibition would ‘open a new and important field for Christian operation’, towards the end of 1850 the Alliance formed the high-profile Foreign Conference and Evangelisation Committee (FCEC) for 1851. The committee’s aims included liaising with visiting Christians, organizing services and lectures, and maintaining a reading room where visitors could access Christian publications and periodicals. Over and above the aim of assisting Christian visitors, there was also a strong emphasis on missionary activity, since the committee proposed to distribute Bibles and evangelical tracts and to employ missionaries who would target foreign visitors. Although these objectives were widely advertised,16 a letter from the committee’s honorary secretary, Wilbraham Taylor, to Edward Steane further illuminates its principal rationale for engaging with the Exhibition. The Russian and the Roman, the Swede and the Spaniard, the German and the Gaul, will all be here. Judaism and Infidelity, Heathenism, Rationalism, Mahomedanism, and Atheism, will all be here. The Greek and Roman Churches, with the Mosque, will all be here. The evil attendant on this Exhibition will bear its sad proportion to the extent of it; our duty, then [as evangelical Christians], is as plain as though it were written with a sunbeam. Let us counteract, with God’s grace, that evil as far as may be.17

Fired by Taylor’s vision, by the beginning of March 1851 the committee had raised £1,000 in subscriptions, the long list of subscribers being headed by Eardley, who donated £100. By that time it had also merged with Herschell’s group and listed some 60 committee members and 22 honorary or corresponding members. Writing to Albert’s personal secretary in January 1851 Taylor painted a rosy picture of the FCEC’s preparations for the Exhibition. Condemning the proposals promulgated by the Bishop of London’s 1851 Committee as feeble and inadequate,18 he portrayed the FCEC as ‘alone in the Field as we shall occupy Schoolrooms, Chapels or any other place’. In the light of these activities Taylor hoped that ‘Foreigners [will] acknowledge this movement as a National Testimony to the Earnestness of our Profession as a Protestant and 15 Ridley H. Herschell, ‘Proposal for a Conference of Christians of All Nations in Connexion with the Great Exhibition of 1851’, The Times, 6 May 1850, 8. 16 The Times, 10 February 1851, 2, and 6 March 1851, 1; Christian Visitor’s Hand-Book to London, 31–2 and 107. 17 Evangelical Christendom 5 (1851), 94–5. 18 See note 13.

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a Christian Country’. To assist this great work he approached Albert for a subscription. Although Albert probably did not contribute, this letter shows that Taylor considered the FCEC to be the dominant force in spreading the Christian message to the hordes of non-Protestants about to converge on London. The FCEC, supported by its raft of wealthy patrons, shouldered the responsibility of the Christian world to convert these foreigners.19 Funded by the very considerable sum of £3,500 raised from donations, the committee grasped the opportunities provided by the Exhibition to advance its missionary activities.20 During the Exhibition the FCEC obtained premises in Leicester Square for its reading room and office, which was staffed by an interpreter. Several foreign clergymen were hired to preach in German, French, Swedish, and Dutch. According to one estimate they attracted some 1800 souls to their weekly services. Moreover, with so many evangelicals in London for the Exhibition the Evangelical Alliance convened a major conference in late August spanning two whole weeks and attracting delegates from a number of countries.21 Other evangelical organizations likewise made preparations for the Exhibition. With an eye to engaging visitors, several such groups joined forces to mount a series of services at Exeter Hall. This spacious venue on the Strand had frequently been used for religious and philanthropic gatherings, including temperance and anti-slavery meetings and lectures organized by the YMCA, the Evangelical Alliance, and many other Christian organizations (Figure 14). It was a favourite venue for evangelical preachers, where the congregation was frequently uplifted by rousing hymns and by some of the most passionate and able orators of the day. According to Robert Whall Cooke, who acted as secretary of this organizing committee, which included Samuel Peto (one of the treasurers of the Exhibition), the question of how to respond to the Exhibition had first been mooted in October 1850, but the committee was only formed the following February and, ‘after some little difficulty’, held its first meeting in early March.22 Whatever difficulties were encountered, the organizers managed to find enough preachers to fill the Sunday morning and Sunday evening slots for the 22 weeks when the Exhibition was open, drawing on ministers from the Independent

19

Wilbraham Taylor to Col. Charles Phipps, 8 January 1851: Albert’s Correspondence, vol. 5, item 96. 20 ‘The Industrial Exhibition’, United Presbyterian Magazine 5 (1851), 283–4; ‘Evangelical Effort in Connection with the Great Exhibition’, ibid. 382–3; ‘The Great Exhibition’, Evangelical Christendom 5 (1851), 93–5. The FCEC aimed to raise £4,000. However, the last published list of subscriptions that I have been able to locate shows that about £3500 was raised: Record 13 October 1851, 1. 21 See Philo, ‘The Evangelical Alliance’, United Presbyterian Magazine 5 (1851), 448–52. 22 ‘The Great Exhibition: A Thanksgiving Service at Exeter Hall’, in Forty-Four Sermons, 549–64, on 551; ‘The Great Exhibition’, Baptist Magazine 43 (1851), 230.

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Figure 14 Exeter Hall, on the Strand, where twice-weekly evangelical meetings were held throughout the period of the Exhibition. This engraving by Henry Melville shows a packed Anti-Slavery Meeting held in 1841 and presided over by Prince Albert. Based on a painting by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd.

(Congregational), Baptist, Scottish Presbyterian, and Methodist churches, and the Countess of Huntington’s Connexion.23 Several of the better known preachers—such as the Congregationalist Thomas Binney and the Baptist minister Baptist Wriothesley Noel—delivered more than one sermon during this period. The intended audience was not the foreign visitor, whom other venues catered for, but the British visitor who was far from home on the Sabbath (when the Exhibition was closed) and was probably a stranger to London. Some would have been looking for the spiritual uplift offered by an evangelical service, but the organizers were particularly keen to attract those who did not usually attend church. It was claimed that more than 130,000 attended these services, and that on many occasions the hall was full and ‘hundreds of people’ had to be turned away. As Exeter Hall could hold 3–4000,24 this is not an unrealistic attendance figure, although it is impossible 23

The Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion is an evangelical church that formed part of the Evangelical Revival of the late eighteenth century. 24 Diarmid Finnegan estimates that Exeter Hall could hold about 3,000 in pews, with standing room for perhaps another thousand—private communication.

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to know whether the same individuals attended more than one service. In his report on the series, Cooke also made an interesting observation about the composition of the congregation: During the early weeks the services tended to attract the reasonably affluent, but after the introduction of shilling days at the Exhibition in late May 1851, artisans and labourers became the dominant group.25 The Exhibition, it was claimed, ‘afforded a splendid and an unprecedented opportunity, for a laudable zealous effort to benefit the souls of men, and to extend the cause of the Redeemer in the world’.26 Very few of the sermons directly engaged any aspect of the Exhibition; instead they addressed topics that featured prominently in evangelical pulpits, such as ‘Looking to Christ’, ‘Salvation’, and ‘The Power of Faith and Prayer’. All the individual sermons were published separately in the Penny Pulpit, and its publisher, James Paul, also brought all forty-four together in a single volume and added four further sermons and also an account of the service of thanksgiving held at Exeter Hall on 6 November 185127—to be discussed in the Chapter 8 section ‘The closing ceremonies’. The organizers of the Exeter Hall services were convinced that the Exhibition had proved a divinely ordained aid to the spread of evangelical Christianity. Likewise, both the FCEC of the Evangelical Alliance, with its dedicated budget of £3500, and the SPCK, with a budget of £500, had catered extensively for visitors, including organizing a number of services in both English and foreign languages. Taken together these activities indicate the considerable investment in money, time, and manpower made by these three religious organizations in providing a range of facilities for visitors to the Exhibition. But the Exhibition also encouraged several religious bodies to initiate the extensive publishing of tracts and other works. It is to these we now turn.

PUBLICATIONS DIRECTED AT VISITORS As the author of the second quotation that opens this chapter observed, the Exhibition was noteworthy for generating a large number of tracts and other religious publications. Many of these were produced by well-established religious societies dedicated to publishing not only English-language works but also tracts, books, and Bibles in many different languages. Brief mention will be made of the SPCK’s publications, but the far more extensive activities of the RTS and BFBS will be our main concern. 25 26 27

‘The Great Exhibition: A Thanksgiving Service at Exeter Hall’, in Forty-Four Sermons, 550–1. [James Paul], Introduction to Forty-Four Sermons, n.p. Forty-Four Sermons.

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In February 1851 the Foreign Tract Committee of the SPCK petitioned the society’s Standing Committee for a paid editor to superintend its activities as the editorial workload, which had previously been undertaken by volunteers, had become so great. This request was soon granted.28 A more specific reason for employing a paid editor becomes apparent from the Foreign Tract Committee’s report of July 1851 in which the Committee complained that its normal publication schedule had for several months been disturbed by the Standing Committee’s scheme to translate ‘into foreign languages . . . such of the Society’s Publications as appeared . . . to be the best adapted for circulation among foreigners attracted to the metropolis by the Great Exhibition’. A German translation of Thomas Wilson’s Sacra Privata had been produced as well as ‘twenty four translations of Tracts in the French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, and Arabic Languages’.29 The Foreign Translation Committee also produced ‘editions of the Book of Common Prayer, with English and French, or English, French, and German, in parallel columns’ so that French- and German-speakers visiting the Exhibition could follow the Anglican service.30 However, the principal tract produced by the SPCK specifically for visitors to the Exhibition was An Address to Foreigners Visiting the Great Exhibition of Arts in London, 1851, which was also published in at least six foreign languages (Figure 15). It began by parading the virtues of England, including its egalitarianism, its free institutions, settled government, and abundant blessings. All these virtues, it claimed, derived from the advantage of every Protestant Englishman having free access to the Bible. As far as practical advice was concerned the author of this tract stressed the importance of Sabbath observance for the English, although he admitted that some Londoners profaned the Lord’s Day. Given the Englishman’s commitment to the Sabbath, the visitor was advised to avoid travelling on Sundays and not to make too many demands on the servants encountered in hotels and lodging houses, so that they too could enjoy some degree of Sabbath rest. With the need to follow God’s law by Sabbath observance given a strong emphasis visitors were also urged to join the English in prayer and to obtain their Bibles and Books of Common Prayer from the SPCK’s depository. Unlike the tracts published by the more evangelical societies, this Address did not present the visitor with the prospect of salvation. However, the author’s insistence that visitors should have free access to the Bible and keep the Sabbath were familiar themes especially in anti-Catholic tracts.31

28 29 30 31

SPCK Standing Committee Minutes, 24 February 1851: SPCK Archive, MS A5/13, f. 133. Missionary Register 39 (1851), 417. SPCK General Meeting Minutes, 3 December 1850: SPCK Archive, MS A1/45, f. 75. Anon., Address to Foreigners.

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Figure 15 Dutch edition of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge’s tract An Address to Foreigners Visiting the Great Exhibition of Arts in London, 1851. The Scriptures and the Sabbath in England (1851). Italian, Spanish, German, Swedish, and French translations were also published. Reproduced with permission of V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum.

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Unlike the SPCK, the initial function of the RTS (f. 1799) had been to print exhortatory tracts that its members could purchase and distribute to the spiritually needy. Over the years its activities expanded to include foreign language tracts as well as small cheap books, such as those comprising the ‘Monthly Series’, beginning in December 1845, and several evangelical periodicals including the Christian Spectator (1838–56) and the Visitor (1836–51). As Aileen Fyfe has argued, by the 1840s one of the RTS’s main objectives was to counteract the flood of cheap scientific literature, much of which was seen as secular if not plainly atheistical, and was likely to turn readers, especially working-class readers, against religion. The RTS responded by publishing its own religiously grounded works on a wide variety of scientific and other topics.32 Despite its prominence as a major evangelical publication society and its engagement with science, the RTS’s response to the Exhibition was rather uncoordinated, displaying a mixture of determined enthusiasm and indifference. While a few leading members of the society clearly saw the possibility of engaging with the large numbers of foreigners expected in London at the time of the Exhibition, that was not the consensus within its organizing elite. The attitude of the society also reflected the more widespread uncertainties throughout the country about the Exhibition, such as whether the influx of foreigners would prove dangerous and whether working people would benefit. More directly, in 1850–1 the RTS was preoccupied with opposing Catholicism, focusing particularly on the Vatican’s recent creation of the See of Westminster and twelve English bishoprics. The RTS leadership, deeply concerned to counteract this ‘papal aggression’, produced a number of anti-popery tracts and also offered large monetary prizes for essays that combated Catholicism. On 4 February 1851 the society’s corresponding secretary, William Jones, reported to the RTS Executive Committee that the FCEC’s Wilbraham Taylor ‘was anxious that the Society should engage and occupy one of the large rooms on the ground floor of a House at Albert gate, for the Sale of the English and Foreign works during the Exhibition’.33 Although the Finance Sub-Committee had earlier decided not to hire premises in the West End, arguing that sales would have to exceed £5,000 per annum in order to cover costs,34 the Executive Committee now agreed to seek accommodation for a new depository within easy reach of the Exhibition. During the next fortnight several properties were inspected and a house in Piccadilly rented at a cost of £210 for the first year (and £170 per annum thereafter). The prospect of evangelizing among the large crowds expected at the Exhibition led the RTS to open these ‘eligible premises’ on Piccadilly, about half a mile from the

32 33 34

On the history of the RTS see Fyfe, Science and Salvation. EC Minutes, 01/026, para. 1064 (4 February 1851). FSC Minutes, 02/10, para. 174 (15 January 1851).

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nearest entrance to Hyde Park.35 There it distributed and sold its own publications, including many foreign languages works. In preparing for the Exhibition the RTS purchased large numbers of tracts in French and German from evangelical tract societies in France and Germany, while the society itself reprinted a tract in Italian. The price of foreign tracts was reduced for the duration of the Exhibition and significant discounts were offered to purchasers of large quantities and also to certain missionary societies. The society took a full-page advertisement in the principal Exhibition catalogue, at a cost of 120 guineas for a print run of 250,000.36 As Figure 16 shows, the advertisement included an illustration of the society’s depository at St Paul’s and a list of publications. The text also advertised that the society had published works in ‘about 110 different languages and dialects’ and stated that the RTS produced some twenty four million publications annually.37 Progress with publishing the RTS’s own works for the Exhibition was comparatively slow. Some of the society’s regular authors declined the invitation to write on Exhibition-related themes while it was only in early April 1851 that the Executive Committee reached an agreement with Thomas Binney to publish his 176-page book entitled The Royal Exchange and the Palace of Industry; or, The Possible Future of Europe and the World, which sold for two shillings. For this Binney, a prominent Congregational minister and abolitionist, received 50 guineas.38 A second substantial manuscript was received from another Congregational minister, John Stoughton of Kensington, which the society published at the same price under the title The Palace of Glass and the Gathering of the People.39 Both Binney and Stoughton adopted a positive stance towards the Exhibition, which they considered would not only result in the beneficial advance of science and technology but also bring the nations closer together in a spirit of peace. Both writers also envisaged the Exhibition advancing the cause of religion and morality, although Stoughton both warned of the moral pitfalls that might assail the unwary and emphasized the need to strive constantly for salvation. Clearly pleased with these substantial publications, the RTS sent copies of both works to the Queen, Prince Albert, the Royal Commissioners, foreign ambassadors, and many other eminent people.40

35

EC Minutes, 01/026, para. 1093 (18 February 1851). CSC Minutes, 02/04, para. 324 (19 February 1851); EC Minutes, 01/026, para. 1113 (25 February 1851) and 01/027, para. 18 (5 March 1851). 37 The BFBS advertisement appeared on p. 13 of the ‘Official Illustrated Catalogue Advertiser’ bound into vol. 1 of the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue. 38 EC Minutes, 01/027, para. 99 (1 April 1851); CSC Minutes, 02/04, para. 348 (16 April 1851); Binney, Royal Exchange. A French edition of Binney’s book was also published. 39 CSC Minutes, 02/04, para. 348 (21 May 1851); [Stoughton], Palace of Glass. 40 EC Minutes, 01/027, para. 255 (20 May 1851). 36

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Figure 16 The Religious Tract Society placed a full-page advertisement in the Official Illustrated Catalogue Advertiser attached to the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, at a cost of 120 gns for 250,000 copies. The bottom half of the advertisement— not reproduced here—describes the society’s activities and lists a number of its publications. From the Advertiser (p. 13) appended to the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, I. The Advertiser also contained an advertisement for the Prayer Book and Homily Society, listing its publications in about 20 languages. Reproduced with permission of Special Collections, UCL Library Services.

Neither of these expensive titles could, however, address the society’s principal requisite, which was for cheaply produced tracts that could be distributed widely, especially to foreign visitors. At its meeting on 22 April—just nine days before the Exhibition opened—Jones urged the Executive Committee to recognize the importance of issuing tracts in foreign languages specifically for the Exhibition. At its meeting a week later the committee examined a submitted manuscript but decided it was unsuitable. On 6 May the committee vetted three further manuscripts and decided to publish two of them.41 One was by the 41 EC Minutes, 01/027, paras. 173 (22 April 1851), 188 (29 April 1851), and 215–17 (6 May 1851).

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banker William Haig Miller, a regular RTS author, who composed a tract entitled A Walk through the Crystal Palace, which celebrated the gathering of the nations, praised England, attributed her success to the Bible, and asserted the need for faith in Jesus. This tract, which sold at two shillings per hundred was soon translated into Italian, Spanish, French, German, Swedish, and Dutch. The second was To a Stranger in the Park, which was written by Stoughton and sold for three shillings a hundred. While acknowledging that visitors should relish the Crystal Palace and its exhibits, Stoughton urged them not to ignore spiritual matters but to follow the teachings of the Bible.42 The RTS also published a French translation of this tract. Owing to the society’s tardiness in soliciting these tracts, A Walk through the Crystal Palace and To a Stranger in Hyde Park were not printed and distributed to agents until at least two weeks—possibly three weeks—after the Exhibition opened. In both cases 100,000 copies were printed.43 The society required substantial funding to print these tracts and their translations, and also the books by Binney and Stoughton, as well as maintaining the Piccadilly depository. Hence an Exhibition Fund was opened, which attracted almost £1,000 in donations by the end of July.44 Without these donations the Piccadilly depository would have made a substantial loss, as the Finance SubCommittee subsequently recorded that income from sales at the depository was only £333 during the period of the Exhibition.45 Although the society decided to continue leasing the shop after the end of the first year, it is clear that it was not a financial success. Although sales of books were modest, tracts were distributed in large numbers. The stock of the two small English-language tracts was distributed gratis, sometimes through other missionary societies, and soon ran out, forcing further print runs of 100,000 copies. In its annual report the RTS claimed that 325,776 tracts and books had been distributed in connection with the Great Exhibition. However, far too many copies of the foreign language books had been printed. Thus at the end of September 1851 the Executive Committee discovered that about 80% of the 3,000 copies of the French and German editions of Binney’s Royal Exchange were still in their warehouse. The society had also clearly overestimated demand for foreign language tracts. Of the two books produced specially for the Exhibition, however, there remained only 570 copies (out of 5,000) of the English language edition of Binney’s book and only 895 copies (out of 4,000) of Stoughton’s.46 Although it had been slow in preparing for the Exhibition 42

[Miller], Walk through the Crystal Palace; [Stoughton], To a Stranger in Hyde Park. EC Minutes, 01/027, paras. 223 (13 May 1851) and 256 (20 May 1851). 44 EC Minutes, 01/027, para. 458 (29 July 1851) records the sum of £928/1/1 in the Exhibition Fund. 45 FSC Minutes, 02/10, para. 286 (22 October 1851). 46 EC Minutes, 01/027, para. 656 (30 September 1851); ‘Religious-Tract Society’, Missionary Register 40 (1852), 336. 43

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and had failed to have its main Exhibition-oriented publications ready in time for the opening, the RTS subsequently made an impressive effort to capitalize on the Exhibition as a means of spreading the Christian message to the many visitors, both British and foreign. The other leading religious publishing society was the BFBS, which had been founded in 1804 specifically to cater for the needs of foreign language speakers. Its primary aim was to publish Bibles in languages other than English to enable missionaries to instil God’s Word into Maoris who understand only the Rarotongan language, to Urdu-speaking Indians, or even to speakers of Welsh. Translations were usually undertaken by linguistically able missionaries. In its first half-century the BFBS had become highly active in publishing, binding, and distributing Bibles, both at home and abroad. The emphasis was on producing cheap but accurate Bibles, so that both poor English workmen and aborigines throughout the world would have access to the Gospels. To achieve this, the society developed a strong centralized organization orchestrated by a General Committee composed of an equal number of Anglicans and Dissenters, the latter being mainly Quakers, Methodists, and Baptists.47 This alliance among evangelicals both within and without the Established Church was an important aspect of the society’s non-partisan identity. Indeed, the society produced Bibles without notes or commentaries, since any such additions were likely to provoke controversy between the religious denominations on which it depended for support.48 Thus the society’s activities were clearly circumscribed. Yet within its ambit it was a highly effective organization with thousands of supporters throughout the country, often organized into local auxiliaries, and a substantial income gleaned from sales, subscriptions, and donations. The historian of the society has argued that by ‘[s]etting out, full of evangelical zeal, to fulfil the demand [for Bibles], the Committee and membership found themselves fully engaged in the contemporary book trade’. Although the BFBS projected the image of a soft-hearted philanthropic society, Leslie Howsam’s examination of its tightly controlled operations in London demonstrates that it was at base a hard-headed commercial publisher.49 Throughout the summer and autumn of 1850 the BFBS received many letters from supporters arguing that as numerous visitors, especially foreigners, would be descending on London during the Exhibition, the society should take the opportunity to distribute its Bibles. These suggestions were given consideration by the society’s Printing and Depository Sub-Committee. Donations also began to arrive; for example, the auxiliary at Bath raised £100 for supplying Bibles to visiting foreigners and the ladies from the Halifax auxiliary sent £50.50

47

Howsam, Cheap Bibles, 21. Ibid. 6. The BFBS was, however, frequently criticized by High Churchmen and Catholics. 49 Ibid. 203–5. 50 H. Godwin to BFBS, 4 January 1851: BFBS Archive, BSA/D1/1/139; Harriett Milne to BFBS, 30 January 1851: BFBS Archive, BSA/D1/1/140. 48

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These religious organizations were very effective in honing the distribution of their Bibles, tracts, and other Exhibition-related publications. For example, the BFBS distributed its literature within the Crystal Palace and stocked its own depositories in Piccadilly and Earl Street (Blackfriars) with foreign language Bibles and Testaments. It negotiated deals with more than twenty London booksellers to sell its Bibles and Testaments, especially its foreign language editions, offering these booksellers a small commission. It also supplied its publications to other religious societies. For example, following a request from the London City Mission, which was targeting Italian visitors, it donated fifty Bibles and two hundred Testaments in Italian. It also supplied copies of Testaments in Hebrew to the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews for distribution to Jewish visitors. Moreover, working with Wilbraham Taylor of the FCEC, it supplied hotels and lodging houses with 1,500 copies of the Bible ‘bound in sheep’ and impressed with a loan stamp. Eleven colporteurs were hired by the BFBS for the period of the Exhibition, ‘three French, three German, three to the Jews (speaking Asiatic as well as European languages), one Italian, and one Spaniard’. These missionaries not only approached visitors at the Exhibition but also waylaid them at London railway stations, at the British Museum, and at other tourist attractions. The twenty missionaries employed by the FCEC and the London City Mission distributed over a third of a million tracts mainly in London but they also accosted railway passengers at stations as far afield as Folkestone, Southampton, Brighton, and Newhaven.51 But in London the FCEC particularly targeted Catholics, and on at least two occasions scuffles broke out. In the first, supporters of the FCEC distributed tracts to worshippers at the Catholic Church in ‘Hanover Square’. It was claimed that 500 Catholics joined the fight, including ‘a priest [who] even placed both his closed fists’ into the colporteur’s face ‘with impotent rage’, a fracas that only police intervention was able to halt.52 Secondly, Bloomsbury County Court heard a case in early September involving a French nobleman, identified as ‘Baron Trantweller’, who had attended the French Catholic chapel on Little George Street, Portman Square, some weeks earlier. On leaving the chapel he was confronted by Wilbraham Taylor, who described himself in court as being employed by the FCEC to distribute French-language tracts. Encouraged by the priest, who was clearly annoyed by Taylor approaching his congregants, Trentweller snatched the tracts from Taylor’s hands, tore them up, and scattered them to the winds. Finding that Taylor had returned to continue his missionary activities on a subsequent occasion, Trantweller handed him over to a policeman, and charged him with distributing ‘immoral or obscene publications’. 51

First Report of the Royal Commissioners, 126. Report to the FCEC in British Banner, 11 June 1851, 388. There does not appear to have been a Catholic Church in Hanover Square, the nearest being in Farm Street (Berkeley Square), Portman Square, and Spanish Place (Manchester Square). See Catholic Directory. 52

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At the police station the publications were found to contain only quotations from the Bible, and Taylor—‘a white haired elderly gentleman’—was released. However, Trantweller contended that the ‘papers [were] immoral, and the plaintiff a nuisance’. The court disagreed and ordered Trantweller to pay Taylor five shillings and also awarded costs.53 Although the court sided with Taylor, who had brought the case, it is clear that some missionaries were targeting visiting Catholics in an aggressive manner and causing aggravation to the Catholic community.

RELIGIOUS SOCIETIES AS EXHIBITORS Although the BFBS and the RTS succeeded in mounting stands within the Crystal Palace, both religious organizations came into conflict with the organizers of the Exhibition. The decision to allow the BFBS and RTS into the Exhibition highlights the differing conceptions of the Exhibition among its proponents and the problems contemporaries faced in distinguishing between the religious and the secular. Occupied with its other publishing ventures, the RTS appears to have paid scant attention to the Exhibition until approached by the BFBS, which enquired in mid-October 1850 whether the RTS intended to mount a stand.54 In response to this enquiry, the Finance Sub-Committee of the RTS decided, presumably for financial reasons, that ‘a Stand in the Exhibition of 1851 for the Society’s publications . . . would not be desirable’.55 There matters stood for several weeks. It is not clear how this Sub-Committee’s decision came to be overruled, but in early February William Jones, the corresponding secretary, announced to the Executive Committee that he had procured ‘thirty superficial [i.e. square] feet of Wall space’ in the Crystal Palace in order to display the society’s foreign language books. However, he reported that his application had not proceeded smoothly but had initially been refused by the Metropolitan Committee and then by the Council of Chairmen. Only a direct appeal to the Exhibition’s Executive Committee resulted in the RTS being allocated space inside the Crystal Palace.56 (Although the Royal Commissioners had overall responsibility for the Exhibition, the Executive Committee, chaired by Lieutenant-Colonel William Reid, and with Matthew Digby Wyatt as secretary, 53

Daily News, 4 September 1851, 6. Although the Daily News reported the defendant’s name as Charles Baron Trantweller, his family name may have been mistranscribed. 54 EC Minutes, 01/026, paras. 739 (8 October 1850) and 763–4 (15 October 1850); CSC Minutes 02/04, para. 272 (16 October 1850). 55 EC Minutes, 01/026, para. 768 (22 October 1850); FSC Minutes 02/10, para. 136 (16 October 1850). 56 EC Minutes, 01/026, para. 1063 (4 February 1851).

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made many of the day-to-day decisions. However, the local committees—in this case the Metropolitan Committee—vetted applications. The Metropolitan Committee was also responsible for assigning space in the Crystal Palace. The Council of Chairmen comprised the Chairmen of the Juries for each of the thirty classes into which the exhibits were divided.) The RTS bookcase was assigned a place in Class XVII, which covered exhibits concerned with ‘Paper, Printing, and Bookbinding’ and was located on the north side of the west nave next to the Fine Art Court. The illustration published in the September 1851 number of the society’s Visitor shows it to have been about five foot wide and six foot high (excluding its base), with a heavy and fairly ornate entablature bearing the society’s name (Figure 17). There also appears to be a table or display cabinet in front of the bookcase. Through the glass doors visitors could see fifty-four of the RTS publications, in languages ranging from Icelandic to Turkish (in both Greek and Armenian characters) and from Burmese to Raratongan.57 The entry in the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue included much information about the society’s activities: That it had printed books and tracts in about 110 languages; 549 million texts had been printed since the society’s formation and 24 million publications were now produced annually; there were 4,743 Englishlanguage titles in its current catalogue together with several hundred foreign language ones; its annual income from sales and donations was £62,000, all of which was used to produce further publications. As well as listing the fifty-four languages of the publications on display, the catalogue entry contained examples of texts in Malagasy and Tahitian (both in English characters) and in Chinese characters.58 Unfortunately the RTS minute books do not offer detailed information about the problems that Jones encountered in his negotiations with the various Exhibition committees as he attempted to obtain space for the RTS within the Crystal Palace. However, the difficulties faced by the BFBS are more fully documented. As early as 12 August 1850 the Printing and Depository Sub-Committee of the BFBS instructed Henry Roberts, an architect and member of the General Committee, ‘to communicate with the Commissioners as to an allotment of Space to this Society in the Building to be erected’.59 When the BFBS first applied for space its application was considered by the Metropolitan Committee for Class XVII. It would appear that in response to Roberts’s initial application the Committee allocated the BFBS wall space of five feet square 57

Visitor 16 (1851), 337 and 341. Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, 2: 546–7. 59 P&D SC Minutes, vol. 4 (BFBS Archive, BSA/C10/1/4), 122 (12 August 1850). The minutes for 28 October 1850 (f. 127) mention a letter from Roberts dated 26 October ‘as to the application for space in the Exhibition of 1851’. This letter has not been found. 58

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Figure 17 The Religious Tract Society’s stand inside the Crystal Palace. Visitor, or Monthly Instructor 16 (1851), 337. Image provided by the Michigan Information Transfer Source.

(i.e. twenty-five square feet—slightly less than allotted to the RTS) and two feet deep, in order to display its Bibles. In the meantime the BFBS Printing and Depository Sub-Committee had assembled the large number of publications it wished to display. In order to accommodate this complete range of Bibles and Testaments, the Sub-Committee realized that a bookcase nearly five times the

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size would be required; one measuring seventeen feet wide, seven feet high, and two feet deep. Following its meeting on 13 January it forwarded this request, which appears to have been rejected by the Metropolitan Committee supervising entries for Class XVII, which included among its members the publisher Henry G. Bohn. By then the availability of space had become a pressing issue and many exhibitors were being allotted less space than they requested. According to Bohn, who subsequently defended himself in a letter to The Times, the Metropolitan Committee for Class XVII received an application from the BFBS for space for a bookcase ‘upward of 150 [square] feet’. A note from the Executive Committee had been appended to the application stating that the BFBS’s request was unacceptable. Acting under this instruction, the Metropolitan Committee for Class XVII rejected the BFBS application.60 This rejection was not taken as final and the BFBS’s Printing and Depository Sub-Committee immediately decided to apply for a space almost twice as large again, one that could accommodate a bookcase thirty feet wide, seven feet high, and two feet deep!61 Faced with this new application Bohn claimed that although he realized that the society’s application broke the organizers’ rules, he nevertheless felt justified in making an exception in the case of the Bible and he therefore granted the BFBS ‘25 feet’—presumably to accommodate a bookcase 25 feet wide.62 However, in mid-February 1851 the Executive Committee reviewed this decision together with a request from the BFBS that the amount of space be increased. On 8 March the Executive Committee replied to the BFBS, allocating it space for a twenty-three-foot-wide bookcase—that is some four times the width of the RTS bookcase—nine feet high, and eight inches deep. (By that time the application date had long passed and space was at a premium.) The size having now been determined, the bookcase was constructed and its contents prepared: 170 versions of the Scriptures in 127 languages uniformly bound in purple morocco with gilt edges. These were to be ‘ranged on slopes, each version labelled with its own title and in English’, together with a ticket giving the number of copies printed in each language.63 All was now ready, or so it seemed. However, the definition of ‘wall space’ proved a further issue of contention. In a letter to the Executive Committee Lord Ashley (who had recently accepted the presidency of the BFBS) claimed that when a bookcase 60 P&D SC Minutes, vol. 4 (BFBS Archive, BSA/C10/1/4), 148 (13 January 1851); Henry G. Bohn, ‘The Great Exhibition and the Bible Society’, The Times, 17 May 1851, 7. The precise role of Bohn is unclear as the only formal appointment he held was as one of the Local Commissioners for Westminster, representing book-binding. The P&D SC minutes of 13 January also indicate that the BFBS approached the Revd Stephen Cattley, secretary to the City Committee of the 1851 Exhibition. 61 P&D SC Minutes, vol. 4 (BFBS Archive, BSA/C10/1/4), 149 (20 January 1851). 62 Bohn, ‘The Great Exhibition’. 63 P&D SC Minutes, vol. 4 (BFBS Archive, BSA/C10/1/4), 172–4 (28 April 1851).

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constructed to the specified dimensions arrived at the Exhibition, it was found unacceptable since the BFBS had constructed it to stand on the floor, whereas the Executive Committee was expecting a wall-mounted bookcase that would stand on a counter two feet six inches high—thus the books on the higher shelves would be rendered invisible. Ashley complained that the Executive Committee’s letter of 8 March did not state that the bookcase would have to be wall mounted. However, the Executive Committee responded that it had previously informed Roberts in no uncertain terms that the only space available was a wall space in the Machinery Department, ‘opposite a Distilling Apparatus and a Malt Machine’—an offer ‘which he [Roberts] accepted with gratitude’.64 The BFBS also considered that this location was inappropriate and asked for the bookcase to be moved to a more prominent position. The Executive Committee then agreed to the removal of the bookcase to the passage on the north side of the west nave that ran parallel to the central thoroughfare—‘immediately behind the Fine Arts Court’—see Figure 18. There it was in fairly close proximity to the RTS stand and to other Class XVII exhibits, which, as noted below, included other Bibles. Moreover, the bookcase would be mounted on the floor as its makers intended. Although the BFBS stand had already been moved to this improved position before the Exhibition opened, soon after the opening, letters poured into the society complaining about the location of its stand. For example, after visiting the Exhibition John Trew, Archdeacon of the Bahamas, complained that this ‘noble testimony to the extreme piety of our land [had been] consigned to so obscure a corner, whilst Crosses, Crucifixes, Missals, and works of Medieval Art of a kindred nature, to say nothing of a Pope & Sceptre in full costume occupied most conspicuous positions in that wonderful building’. Several speakers at the annual meeting of the society held at Exeter Hall on 7 May gave vent to their disapproval, as did writers in both the religious and the secular press. Thus, ‘A Protestant Clergyman’ wrote to The Times claiming that the BFBS stand was only a third of the size initially requested, and that although room was subsequently found ‘by way of compensation, it was thrust into a by-passage, where one can hardly discover it’.65 Like the Archdeacon, this writer noted that in contrast to the problems encountered by the BFBS, exhibits of Roman Catholic art were prominently displayed. Faced with this groundswell of dissatisfaction the BFBS requested Lord Ashley to intervene. Ashley, a fierce critic of Catholicism and an outspoken opponent of the recent ‘papal aggression’, was keen to approach Albert directly and thereby Minutes of . . . Her Majesty’s Commissioners, Minutes of 30 May 1851, 2–6. Archdeacon John Trew to British and Foreign Bible Society, 9 May 1851: BFBS Archive, Home Correspondence Inward, 1850–1, BSA/D1/1/141; Meeting of the General Committee, 12 May 1851: BFBS Archive, Rough Minutes, Box 2 (BSA/B2/2); A Protestant Clergyman [Revd W. G. Cooksley], ‘The Great Exhibition and the Bible’, The Times, 15 May 1851, 8; Letter from ‘One Who Honours the Word of God’, Record, 19 June 1851, 3. 64 65

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Figure 18 Plan of part of the north-west section of the ground floor of the Crystal Palace showing the area allotted to Class XVII (‘Paper, Printing, Bookbinding’): IJ25–7 and GI27 (shaded)—some plans exclude area IJ25. It would appear that the British and Foreign Bible Society’s stand was originally to be located near Y, ‘opposite a Distilling Apparatus’ (marked ‘Dist’) but was subsequently moved ‘immediately behind the Fine Arts Court’, marked X. That part of the corridor also contained railway wheels, axles, models, and other exhibits. It is not clear where the Religious Tract Society’s stand was located but probably at the back of the shaded area. Osler’s Crystal Fountain, which provided the centre-point of the Exhibition, was slightly to the right of this diagram in line with the ‘West Nave’. To the left the building extended another 17 spaces.

exert pressure on the Commissioners to move the BFBS stand to a more visible position. In a letter of 17 May he expressed the Society’s concerns to Albert.66 Although Albert may have raised the issue either with the Executive Committee or with his fellow Commissioners, the BFBS stand remained where it was, behind the Fine Arts Court. *** Throughout these negotiations between the BFBS and the Exhibition’s organizing committees there was much disagreement and misunderstanding. For example, in response to the BFBS’s first request for more space a meeting had been convened between Henry Roberts, three other committee members of the BFBS, and Lieutenant-Colonel Reid representing the Executive Committee. The date of this meeting is not known but it was probably held during February 66 Lord Ashley to Prince Albert, 17 May 1851: Albert’s Correspondence, vol. 7, item 61. Original in the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle, Vic/Main/F/24/149.

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1851. According to a memorandum in the Commissioners’ minutes, at that meeting Roberts failed to convince the Committee in which class of exhibits the BFBS’s translations of the Bible should be displayed: ‘He distinctly stated that they were not exhibited as specimens of the art of Printing, but as showing the energetic labours of the Society’. As noted above, the Executive Committee then offered Roberts space in the machinery area, despite the lateness of the application and uncertainty about the appropriateness of the BFBS stand. The Executive Committee was also clearly annoyed by Ashley’s subsequent attempt to intervene through Prince Albert and in their report they charged both him and the committee of the BFBS with ignoring relevant facts and with misunderstanding certain crucial issues. The report that the Executive Committee laid before the Commissioners—and forwarded to Lord Ashley along with its own letter—also stressed that the Committee had made every effort to address the needs of the BFBS. However, in listing the problems it had encountered the Executive Committee demonstrated that it had lost patience with the BFBS: ‘First, the absolute rejection by the Metropolitan Committee, next, the insufficient amount of space granted by them; next, to provide, not any, but even more space for an object hardly within the scope of the rules; next, to admit the [Book]Case constructed contrary to agreement; lastly, to improve its position’.67 Clearly the Executive Committee had doubts whether the BFBS could legitimately be considered an exhibitor in the Great Exhibition. Moreover, in the light of the above catalogue of problems, it found the BFBS a very difficult organization to deal with. Yet the Executive Committee was not the only aggravated party. The minutes of the BFBS Printing and Depository Sub-Committee for 28 April expressed frustration at the ‘many difficulties & much objection’ raised by the Executive Committee to its attempt to mount its large display of Bibles and Testaments in the Exhibition. Moreover, it was aggrieved that the Executive Committee had originally assigned the bookcase a ‘very unsuitable position’.68 The BFBS evidently considered that the Executive Committee did not adequately respect it or the importance of the work it was undertaking in spreading the Gospel. Instead, the Executive Committee had wilfully hindered its attempt to take its rightful place in the palace where the nations would soon gather. The existence of the BFBS display of Bibles within the Crystal Palace prompts questions about whether it was a legitimate contribution to an exhibition of arts and manufactures. Some objected to the BFBS’s presence. As Lord Ashley (now the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, following the death of his father) recalled some

67 A Protestant Clergyman [Revd W. G. Cooksley], ‘The Great Exhibition and the Bible’, The Times, 15 May 1851, 8; ‘Statement on behalf of the Committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society . . .’, n.d. 1851: 1851 Commission Correspondence, 1851/322; Minutes of . . . Her Majesty’s Commissioners, Minutes of 30 May 1851, 2–6. 68 P&D SC Minutes, vol. 4 (BFBS Archive, BSA/C10/1/4), 172–4 (28 April 1851).

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years later, a number of people had claimed that ‘we had no right to appear before the public in any form in the Exhibition’ and he even remembered that Prince Albert initially ‘took the view that the Bible Society had no right to a position there’. It is difficult to determine just how widespread was this view, but the Executive Committee conceived of the Exhibition as a secular event limited to the material productions of all nations and appeared far from convinced that the BFBS had a rightful place in the Exhibition since the BFBS’s bookcase displaying Bibles was ‘an object hardly within the scope of the rules’.69 How, then, did the BFBS justify its presence in the Crystal Palace? To explore this theme we must first look at the BFBS’s entry in the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, which states that its stand—number 201 in Class XVII— displayed its publications, especially its numerous foreign language printings of the Bible. The text also stressed that through improvements introduced by the BFBS, the production cost of its Bibles had been reduced by 62% since 1816. As in many other contexts, the BFBS portrayed itself as an innovative publisher; it could therefore claim to have made a contribution to ‘Paper, Printing, and Bookbinding’, and thereby to have justified its place in the Crystal Palace. Within Class XVII were examples of highly skilled workmanship and machinery that advanced the production of paper-based articles, especially books. The display included many finely bound books, specimens of very thin and resilient writing paper, books for recording musical notation, and the impressive envelope folding machine invented by Edwin Hill and Warren de la Rue, which could process 2,700 envelopes an hour. In introducing this class the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue noted that it included books, and that books are ‘the most powerful agents in the social and intellectual improvement of man’.70 Among the exhibits in this class were several other Bibles, such as the sumptuously bound royal Bible of King William IV displayed by J. and J. Leighton bookbinders of Brewer Street (Figure 19) and the beautiful Oxford Bible displayed by Westleys of Friar Street. Bibles were also displayed on several foreign stands, such as an American exhibit of two Bibles for the blind.71 These and similar Bibles were clearly noteworthy examples of book manufacture. Set against these displays the BFBS might not look incongruous since it could portray itself as another innovative producer of unusual translations and typefaces. Thus the BFBS could make a case—perhaps not a very strong case—for inclusion in the Exhibition.72 69 Hodder, Life . . . of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, 2: 342–3; Minutes of . . . Her Majesty’s Commissioners, Minutes of 30 May 1851, 4. 70 Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, 2: 536–52, on 551 and 537. See also Official Catalogue, 96. 71 For example, Class XVII, nos. 24 and 103 in Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, 2: 538 and 544; United States no. 89 (ibid. 3: 1438). 72 With some legitimacy the BFBS could also claim to be a non-religious organization. From its foundation the society frequently claimed to be a publishing house, and not an organization

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Figure 19 The sumptuously bound royal Bible of King William IV displayed by J. and J. Leighton bookbinders of Brewer Street—one of several Bibles on display in Class XVII. Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, 2: 539. Reproduced with permission of Special Collections, UCL Library Services.

However, there seems to have been some uncertainly within the BFBS itself about the rationale that should be used to justify the display of Bibles. For example, in his interview with Reid, Roberts advanced the view that the BFBS Bibles were ‘not exhibited as specimens of the art of Printing, but as showing the energetic labours of the Society’. Moreover, many years later Shaftesbury gave an account of the interview he claims to have had with Prince Albert at directly involved in evangelization. As the Quaker Luke Howard, who served on the General Committee, argued: ‘It is a society for furnishing the means of religion, but not a religious society.’ (Quoted in Howsam, Cheap Bibles, 6–7.) Thus the BFBS could legitimately portray itself as a producer of books (that just happened to be texts of the Bible). However, although it was not itself a sect or denomination, its objectives were definitely religious.

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which he responded to Albert’s question whether it was appropriate for the BFBS to mount a stand at the Exhibition. Ashley, as he then was, then urged Albert to ignore ‘the religious aspect of the question’ but instead to consider it from an intellectual point of view. I ask you whether it is not a wonderful proof of intellectual power that the Word of God has been translated into 170 distinct languages, and into 230 dialects? Is it not a proof of great intellectual power that the agents of the Bible Society have given a written character to upwards of thirty distinct languages, enabling all those people to read the Word of God in their own tongue?

Whereupon Albert is said to have responded: ‘You have proved your right to appear. It is a great intellectual effort, and I will do my best to secure for the society such a position as is befitting.’73 Albert’s reply as reported is unlikely to have satisfied the Exhibition’s Executive Committee. Yet it should also be noted that the BFBS was more than a publishing house and its presence in the Crystal Palace provided an opportunity to display Bibles and Testaments that were used for evangelical purposes. As discussed in the next chapter, the evangelical press repeatedly emphasized the importance of this display of God’s Word in an otherwise secular Exhibition74—such commentators showed little interest in bookbinding or methods of book production. Although they often reported the number and variety of the translations on display, evangelical authors would have accorded intrinsically less value to, say, a display of Charles Dickens’s Dombey and Son or the anonymously authored evolutionary work Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Likewise, many letters received by the BFBS congratulated it on advancing Christianity through its presence at the Exhibition. For example, in late January 1851 one correspondent wrote: ‘you are about to plant the Tree of Life in the midst of the Palace, if not of the garden, & that by your timely & philanthropic efforts its leaves will be more extensively unfolded for the healing of the Nations’. Another proclaimed: ‘May our Exhibition of God’s work be blessed!!!’75 After the Exhibition opened the repeated calls to move the BFBS stand to a more prominent position again highlighted the perceived need by the BFBS’s supporters to broadcast the Christian message more Hodder, Life . . . of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, 2: 342–3. This text formed part of a lecture Shaftesbury delivered to the Kensington Auxiliary of the BFBS in 1877. Rather surprisingly Shaftesbury’s diary (Hartley Library, University of Southampton) does not contain any reference to this meeting with Prince Albert and I can find no contemporary evidence for such a meeting. The situation is further complicated by a source published in 1877—Weylland, Thought for the World, 5—in which Shaftesbury claimed to have urged the case for admitting the BFBS into the Exhibition in correspondence with the Prince. None of the extant letters confirm this account. 74 As Jonathan Topham has pointed out (private communication), evangelical writers often employed a similar strategy when responding to secular science—by reframing it within a religious context. See his ‘The Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine’. 75 J. S. Elliott to George Browne, 30 January 1851: BFBS Archive, BSA/D1/1/138; C. J. Glyn to BFBS, 30 April 1851: BFBS Archive, BSA/D1/1/139. 73

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effectively to visitors. Thus despite the BFBS’s attempt to portray itself as merely a publisher and its foreign language publications as manifesting ‘industry, and learning, and genius’, the prospect of using the BFBS’s position within the Crystal Palace to garner souls for salvation was never far below the surface. *** During the months preceding the opening of the Exhibition, the BFBS confronted a related issue. At its meeting on 14 April the Printing and Depository Sub-Committee decided that if permission were granted the society would employ an attendant to manage the society’s stand. On the recommendation of a Parisian gentleman an Italian named Signor Salvucci was appointed to the post, which carried a salary of 2 guineas per week. However, within a few weeks it became clear that Salvucci was not ‘the kind of person we had expected’, as George Browne, the society’s secretary, explained to a disgruntled correspondent.76 When he visited the Exhibition this correspondent had been ‘vexed’ to discover that the display of Bibles and Testaments on the BFBS stand was ‘so jumbled that it was impossible to trace the connexion between the dialects and the Characters of the several cognate languages: so that one of the great uses to which the Exposition might be put, and to which it was intended—that of improvement by Comparison is unavailable’. When this lack of order was pointed out, Salvucci is said to have insulted his critic by claiming that ‘no gentleman or Christian would make such a remark’.77 It would appear that Salvucci had rearranged the books in the bookcase and had even returned some of them to the society’s depository. When interviewed by members of the Printing and Depository Sub-Committee in early July he claimed to have done this at Henry Roberts’s instigation. Nevertheless, he was instantly dismissed. The post remained vacant for a few weeks until Capt. Charles Gibb, the Royal Engineer in charge of the sappers who constructed the Crystal Palace, alerted the BFBS that by failing to have an attendant on hand they were forgoing the opportunity to engage with visitors. A new attendant, William Allen Bowen, was therefore hired and started work on 11 August.78 Throughout the remaining two months of the Exhibition he carried out his duties diligently: ‘My strength’, wrote Bowen, ‘was often taxed in folding, distributing, and answering questions.’ After the Exhibition closed Bowen claimed to have distributed over a hundred thousand copies of the pamphlet containing specimens of the various English and foreign language typefaces used, together

76

George Browne to Revd J. Green, 24 June 1851: BFBS Archive, BSA/D1/3/9, f. 127. There were also complaints in the evangelical press that Salvucci’s English was inadequate, although this was rejected by one of his supporters: Record, 3 July 1851, 7, and 10 July 1851, 3. 77 ‘A Subscriber’ to BFBS, 19/20 June 1851: BFBS Archive, BSA/D1/1/141. The anonymous author was probably the Revd John Green, curate of Trinity Church, Marylebone. 78 Bowen’s address was 11 Queen Charlotte Row, New Road, Marylebone, which according to the 1852 London Directory, was the address of the Marylebone Penitentiary.

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with a large number of pamphlets listing the different Bibles and Testaments on display, and also numerous pamphlets outlining the society’s activities. According to the BFBS’s annual report ‘457,500 papers, such as, Specimens of Type, Catalogues, Brief Views, Summary Statements, &c., [had been distributed] all relating to the operation of the Society, and calculated to arrest attention’.79 Mounting the BSBS stand had cost the society about £550 from its special donations fund.80 Given that some 6 million people visited the Exhibition, perhaps as many as one in ten visitors received one of its pamphlets. As 24 June 1851 was a shilling day at the Exhibition, it was packed with working-class visitors. The Queen arrived unannounced and escorted by a number of dignitaries. Having viewed various exhibits, including a display of marine engines and a sodawater machine, she inspected the Bibles on the BFBS stand, before moving on to see the magnificent throne presented to her by the Maharajah of Travancore.81 On another occasion the royal party visited the BFBS stand and Bowen presented the Queen with some samples and explained to Albert, who was a Patron and Life Governor of the society, that by reducing the cost of printing Bibles the BFBS had enabled the poor to read the Gospels. Albert, in turn, commended the society: ‘It is good work’. Certainly the BFBS display of Bibles raised the society’s profile and thus advanced its missionary activities.82 *** The activities of the religious societies discussed in this chapter—along with those of several other missionary organizations that energetically sought to evangelize among the visitors—demonstrate that they came to view the Exhibition as a crucially important event and one that required a decisive religious response. In a determined effort to combat the recent ‘papal aggression’ and the perceived spread of irreligion, most evident in the flood of cheap secular publications aimed especially at the working classes, religious organizations provided facilities and publications that addressed the perceived needs of visitors. They organized extra services and lectures, opened depositories, and hired agents and colporteurs specifically to evangelize among the visitors to the Exhibition. Most importantly, the mighty religious publishing houses brought their combined strength to bear on the Exhibition, printing and selling vast numbers of Bibles and other religious books, as well as distributing hundreds of thousands of tracts and pamphlets, many in foreign languages. 79 ‘Extracts from the Report’, 85–6; ‘Forty Eighth Report of the BFBS’, Missionary Register 40 (1852), 295. 80 P&D SC Minutes, vol. 4 (BFBS Archive, BSA/C10/1/4), 168–206 (14 April–10 November 1851). This includes £124 for the bookcase, £70 for the attendants’ salaries, and most of the remainder for printing leaflets. 81 ‘The Great Exhibition’, The Times, 25 June 1851, 8. 82 Browne, History of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 2: 509–10; also 1: 199 and 245–6. In 1850 Albert had donated £50 and been appointed a Patron and Life Governor of the BFBS.

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With a combined annual income of over £250,00083 the BFBS, RTS, and SPCK possessed the capital to invest heavily in the Exhibition whilst simultaneously raising thousands of pounds for activities connected with the Exhibition. They also invested time and effort promoting Exhibition-related activities; their organizing and publication committees made appropriate arrangements and key individuals, such as William Bowen and Wilbraham Taylor, worked tirelessly to ensure a robust religious response to the Exhibition. According to a contemporary writing in the Baptist Magazine, the additional prayers offered at the time of the Exhibition resulted in ‘the kingdom of Christ’ receiving ‘a new impetus’ from the Exhibition. Likewise a missionary monthly targeted at children recounted heart-warming stories of the influence of evangelical tracts on their grateful recipients, but added that one of ‘the best things done’ had been to offer Cardinal Wiseman a tract when he entered the Exhibition. Wiseman, however, is said to have gracefully declined the offering. A later writer, however, simply asserted that the Great Exhibition had greatly assisted the evangelical cause by enabling large numbers of people to hear the Christian message and led many souls to Christ.84 Although it is impossible to determine the number of souls saved, evangelicals often justified the effort expended at the time of the Exhibition by claiming that it per se had aided the spread of Christianity. Yet there were some significant differences in the way each group responded. The greatest sense of urgency and enthusiasm was manifested by the Evangelical Alliance with its dedicated Foreign Conference and Evangelisation Committee for 1851. It would appear that, urged on by Taylor, the Alliance targeted foreign visitors and especially Catholics. A similar enthusiasm was found among the evangelical speakers at Exeter Hall, although they, by contrast, targeted British visitors. The Bishop of London, who worked mainly through the SPCK, prioritized the provision of facilities for Anglicans who were in London. This response might appear slightly muted compared with the enthusiasm manifested by evangelical bodies. The other two principal religious publishing societies—the RTS and the BFBS—both produced tracts and books especially for the Exhibition, although the RTS had initially been tardy. Most importantly, both the RTS and the BFBS mounted stands in the Crystal Palace, thereby bringing Christianity into the very heart of the Exhibition. For many Christians these displays helped rescue the Exhibition from the charge of materialism and helped transform it into a significant spiritual event—an event centred on a display of God’s Word.

83

Missionary Register 39 (1851), 491 and 40 (1852), 491. Standen Pearce, ‘The Crystal Palace’, Baptist Magazine 43 (1851), 545–51 on 551; ‘Tract Distribution at the Great Exhibition’, Children’s Monthly Missionary Newspaper 9 (1852), 22–4; Weylland, Thought for the World, 234–6. 84

4 On Display: The Building, Its Contents, and English Protestantism On entering the building he [Charles Kingsley] was moved to tears; to him it was like going into a sacred place. . . . The science, the art, the noble ideas of universal peace, universal brotherhood it was meant to shadow forth and encourage, excited him intensely; while the feeling that the realization of these great and noble ideas was as yet so far off . . . saddened him as profoundly.1

THE CRYSTAL PALACE The most remarkable aspect of the Exhibition was Paxton’s Crystal Palace constructed from iron and glass. Although these materials had frequently been used in the construction of greenhouses, conservatories, and railway stations they had rarely been used in public buildings, and certainly in none of such impressive dimensions. Although there were many detractors—the young William Morris was sickened by the sight of the building and refused to enter2—the design was widely hailed as a stroke of inspiration. Most religious periodicals shared in this judgement (Figure 20); however, sections of the High Church condemned the Crystal Palace as a travesty of proper and religiously sanctioned architectural standards. Londoners, watching in wonder as the building took shape with surprising rapidity, commented excitedly as the iron columns, glass-clad walls, and roofs emerged from the park’s flat greenery and created a new skyline. One of the many contemporary accounts was written by the Quaker Mary Howitt, who recounted that one Sunday morning during the spring of 1851 she and her husband were ‘walking down the fields from Hampstead, with all London 1 2

Kingsley, Charles Kingsley, 1: 220. MacCarthy, William Morris, 121.

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Figure 20 Illustrations of the Crystal Palace appeared in many religious periodicals, including this rather over-embellished engraving in the January 1851 issue of the Visitor, or Monthly Instructor 16 (1851), 1. Image provided by the Michigan Information Transfer Source.

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lying before us, [and] suddenly saw a wonderful something shining out in the distance like a huge diamond, the true “mountain of light”’.3 Many of the religious weeklies reported these developments in their general news columns, often in a surprisingly factual manner. Even the Tablet and the conservative John Bull, both of which were highly critical of the Exhibition itself, included reports of the building’s progress and especially the visits by Victoria and Albert to the site. The Church of England Magazine, which was sceptical about the value of an international exhibition, nevertheless carried on the front page of its 19 April issue an illustration of a workman at the Exhibition site fixing one of the iron pillars (Figure 21). The issue of 30 April illustrated two men working at the top of one of the supporting columns. In the first of these articles the writer paid tribute to the skill of the workmen who were engaged in constructing the building.4 The Band of Hope Review, like many of the other evangelical periodicals directed at children, welcomed the Exhibition and the editor, Thomas Bywater Smithies, reported that he experienced a sense of spiritual elation when he was allowed into the unfinished structure on a sunny February day.5 Many religious periodicals applauded the size and magnificence of the Crystal Palace, often publishing the dimensions of the building—1848 feet long, 456 feet wide, covering 752,832 square feet, etc. After reciting these figures one of the cheap evangelical monthlies directed at a juvenile readership proclaimed the building to be ‘one of the wonders of the world!’6 Likewise, a Unitarian monthly declared it ‘the wonder of the century, for size, for design, for rapidity of construction, [and] for effect’, while a Congregational minister proclaimed it ‘one of the most extraordinary specimens of modern ingenuity and skill—an eighth wonder of the world’.7 Such comments indicate that Paxton’s design was not only accepted but positively welcomed across a wide segment of the religious spectrum. Like their secular counterparts, contributors to the religious periodical press experienced considerable difficulty in conjuring appropriate similes when describing a building that was so unique as to elude ready categorization and for which there was no obvious precedent in recent history. Thus the author of one of the tracts published for visitors by the RTS likened the Crystal 3

Howitt, Mary Howitt, 2: 75–6. Koh-i-noor means mountain of light. ‘The Great Exhibition’, Church of England Magazine, 19 April 1851, 249–50, and ‘Our Responsibility in Respect to the Great Exhibition’, ibid. 30 April 1851, 281–2. 5 ‘The Great Palace of Glass’, Band of Hope Review 1 (1851), 9. 6 ‘The Crystal Palace; or Grand Industrial Exhibition of 1851’, Children’s Friend 28 (1851), 97–100, on 99. See also ‘The Great Palace of Glass’, Band of Hope Review 1 (1851), 9. Cf. ‘The Crystal Palace; or, the Great Industrial Exhibition of 1851’, Friendly Visitor n.s. 1 (1851), 81–7, on 82; ‘The Great Exhibition of 1851’, Visitor 16 (1851), 1–4, on 3. 7 E[dward] A. H[igginson], ‘A World-Embracing Faith; or, Religious Whispers from the Exhibition of Industry’, Christian Reformer n.s. 7 (1851), 330–8, on 333 (also published as Higginson, World-Embracing Faith); Aveling, Great Sights, 3. See also Fleming, Parable, 3. 4

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Figure 21 The Church of England Magazine published two illustrations showing workmen constructing the Crystal Palace. This illustration appeared in the 19 April 1851 issue of the Church of England Magazine (30 (1851), 249) and the other on 30 April, p. 281.

Palace to ‘a magical delusion rather than a substantial reality—a poet’s dream rather than a substantial fact’.8 Likewise, a Baptist minister from Somerset wrote that the ‘building is so unique, so chaste, so elegant, so remarkably transparent, that the temples of fairy lands are more than realized here’.9 8 9

[Stoughton], To a Stranger in Hyde Park, 1. Standen Pearce, ‘The Crystal Palace’, Baptist Magazine 43 (1851), 545–51, on 545.

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Although the Crystal Palace was likened to buildings described in fantasy travel narratives, existing religious structures also offered yardsticks for rough comparison. Given its immense size, cruciform design, and its domination of the landscape, it was often likened to a church, a temple, a ‘great temple’, or even a cathedral.10 It could also function as a temple in a less literal sense. For example, in emphasizing the importance and dignity of productivity, Christopher Wordsworth, the Canon of Westminster, described the Crystal Palace as ‘a temple of human Industry’.11 In architectural terms the Crystal Palace followed the ecclesiastical cruciform pattern, albeit of unusual proportions. The inclusion of a nave and a transept gave further credence to its similarity to a church or cathedral. Such comparisons raised speculations about whether it was a purely secular edifice or whether, by its very design, it possessed religious significance comparable to the cathedrals constructed in medieval times. However, a regular reader of John Bull was clearly annoyed that the Crystal Palace was frequently described using the terminology of ecclesiastical architecture: ‘I always thought “NAVE” and “TRANSCEPT,” as well as “ALTAR,” “FONT,” and “CHANCEL,” were strictly ecclesiastical terms’, he fumed. ‘[I]f so, why are they being applied, in an official document, to that large Glass House at Pimlico, commonly called “The Crystal Palace.”’12 The similarities or differences between Paxton’s palace and a church or cathedral depended on the rigidity of the writer’s ecclesiastical and architectural tenets. In her fascinating study of Victorian Glassworlds, Isobel Armstrong emphasizes the problematics of glass and the ways in which the Crystal Palace, following the increasing use of plate glass in shops, conservatories, and railway stations, created a disjunction in both space and time for many contemporary commentators. For religious visitors, however, the dominant imagery was not the glass itself but the light that pervaded the building. Most churches and cathedrals were built of stone of considerable thickness and evoked a contemplative air of gloomy tranquillity, although the gloom was sometimes offset by the light streaming through the stained glass windows. Inside buildings, especially ecclesiastical buildings, light was at a premium. By contrast, like the many newly designed shops that admitted natural light through plate glass windows in order to illuminate their wares, the Crystal Palace was awash with light. Thus one of the tracts issued by the Religious Tract Society for the use of visitors described the building as ‘[l]ight, airy, and graceful’ and proceeded to note that ‘amidst a crowd of wonders, [it] is itself perhaps the thing that is 10 For example, L.R.P., ‘The Great Exhibition’, Church Sunday School Magazine 6 (1851), 172–4, 196–8, and 223–6, on 172; Forster, Closing of the Great Exhibition, 3; Philo, ‘The Great Exhibition’, United Presbyterian Magazine 5 (1851), 390–4, on 392. 11 Wordsworth, On the Great Exhibition, 17. 12 Letter from ‘A CONSTANT READER’, John Bull, 26 April 1851, 267.

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most wonderful’. Similarly, the United Presbyterian Magazine noted that in this glass palace the ‘sun’s rays pierce into every nook and corner of it. It is full of light’.13 Yet references to glass and light in religious contexts often carried other, more spiritual, connotations. Thus in a sermon exploring the Exhibition’s religious significance a Yorkshire clergyman compared and contrasted the Crystal Palace with the city of ‘pure gold, like unto clear glass’, described in Revelation 21:18.14 Likewise, when Thomas Bywater Smithies, editor of the Band of Hope Review, stood in the partially completed building, he was (as noted above) cheered by the sun’s rays streaming through the glass. Yet his reflections soon turned from the Crystal Palace itself to ‘that Great Palace “above”, of which Jesus says that it contained “many mansions”, and in which, as the “Sun of Righteousness”, he shall for ever shine, giving light and peace and joy to all around’.15 For Smithies, as for the writers of various sermons and tracts, the light that pervaded the Crystal Palace could be compared and contrasted with the spiritual light that would suffuse the heavenly city—‘that Great Palace “above”’. Yet, however attractive the gleaming brightness of the Crystal Palace may have appeared to secular writers, for religious writers, especially evangelicals, it was eclipsed by a more profound form of light. At best the Crystal Palace illuminated by the sun’s rays was merely a mundane illustration of the greater light. The spiritual light was eternal, in contrast to the Crystal Palace, which was a temporary edifice—it would stand in Hyde Park only for the summer of 1851 and might even collapse before the closing date.16 Thus Paxton’s building was set in a lower order when compared with the greater palace in heaven. Yet, as we shall see in the Chapter 7 section ‘The unity of nations, progress, and the millennium’, the Crystal Palace was frequently conceived as inextricably linked to the wondrous structures evoked in the Book of Revelation and other prophetic passages in the Bible. While evangelicals were generally entranced by the Crystal Palace and endowed it with religious significance, at the other end of the religious spectrum High Churchmen and Roman Catholics found much to condemn in the building’s design. Such responses to the Crystal Palace need to be set in the contemporary context of the furious controversy over which architectural style was appropriate for religious buildings. One locus of this argument was 13 Armstrong, Victorian Glassworlds, esp. 141–54; [Miller], Walk through the Crystal Palace, 2; Philo, ‘The Great Exhibition’, United Presbyterian Magazine 5 (1851), 390–4, on 392. See also Fleming, Parable, 12. 14 Bensted, Great Exhibition, 18–19. 15 ‘The Great Palace of Glass’, Band of Hope Review 1 (1851), 9. 16 Ibid. See also Flower, Great Exhibition, 7; Leask, Great Exhibition, 24–9; MacFarlane, Crystal Palace, 38–40. Overton (Crystal Palace, 8–23) compared and contrasted the Crystal Palace and Solomon’s temple.

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the Cambridge Camden Society, which had been founded in 1839 by a group of Cambridge undergraduates who strongly affirmed the religious revival within the Anglican Church spearheaded a few years earlier by the Tractarians. The medieval period was their model and engendered a belief that in medieval times people were far more pious than at any subsequent period. Moreover, they argued that the religious ethos of medieval Europe was manifested in the Gothic architecture of the period, while this architecture had in turn inculcated piety among the population. The Society attracted considerable interest from High Anglicans and Catholics and within a few years its membership reached 700. The Gothic revival, in which the Ecclesiological Society (which name the Cambridge Camden Society adopted after its move to London in 1845) played a major role, impacted considerably on Victorian architecture, and especially on the design of churches and of ritual objects. Since Gothic was also increasingly deployed in the architecture of secular public buildings, the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament in the revivalist style following the devastating fire of 1834 generated considerable controversy. Significantly, the architect, Charles Barry, intended the new structure to blend with the nearby Westminster Abbey. Work on the Palace of Westminster commenced in 1840 and, with the exception of the then incomplete towers, much of the new exterior was visible to visitors to London in the summer of 1851. At its meeting on 7 May 1850 the committee of the Ecclesiological Society reported that they had contacted the Commissioners responsible for mounting the Exhibition and had submitted a ‘careful report . . . expressing the sentiments of the society on the various branches of art’ to be included in the Exhibition.17 Then, shortly before the Exhibition opened, a sub-committee was appointed to report on the Exhibition from an ecclesiological perspective, and the sub-committee’s report was presented to the full society at its anniversary meeting held on 22 May 1851. It was also published in the June issue of the society’s journal, the bi-monthly Ecclesiologist, edited principally by John Mason Neale, an Anglo-Catholic clergyman, and the High Churchman Benjamin Webb. Although the report praised certain exhibits for their architectural merit, it severely criticized others, but did not comment on the building itself.18 However, later issues of the Ecclesiologist contained several assessments of the Crystal Palace, including one by the editors who offered their opinion in response to requests from readers. They started by praising the functionality of the building, especially the vast space it covered, the speed of construction, and they even accepted the ‘apparent truthfulness and reality of construction’. Then they let rip: It ‘is not architecture; it is engineering—of the highest merit and excellence—but not architecture. Form is wholly wanting: 17 18

‘Report of Meeting . . .’, Ecclesiologist 11 (1850), 53. ‘Ecclesiological Aspect of the Great Exhibition,’ Ecclesiologist 12 (1851), 178–90.

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and the idea of stability, or solidity, is wanting.’ They despised the notion of mass produced parts, such as the identical iron girders and the indistinguishable sheets of glass from which Paxton’s building was constructed. By contrast, they asserted, in a true architectural design craftsmen intelligently fashion materials to achieve an organic unity. Dismissing the Crystal Palace as a travesty of architecture they warned that this combination of iron and glass should be avoided in other kinds of buildings. Finally, they considered that such a building would have only a limited lifetime because decay would rapidly set in due to the English climate. Permeating this criticism was the implied contrast between this most public statement of modern minimalist architecture and a medieval cathedral, in which each part was fashioned by skilled and pious workmen who worked in harmony with the integrated plan for the whole building. Moreover, whereas Paxton’s over-grown greenhouse would be short-lived, the medieval cathedrals lovingly constructed by devout Christians had lasted for many centuries and would last for many more.19 An eminent German ecclesiologist who visited the Exhibition likewise complained that the ‘external appearance of the Crystal Palace . . . did not arouse my admiration. . . . There is nothing grand, nothing original, nothing artistic to attract the eye.’ This purist, who arrived at the Crystal Palace after visiting the architecturally acceptable Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, complained that it was a purely utilitarian structure and only praised the design of the transept, which ‘alone gives some life to the building’.20 The roof of the transept also drew praise from another contributor to the Ecclesiologist who was nevertheless particularly critical of the ‘dismal flat’ nave, which he considered should have been raised to make it accord with the arched transept.21 Such comments indicate the ecclesiologists’ aversion to the Crystal Palace, with its use of modern materials and novelty of design. It sparked easy criticism for failing to accord with the principles of medieval architecture—indeed, it represented the very antithesis of their own religiously based aesthetic values. Yet, they could not completely dismiss this monstrosity that had suddenly appeared in Hyde Park and had been so rapturously adopted by the popular press. Although the modern secondary literature portrays the Crystal Palace in secular terms, it is important to notice that religious vocabularies were extensively deployed in describing the building. Not only did its detractors contrast it with ecclesiastical architecture, but religious language was also used by those religious writers who appreciated the cruciform structure of Paxton’s Crystal Palace and by those who saw it as a precursor to the magnificent crystal structures described in the Book of Revelation. 19 20 21

‘The Design of the Crystal Palace’, ibid. 269–70. A. Reichensperger, ‘A Word on the Crystal Palace’, ibid. 384–9, on 385. ‘On the Exhibition Building in Hyde Park’, ibid. 271–3.

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ITS CONTENTS Although sections of the religious press sought to steer their readers towards or away from specific exhibits, it is striking that many religious periodicals nevertheless reported the scientific, technological, and artistic exhibits in considerable detail. For example, throughout the Exhibition’s duration almost every issue of the Record, the bi-weekly publication aligned with the more radical evangelicals, carried a substantial report of the Exhibition and its exhibits, sometimes copied from The Times but often containing original reportage. Likewise, the Visitor, or Monthly Instructor published by the Religious Tract Society carried several long and detailed articles that provided information about the Crystal Palace and its contents, including one that described the industries of Spain and of the German states that constituted the Zollverein, while another surveyed the exhibits in the French section. These informative articles were directed particularly to artisans and those who appreciated the arts and crafts.22 As Aileen Fyfe has stressed in her study of the RTS, this evangelical society had embarked on a major initiative during the 1840s by publishing educational works on scientific subjects that were Christian in tone but avoided overt sermonizing that would have alienated their largely artisanal readership.23 Along with their success in publishing books, tracts, and periodicals with a strong scientific content, the RTS enthusiastically engaged the Exhibition because both it and its contents reflected the society’s educational objectives. The weekly Nonconformist, edited by the Congregationalist Edward Miall, provides a further example of a religious periodical that carried extensive reports on the Exhibition’s contents. From the outset the Nonconformist had enthusiastically supported the Exhibition and reported regularly on its progress. During the time of the Exhibition it carried several substantial articles by another of its correspondents recounting his perambulations through various sections of the Crystal Palace together with reports on a number of individual exhibits. In the first of these articles he described the large machines, including railway locomotives, carding machines, Jacquard looms, water turbines, and steam printing presses. In later articles he covered the India court, Albert’s model cottage dwellings, and displays of hardware (including stoves), cutlery from Sheffield, the exhibits in the Fine Art court, the musical instruments, the display of philosophical instruments, and many other sections of the Exhibition. From these reports readers of the Nonconformist would have gained a

22 1851 volume of the Record; ‘Memorable Things in the Great Exhibition’, Visitor 16 (1851), 337–41; ‘The French Department of the Great Exhibition’, ibid. 378–80. 23 Fyfe, Science and Salvation.

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fairly good appreciation of the contents of the Crystal Palace, especially those exhibits that the reporter considered particularly noteworthy.24 MacPhail’s Edinburgh Ecclesiastical Journal included a particularly detailed account of certain scientific and technological exhibits, which was written by a Church of Scotland minister from a rural parish. Having an interest in the sciences but feeling rather out of touch with recent developments, before he travelled to London he had consulted his old college lecture notes in order to better appreciate what he would see at the Exhibition; however, he found these notes of little use as they were outdated. Arriving at the Crystal Palace he, like many other visitors, reported on Osler’s crystal fountain that formed a centrepiece to the Exhibition (which resulted in a sermon taking shape in his mind) and also the valuable Koh-i-noor diamond (which evoked the memory of Newton’s discussion of flammability). But the exhibits that particularly fascinated him contained recent innovations in electrical science and technology, especially the electric telegraph and electrochemistry. With his penchant for reflecting on the exhibits, this visitor first became enamoured of the analogy between the electric telegraph and the human nervous system and then pondered the scientific principles involved in the operation of batteries. Although his published account of the Exhibition addressed a very small proportion of the exhibits he saw, he was clearly aware of the scientific issues underpinning a number of the more innovative electrical exhibits.25 This Scottish clergyman’s interest in electrical science was probably atypical among religious visitors, many of whom were more drawn to or repulsed by certain exhibits seen to possess religious (or irreligious) significance. Thus, for example, ecclesiologists were particularly attracted to examples of religious art and in an unsigned article—probably by the editors—the Ecclesiologist championed the exhibits in the Medieval Court, to which Pugin had contributed. Although the Exhibition contained much that the ecclesiologists censured, they nevertheless agreed that the Medieval Court provided an excellent opportunity for visitors to inspect ‘the apparatus of Catholic worship for the service of the Church of England’ and to appreciate that such items are ‘graceful in form, [and] brilliant . . . and rich in material’. However, they criticized the Russian stand for failing to display examples reflecting the country’s recent revival in medieval and ecclesiastical art.26 Many of the objects on display in the Medieval Court were designed by Augustus Pugin, who had earlier worked with Barry in designing the new Palace of Westminster and had converted to Catholicism principally for 24 Nonconformist, 21 May 1851, 411–12; 28 May 1851, 424; 4 June 1851, 451; 11 June 1851, 464; 18 June 1851, 491–2; 9 July 1851, 551–2; 15 October 1851, 827–8 (being a report of celebrations on the last day, 11 October). 25 A Country Minister, ‘Notes on a Visit to the Great Exhibition’, MacPhail’s Journal, esp. vol. 12, pp. 244–52. 26 ‘The Great Exhibition’, Ecclesiologist 12 (1851), 350–2.

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aesthetic reasons. Afflicted by financial pressures and excessive demands on his time, very few of his exhibits on display were designed specifically for the Exhibition; instead, most of his exhibits had been produced for other purposes. Although many evangelicals attacked him for importing Catholicism into the heart of the Exhibition, the Exhibition enabled a wide cross-section of the public to see examples of Pugin’s designs for the first time. He also served as a judge for Class XXX, which encompassed fine art objects; however, he was disappointed not to be awarded a prize. Although the Exhibition offered an opportunity to display his religiously inspired designs, Pugin detested Paxton’s utilitarian building, which he considered totally antipathetic to his own aesthetic values. Not only did he criticize it on artistic grounds, but like many other ecclesiologists he doubted whether it was structurally sound.27 Most liberal Christian periodicals paid little attention to the Medieval Court and other manifestly Catholic exhibits. Some, however, did comment on them in a restrained manner. Thus the ‘young lady’ whose visit to the Exhibition was reported in Anne Mozley’s Magazine for the Young closely examined several exhibits of Catholic art, including a window showing St Charles Borromeo administering the last sacraments at the time of the plague. She appeared undaunted by the iconography, but admitted that such church decorations looked rather out of place in the manifestly secular Great Exhibition. Likewise the reporter from the Nonconformist described several of the exhibits in the Medieval Court in sympathetic terms, yet admitted that he found them too reminiscent of the fifteenth century and incompatible with the science and technology of the nineteenth.28 While the religious sensibilities of these visitors were not deeply offended, many staunch Protestants, especially evangelicals, were horrified by the exhibits of Catholic significance which they saw as bringing popery into the very heart of London (Figure 22). Even before the Exhibition opened there was ‘Protestant alarm about Pugin’s Medieval Court’, especially the display of a large crucifix. When approached on this issue, Pugin assured one of the Commissioners that the object was a cross, not a crucifix, and he readily agreed to reduce its height in accordance with exhibitors’ regulations.29 Yet, after the Exhibition opened there were many complaints especially about the Medieval Court. For example, a visiting Anglican clergyman from Liverpool claimed that it was ‘filled with Babylonish garments and Tractarian toys’ and had been designed by ‘a celebrated apostate’ (Pugin). Moreover, he saw signs of popery throughout the 27

Hill, God’s Architect, 445–63. Helen M., ‘A Letter from a Young Lady, after Seeing the Great Exhibition’, Magazine for the Young 10 (1851), 253–70 and 289–303, esp. 268 and 290; Nonconformist, 4 June 1851, 451. The window was displayed as France and Algiers, no. 329 (Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, 3: 1193). See also SPCK, Notes and Sketches, 116–18. 29 Correspondence between Lord Granville, Charles Grey, and Lord Ashley, 20 and 28 March 1851: Albert’s Correspondence, vol. 6, items 35, 36, and 43. 28

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Figure 22 Many Protestants criticized the Medieval Court for including ecclesiastical items associated with Catholicism. From Dickinson’s Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851. Photo # Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Exhibition: the sculptures, the paintings, the robes of gold and silver. He recoiled at the sight of two wax figures, one representing Cardinal Borromeo, in full red and scarlet regalia: ‘I could not look upon them without seeing prophesy fulfilled, and Rome baptised as the Babylon of the Apocalypse.’30 The United Presbyterian Magazine likewise railed against the display of ‘insignia of Roman Catholic worship, [posing] as specimens of art. The symbols of that materialised religion are seen in every form, from the embroidered dresses of bishops to the tall candles that burn upon the altar of sacrifice.’ An evangelical periodical likewise found the Catholic-inspired exhibits all too prominent, ‘with colourings and pretensions suited to a Chinese sign-board’, while the Low Church Christian Guardian also condemned the display of ‘Romish altars, bishops’ crosses, and other superstitious matters’, which it considered had no legitimate place in an English building. For the Quarterly Journal of Prophecy the ‘symbols of Popery and superstition’ were among the manifestly sinful aspects of the Exhibition.31 30

Conor, Certain Parts of the Exhibition, 15–17. Philo, ‘The Great Exhibition’, United Presbyterian Magazine 5 (1851), 390–4, on 393; ‘The Great Exhibition’, Free Church Magazine 8 (1851) 202–5, on 205; ‘Peter’s Key and the Pope’s 31

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The Quarterly Journal of Prophecy also identified as sinful the nude statuary that adorned the Crystal Palace. In denouncing these statues it was joined by several other religious periodicals. For example, alerted by George Rochfort Clarke, a barrister and regular contributor to the evangelical press, the Record carried a number of letters and editorials condemning certain statues as indecent and as a threat to public morals. ‘It is a polluting and demoralizing system from first to last. It is a sacrifice of purity and delicacy at the shrine of art’, wrote one correspondent who suggested that Albert be approached in order to exert pressure on the Commissioners to remove the offending exhibits. In the eyes of both the Record and the Quarterly Journal of Prophecy, the nude sculptures and the Catholic artefacts were not only obscene but they were closely interlinked, the statues being examples of the unacceptable sensuousness that was considered to underpin Catholicism. These writers therefore complained that the Commissioners had made a grave error in allowing Catholicism to invade the Exhibition.32 By contrast, the Catholic periodical press drew their readers’ attention to the displays in the Medieval Court and to some of the other examples of traditional religious art. For example, a journalist from the Tablet was especially impressed by the exhibit in the Spanish section of a magnificent and ornate custodia (‘or monstrance in which the Host is exposed to the veneration of the Faithful during the rite of Benediction’) made by a Madrid craftsman for the cathedral at Lima (Figure 23), and he noted that the Queen and Prince Consort had particularly admired it during one of their perambulations.33 The Lamp—which was aimed principally at working-class Catholics—was likewise enthusiastic about this exhibit and stated that it was valued at £28,000, and stood 5 feet high with a base of 2 feet square. It then provided a full description: The pedestal represents several subjects in relievo. At the four projecting corners, as many angels, choicely caste in chaste silver, kneel adoring. From the midst of them arises the pillar, in polished brass, covered with beautiful Ecclesiastical decorations. Then it expands, and figures in chaste silver, of Moses, of David, of St. Peter and St. Paul, and of the Virgin, support a beautiful entablature. Nearer the top, similar figures of the four Evangelists support the continuation of the pillar, which rises further until it Picklocks’, Bible and the People 1 (1851), 60–72, on 61; ‘The Great Exhibition’, Christian Guardian 43 (1851), 237–9, on 238; ‘Note’, Quarterly Journal of Prophecy 3 (1851), 367–8. 32 ‘Note’, Quarterly Journal of Prophecy 3 (1851), 367–8.; Record, 5 May 1851, 8; 9 May 1851, 4; 12 May 1851, 4; 15 May 1851, 4; 18 May 1851, 4; 26 May 1851, 4; and 29 May 1851, 8. Other periodicals attacked Clarke, including Punch and the Morning Chronicle. Edmund Gosse (Father and Son, 205–6) related that Susan Flood, a zealous member of the Brethren, was so incensed by the nude statues displayed in the Crystal Palace that she smashed them with her parasol. Gosse gives no date for her religiously inspired outburst and there is no evidence that it occurred during the Great Exhibition. If it occurred at all it probably took place after the Crystal Place moved to Sydenham. 33 Tablet, 17 May 1851, 307, and 24 May 1851, 324.

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Figure 23 The custodia from Lima Cathedral that particularly appealed to Catholic commentators. Illustrated Exhibitor, 287.

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spreads into a blazing circle of divergent rays of glory, resplendent with gold and silver, sparkling with stars of light, radiant with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, and surmounted with a cross chiefly composed of gems.

Readers of the Lamp were informed that this custodia was ‘one of the grandest things in the exhibition. It is a superb piece of work in brass, in silver, in gold, and precious stones.’34 Unlike their Protestant detractors, Catholics warmly welcomed the displays of art—especially ecclesiastical art—from Catholic countries. Protestants looked elsewhere for their preferred exhibits. As discussed in the previous chapter, the RTS and BFBS succeeded in mounting displays of their own publications within the Crystal Palace and were included in Class XVII, which was devoted to ‘Paper, Printing, and Bookbinding’. In the avenue adjoining the Fine Arts Court visitors found the stand of the RTS containing religious works in 54 languages and dialects, published either by or with the aid of the society. Although a number of religious periodicals noticed the RTS stand, the exhibit that attracted most attention, especially from evangelicals, was the display of Bibles by the BFBS. The BFBS’s exhibit was considered by many visitors, especially evangelicals, to be by far the most important in the whole Exhibition. ‘[O]h, what a spectacle is that stall!,’ trumpeted one religious monthly, ‘what a treasure lies at that table! Not all the proudest works of art to the astonishment of gazing millions can be compared with that blessed Bible!’ It is ‘a glorious sight’, wrote another. ‘To the spiritual mind it is worth more than all the treasures, of which this magnificent palace can boast.’ Likewise, a magazine for Sunday School children hailed the display of Bibles as ‘more worthy of reverent notice than anything else in the Exhibition’ and a Congregationalist delivered a lecture to children in Stepney with the title The Bible, the Greatest Wonder in the Exhibition.35 Some evangelical periodicals thus highlighted the BFBS stand but paid scant attention to most of the other exhibits. By comparison with the eternal truths of the Bible, it was argued, all the material objects on display were transitory and of little value. As the spiritual dimension was inherently superior to the mundane, so the display of Bibles rendered trivial the rest of the Exhibition. On this view the BFBS stand was accorded the most commanding position in the Crystal Palace, whereas the secular press generally focused on Osler’s crystal fountain and the Koh-i-noor diamond. 34 ‘The Mediæval Court’, Lamp, 31 May 1851, 352. The Illustrated Exhibitor (287) offered a very different assessment, describing the custodia as lacking in ‘skill of the designer or artisan. There is great mixture and debasement of styles, with little or no appreciation of the proper characteristics of metal work; and most of the ornament is inappropriate or ineffective.’ 35 ‘The Crystal Palace; or, the Great Industrial Exhibition of 1851’, Friendly Visitor n.s. 1 (1851), 81–7, on 85–6; Philo, ‘The Great Exhibition’, United Presbyterian Magazine 5 (1851), 390–4; L.R.P., ‘The Great Exhibition’, Church Sunday School Magazine 6 (1851), 225; Kennedy, Bible. See also ‘The Crystal Palace’, Children’s Friend 28 (1851), 97–100, on 100; Fleming, Parable, 5 and 15; Weylland, Thought for the World, 30.

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Some evangelicals even perceived a stark contrast between the BFBS stand and Koh-i-noor (literally, ‘Mountain of Light’) diamond, the most costly exhibit, which some valued as high as £2,000,000 (Figure 24). For example, the Band of Hope Review, which evangelized among the young, recounted the following story under the heading, ‘The Gem of the Exhibition’: ‘This case’, said a gentleman a few days ago, as he stood before the Koh-i-noor diamond, ‘is worth more than all the rest in the Great Exhibition.’ We differ with this opinion. There is a stand in an obscure part of the building, containing the ‘Pearl of Great Price’, translated into one hundred and forty different languages, by the British and Foreign Bible Society. We regard this as the ‘Gem’ of the Exhibition, and hope that the Committee will give it a place by the side of the Great Diamond, so that this lamp of life—THE BIBLE—may be seen by the men and women of all Nations.36

Likewise, the attendant who manned the BFBS stand recounted that many of the visitors, and some of the poorest, possessing but little of this world’s goods, exalted [on seeing the display of Bibles], saying, ‘This is the glory of the whole Exhibition, and shame it is to being so bad a position: it ought to have as prominent a place as the great Diamond, which looks only like a bit of glass.’37

Figure 24 The most valuable physical object on display—the Koh-i-noor diamond, shown here in its original setting. Illustrated London News, 31 May 1851, 491.

36 ‘The Gem of the Exhibition’, Band of Hope Review 1 (1851), 22. See also Anon., What I Thought. For alternative perceptions of the Koh-i-noor diamond see the analyses by Kriegel, ‘Narrating the Subcontinent’, 165–9; Young, ‘ “Carbon, mere Carbon” ’. 37 ‘Extracts from the Report of the Attendant at the Society’s Stall in the Great Exhibition’, Monthly Extracts from the Correspondence of the British and Foreign Bible Society 9 (31 January 1852), 85; Browne, History of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 2: 95.

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Describing the Koh-i-noor diamond as looking like ‘a bit of glass’ was indeed an apt description, since when viewed in its glass case the diamond lacked the lustre that visitors had expected. The Commissioners were soon aware that under conditions of ambient lighting the diamond did not sparkle, since light rays came from all directions and were randomly refracted rather than being refracted into a few discrete and intense beams. David Brewster, who had written extensively on optics, was approached and recommended that the Commissioners use gas lamps to illuminate the diamond in order to evoke its beauty. The diamond was therefore moved for two days each week to a darkened chamber and illuminated with spotlights.38 This may have recaptured its sparkle, but as far as rhetoric was concerned, the otherwise lacklustre appearance of the diamond enabled evangelicals to stress its utter lack of value when compared with the Bible. Despite the repeated praise of the BFBS display of Bibles, visitors frequently complained about the location of the BFBS stand; thus one visitor protested that ‘the place assigned to the Word of God’ was the ‘one thing [that] displeased me in the exhibition’. This writer had difficulty finding the exhibit, which he eventually located in what he described as a gloomy side corridor. It should, he informed readers of the United Presbyterian Magazine, have been placed on one of the main avenues. The disrespect of the Commissioners in consigning the display of Bibles to a dingy and narrow passageway was compounded by their willingness to give far more prominence to ‘the insignia of Roman Catholic worship’ that festooned the Medieval Court.39 In response to such comments a writer in the Anglican and evangelical Friendly Visitor considered that it was indeed appropriate for the BFBS Bibles to be displayed in ‘so obscure a position’. After all, the Crystal Palace was packed with exhibits that caught the eye, whereas Isaiah chapter 53 speaks of God—and thus His Son—not being endowed with outward beauty but were instead ‘despised and rejected of men’. As the Bible possesses deep spiritual value he asserted that it did not need to be in a very prominent position. It was only right that spiritually worthless exhibits, such as pieces of statuary, should be displayed prominently.40 The presence of so many Bibles on the BFBS stand frequently evoked further condemnation of Catholicism. One familiar slur against the Papacy was its alleged refusal to permit its followers direct access to the Bible. For example, the Church Sunday School Magazine informed its young readers that in Roman Catholic countries people were ‘denied [Bibles] in their own homes’ and the author of a book for children stated that Catholic priests refused to

38

William Reid to Charles Grey, 9 June 1851: Albert’s Correspondence, vol. 7, item 83. See also Armstrong, Victorian Glassworlds, 229–31. 39 Philo, ‘The Great Exhibition’, United Presbyterian Magazine 5 (1851), 390–4. 40 ‘The Bible in the Crystal Palace’, Friendly Visitor n.s. 1 (1851), 144.

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allow lay people to read the Bible.41 Catholic disrespect for the Bible was further highlighted in the report in the London City Missionary Magazine of an apostate Italian priest who encountered an English Catholic priest at the Exhibition and handed him an evangelical tract. The English priest allegedly threw it on the ground and stormed off shouting, ‘I have nothing to do with the Bible’.42 In the light of such accounts, evangelicals warmly welcomed the display of Bibles on the BFBS stand, which enabled Catholics to see the Bible for themselves without the meddling intercession of priests who wished to preserve their authority by preventing other Catholics from reading God’s word.43 Another exhibit that can be understood in the context of contemporary evangelicalism is Prince Albert’s model working-class homes, which were erected outside the Crystal Palace in order to attract public attention, especially from working people. Lord Ashley played a key role in developing these homes, which exemplified his view that the conditions of the working classes would not be improved by charity alone. Instead, he argued, they should leave their gloomy, damp, infested, and morally dispiriting dwellings and be accommodated in cheap housing that was healthy, well-ventilated, and sanitary. Not only would this improve their physical health but also their moral condition. Only then could they move forward on the path to salvation. In advancing this project Lord Ashley was very active in the Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes and served as chairman of its committee. Although the Society, which had been founded in 1844, was principally involved in providing improved dwellings, its activities were firmly underpinned by a commitment to ‘Christian principles for the attainment of Christian ends’. Henry Roberts was the Society’s honorary architect who designed the homes and he, like Ashley, was active in the BFBS and other evangelical organizations. In the years preceding the Exhibition Roberts had designed model dwellings in several locations, particularly in London. Prince Albert warmly endorsed the Society’s agenda and maintained a deep interest in Roberts’s designs, so much so that he served as the Society’s president at the time of the Exhibition (Figure 25). By commissioning the construction of the model working-class dwellings close to the Exhibition, Albert publicly committed himself to Ashley’s evangelically inspired project for social, moral, and ultimately religious improvement.44 41 L.R.P., ‘The Great Exhibition’, Church Sunday School Magazine 6 (1851), 223–6; Anon., What I Thought, 37. 42 Reproduced in ‘William Tyndale; or, Rome and the Bible’, Christian Guardian 43 (1851), 529–34, on 534. The two best-known Italian apostates in Britain were Giacinto Achilli and Alessandro Gavazzi. 43 See esp. Aveling, Great Sights, 9; Leask, Great Exhibition, 19; ‘The Crystal Palace; or Grand Industrial Exhibition of 1851’, Children’s Friend 28 (1851), 97–100, on 100. 44 Finlayson, Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, 250–1; Roberts, Model Houses for Families; Richardson, Real Exhibitors Exhibited, 26.

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Figure 25 Prince Albert strongly supported the evangelically inspired plan by the Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes to erect cheap and clean housing for workmen and their families. At the time of the Exhibition these houses, designed by Henry Roberts, were erected close to the Crystal Palace. Illustrated London News, 14 June 1851, 559.

Throughout the Exhibition there were numerous examples of Christian and Christian-inspired art. As well as the many Bibles exhibited in Class XVII there were samples of stained glass with religious motifs, such as the window produced by J. A. Gibbs of Newcastle, showing scenes from the life of St Paul. Among the several scale models of ecclesiastical buildings was a cardboard model of St Paul’s Cathedral, while an exhibitor from Leeds displayed a communion table covering embroidered with a scene from the Last Supper. Crucifixes were displayed by exhibitors from France, Austria, Bavaria, and the Duchy of Hesse (Figure 26). A number of the statues likewise evoked religious themes, such as ‘Trust in God’ and ‘A Soul Ascending Heaven’. However, perhaps the most bizarre religious exhibit was to be found among the philosophical instruments (Class X)—a clock face, designed by Francis Walter, which conveyed the stark opposition between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan (Figure 27).45 Although many British Christians expressed considerable interest not only in the Bibles exhibited in the Crystal Palace but also the examples of arts and manufactures from Europe, America, and other technologically developed countries, the religious press displayed comparatively little awareness of the

45

Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, 1: 412.

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Figure 26 In the section devoted to France and Algeria, Marrel Brothers, jewellers and silversmiths of Paris, displayed this crucifix and ornamental cover together with several other exhibits of their craftsmanship. Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue (3: following 1192). Reproduced with permission of Special Collections, UCL Library Services.

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Figure 27 Francis Walter’s ‘Model of a new design for giving moral and religious application to the dial indications of a clock.’ According to the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue (1: 412), ‘The subject has been the study of five years.’ Illustrated London News, 25 October 1851, 532.

artefacts produced by indigenous peoples. However, these exhibits did attract the attention of a minority who were deeply concerned about the physical and spiritual wellbeing of the ‘aborigines’. Principal among these were the opponents of the slave trade, who were drawn mainly from evangelical dissenting groups, especially the Quakers. Unlike most other periodicals the Colonial Intelligencer, which was published by the Aborigines Protection Society, carried a report that focused exclusively on the exhibits produced by the ‘aboriginal races’. The author praised the high level of workmanship of such artefacts as a blow-pipe from South America, a mat from Borneo, cotton cloth from Dahomey, and silk made by Ashantees. Yet the Colonial Intelligencer

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complained that the products of such indigenous peoples were very inadequately represented in the Exhibition.46 The exhibits reflecting indigenous cultures suffered from the utilitarian ethos of the Exhibition, which encouraged allegedly less technologically advanced countries to display examples of their natural riches—especially samples of raw materials such as local wood or iron ore—that were of use in manufacturing goods for technologically advanced societies, like Britain itself. Moreover, with this emphasis on utility, the exhibits submitted by, say, the British colonies were usually selected by British settlers and administrators. Given this method of selection exhibits generally reflected the commercial and manufacturing interests of ex-patriot Europeans, rather then the skills of the indigenous population. Thus the West Africa section included exhibits of natural substances such as timber. Also displayed were various local products that were recognizably useful, including baskets, samples of silk, women’s dresses made of ‘country cloth’, and a calabash bowl made from a species of pumpkin. These samples were described in the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue in rather patronizing terms as ‘exhibit [ing] much simple ingenuity and ornament’.47 Despite being proclaimed as a celebration of the industry of all nations, the Exhibition was organized to accept exhibits made by indigenous people only when promoted by Western or Westernized mediators. This lack of accessibility by indigenous communities is illustrated by the difficulties encountered by the Caughnawaga Indians who brought to London a large selection of their own crafts for display at the Exhibition, which they mistakenly thought was a fair at which goods would be bartered or sold. Their stock of beadwork, porcupine quill, and moose-hair handicrafts was impounded by Customs and did not go on display in the Crystal Palace.48 Those artefacts from indigenous cultures that were displayed often tended to confirm national stereotypes, such as the exotic display in the India section, which included cases of jewels and a stuffed elephant with colourful howdah and trappings. Like the jewel-encrusted ivory throne presented to Queen Victoria by the Rajah of Travancore, these exhibits corroborated in the public mind the exoticism of the East. A rare exception in the Indian exhibition was a display of 150 ethnographic models of Indian labourers.49 Although there were a few items that reflected religions other than Christianity, such as Jewish prayer shawls supplied by the Bey of Tunis and the model of a Hindu temple, the Exhibition tended to render invisible religions ‘On the Products of Industry of Aboriginal Races at the Great Exhibition’, Colonial Intelligencer 3 (May 1850–March 1852), 350–2 and 381–3. 47 Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, 2: 952–5. 48 Colonial Intelligencer 3 (May 1850–March 1852), 304; Friend 9 (1851), 214. 49 As Kriegel (‘Narrating the Subcontinent’) points out, some visitors reflected on the conditions of Indian artisans. See also Auerbach, Great Exhibition, 102–4; Desmond, India Museum, 70–5; Benedict, ‘Ethnic Identities’. 46

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other than Christianity.50 The religious significance of artefacts from other cultures was often lost when extracted from their local contexts and displayed within the utilitarian environment of the Crystal Palace. Thus the exhibits from West Africa were described as examples of local craftsmanship by the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, but the social functions and religious meanings of these exhibits were ignored. As Paul Young has noted with respect to exhibits from the Society Islands, such artefacts ‘were stripped of any indigenous cultural resonance and offered up . . . as raw materials’.51 In the context of the Crystal Palace crowded with many thousands of other material objects such meanings were lost to the vast majority of visitors. Moreover, in such cases the producers would have been viewed as ‘heathen’ and thus in need of conversion to Christianity. Thus, when not viewed as secular, the religious identity of the Exhibition was manifestly Christian.

PROTESTANTISM ON DISPLAY Jeffrey Auerbach’s detailed study of the Great Exhibition is subtitled ‘A Nation on Display’. While recognizing the manifold meanings attached to the Exhibition by contemporaries, Auerbach argued that the Victorians used the Exhibition as a contested space through which they sought to define themselves as a nation. The many different contemporary visions of the Exhibition were not harmonious but nonetheless comprised an ongoing process of exploring British identity at an event crowded with foreign observers.52 Auerbach’s thesis can helpfully be applied to the Exhibition’s religious dimensions since, as this book demonstrates, a wide variety of religious arguments and positions competed to articulate the meaning of the immense glass and iron temple that had been constructed so rapidly in Hyde Park. However, Auerbach’s subtitle also highlights a recurrent feature of contemporary sermons and religious tracts whose authors recognized that the English Protestant way of life would be closely scrutinized by the visitors to the Exhibition, particularly by those of other religious faiths or of none. Religious writers therefore exhorted the population of London to display the strong Protestant values that allegedly underpinned all aspects of English society. While this message was directed at the visitor—often with the subtext that the visitor would undertake conversion if sufficiently impressed—it was also intended to revitalize those Englishmen and women whose religious devotion was faltering.

50 51 52

Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, 3: 1412–14 and 2: 927. Young, ‘Mission Impossible’, 16. Auerbach, Great Exhibition, esp. 4–5.

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Shortly before the Exhibition opened the author of an anonymous tract entitled The World’s Great Assembly argued that no country has ever had so many foreign eyes looking upon her closely as old England will now have. Eyes . . . familiar with every aspect of nature, and every type of religion, and every variety of barbarism, and every grace of civilization, and every stage of art, and every form of government, will soon be busy here gazing upon England.

The author envisaged the foreign visitor arriving in England with a burning interest in the condition of England and curiosity about the role of Protestantism in creating such a prosperous country. However, he was also concerned that visitors to London would witness the most terrible scenes: Our streets by night, our lanes by day, our gin-palaces by night and by day, what testimonies will these utter? Alas! alas! that amid privileges so distinguished, we should have drunkenness reeling before our eyes, and prostitution walking gaily! Then all the worst is sure to be seen. It is the character of vice in English cities, that it is disgustingly conspicuous. A stranger might wander through the streets of Paris for a week, and imagine that he was in a city remarkably correct and blameless. Here our publichouses glare with light; our theatres are opened frequently by the immodest; and the nightly disorder of our streets is undisguised. Thus, the scenes calculated to diminish the moral influence of England, will be universally exhibited.

The ‘Romanist of southern Europe, or the Mussulman of the Levant’ will, he asserted, judge England accordingly. He therefore argued that the English should make every attempt to improve their behaviour and thereby impress the visitor. Londoners should treat their guests with courtesy, shopkeepers should remember that their behaviour towards foreigners would reflect on the whole nation, and all classes should address the pervasive threat posed by intemperance. Most importantly, the religious tenor of England would be judged by the level of Sabbath observance. Thus the visitor should appreciate the reverence accorded to the Sabbath and contrast this holy day with the active tenor of the remainder of the week. ‘Remember,’ he argued, ‘that your Sabbath is one of the most powerful—ay, perhaps the most powerful—of all the means to be employed, for acquiring moral influence among our visitors.’53 The necessity of displaying England as a county of moral and religious integrity that would be a beacon to the rest of the world was a recurrent theme in contemporary sermons.54 For example, in a discourse delivered to the Congregational Church in Kentish Town on the Sunday following the close 53 Anon., World’s Great Assembly, 1–6. This tract may have been published by the English Monthly Tract Society. 54 For example, Aveling, Great Sights, 5–6; Cumming, Great Exhibition, 29–34; Leask, Great Exhibition, 29–32; Milner, Design of God, 83–9; Moore, ‘What Have They Seen in Thine House?’, 27–30.

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of the Exhibition, William Forster reflected on how the text of Psalm 147:20— ‘Thou hath not dealt so with any nation’—could apply to contemporary England. Articulating a primitive version of the Weber–Merton thesis, Forster conceived that Protestantism was not only responsible for England’s moral superiority but was also the source of England’s supremacy in science, technology, and manufacturing. In particular, he argued that the country’s religious freedoms had encouraged the exercise of reason and thus enabled advances in science and technology. While this Protestant ethic resulted in the ‘[e]nergy, enterprise, skill, industry, daring, spirit, [and] endurance’ of the English people, he considered that the inhabitants of Catholic countries suffered from the stultifying effect of a priesthood.55 Similarly, in the British Reformation Society’s 1851 annual sermon John Charles Ryle, the Oxford educated rector of Helmingham, Suffolk, who took ‘the right, duty, and necessity of private judgment’ as his main theme, pointed out that the discoveries of Galileo and Harvey would not have occurred had these innovators been unable to exercise their private judgement. The steam engine, railways, and the electric telegraph were likewise developed by ‘men who dared to think for themselves. . . . they made experiments for themselves; they brought old established theories to the proof, and found that they were worthless; they proclaimed new systems, and invited men to examine them, and to test their truth’. Advances in the modern world resulted from those brave individuals who exercised independent judgment.56 In the context of the staunchly anti-Catholic Reformation Society, Ryle’s paean on the virtues of Protestantism represented an attack on Catholicism for stifling creative debate through the authoritarian influence of a corrupt priesthood. While many religious commentators used examples from the Exhibition to demonstrate the superiority of English Protestantism over Catholicism, a Baptist minister addressed the effect on visitors from ‘uncivilized and idolatrous countries’ of both the displays inside the Crystal Palace and the Christian ethos they encountered in London. They would, he asserted, learn not only that idolatry is not practised in England but also that ‘the English are far more intelligent and far more elevated in social and political greatness than their own people’. If they enquired further, they would appreciate that England’s moral, scientific, and commercial superiority resulted from its commitment to Christianity. Therefore he envisaged that when they returned home these uncivilized visitors would forsake their idolatry and instead become ‘pioneers for future missionaries’.57

55

Forster, Closing of the Great Exhibition, passim. See also Aveling, Great Sights, 13–16; Conway, Great Exhibition, 7. 56 J. C. Ryle, ‘Annual Sermon’, British Protestant 7 (1851), 117–34, on 118 and 122. 57 Standen Pearce, ‘The Crystal Palace’, Baptist Magazine 43 (1851), 545–51, 549–50.

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Thus while the organizers portrayed the Exhibition as a vehicle to disseminate peace and international brotherhood, many evangelicals perceived it as a prime opportunity to trumpet the pre-eminence of Protestantism and of England. The hope was that the visitor, especially the foreigner unfamiliar with Protestant Christianity, would not only be awestruck at the gleaming Crystal Palace and marvel at the vast range of artefacts on display, but would also be profoundly impressed by the Englishman’s religion, with its emphasis on the Bible and the holiness of the Sabbath—so impressed in fact as to convert to Christianity.

5 Things Seen and Unseen A recurrent concern among religious commentators was that the Exhibition, with its cornucopia of artistic exhibits and manufactured goods, would be perceived as a celebration of material objects and of human ingenuity. For secularists it was just that. Yet even those religious writers who were impressed by the Exhibition and strongly supported it as a celebration of human progress nevertheless warned against the potential dangers of seeing so many impressive and beautiful artefacts from around the world gathered into one building. Christian moralists therefore warned visitors not to succumb to the snare of vanity and of pride in human inventiveness. For example, the High Church Guardian’s main misgiving about the Exhibition was that it celebrated the ‘products and materials of physical comfort and prosperity’ and thereby encouraged self-glorification. Another reviewer noted that the Exhibition ‘puffs up man, and makes him proud of himself, his race, and his nation’, while a third warned against the ‘idolatry of man’s intellect’.1 Quoting 1 John 2:16 Christopher Wordsworth, the Canon of Westminster, likewise warned that ‘[w]e become idolaters of those things which minister to the lust of the eye and the pride of life’.2 Moreover, although a writer in the Free Church Magazine found much to commend in the Exhibition, he noted that ‘there is but little honouring of God, and much pleasing of man’ and then pointed out that ‘the vast number of articles of mere luxury and show, involves a sinful deference to the “lust of the eye and the pride of life” ’.3 Thus for many Christians this apparently blinkered emphasis on human achievement seemed incompatible with Christian humility and the necessity of acknowledging both God’s existence and His role in fashioning the physical world. Religious responses to the Exhibition therefore frequently focused on whether its expressed values were compatible with Christian values. A major issue of contention was whether and to what extent the outwardly worldly Exhibition, with its extensive displays of material ‘The Exhibition’, Guardian, 30 April 1851, 312–13; ‘Note’, Quarterly Journal of Prophecy 3 (1851), 368; ‘The Great Exhibition of 1851’, Visitor 16 (1851), 4. 2 Wordsworth, On the Great Exhibition, 9–10. Italics in original. 3 ‘The Great Exhibition’, Free Church Magazine 8 (1851), 202–5, on 205. 1

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artefacts, was reconcilable with the other-worldliness of Christianity and especially its promise of a future life beyond the grave. This chapter examines the ways in which Christians representing a wide range of religious positions engaged—and sometimes tried to resolve—this apparent contradiction. In the first section we consider how the Exhibition was rendered religiously acceptable to some Christians by deploying traditional strategies for engaging the physical world, especially the argument from design. This argument begins by identifying design in nature, such as the construction of the human eye, and concludes that it could not have come about by chance but must have been designed by an intelligent Creator. The second section analyses a range of evangelical responses that prioritized the spiritual over the material.

THINGS SEEN: ‘THE EARTH IS THE LORD ’S ’ Many of the tracts, sermons, and other religious publications of the period reached out to visitors attending the Exhibition and offered them ways of engaging it safely so as not to impugn their Christian beliefs. These works provided the religious visitor with strategies for appreciating the Exhibition but without succumbing to the sin of vanity or the temptation of materialism. Although writers from across a large segment of the religious spectrum accepted the Exhibition as an event of considerable contemporary significance, they often warned visitors to be vigilant when visiting the Exhibition. For example, the Church Sunday School Magazine told young visitors not to succumb to the sin of pride but to ‘remember that all greatness, all riches, [and] all prosperity come from God alone, and should He at any time see fit to withdraw His bountiful and protecting hand, our own strength would avail us nothing’.4 The writer hoped that children, equipped with such warnings, would not be corrupted by the vast and seductive array of material objects. However, other writers sought to offer the visitor protection by setting the Exhibition within a religious framework. As one Scottish Presbyterian minister expressed it, the Crystal Palace should be viewed ‘not simply in its material, but [also] in its spiritual aspects’. He therefore showed how the reader should ‘take a sound Christian view’ of the Exhibition.5 Likewise, the popular poet and Anglican evangelical Martin Tupper composed a short hymn celebrating the artefacts on display as having been created by God. As he wrote in his preface, ‘I thought it would be a world-wide sin, if men of every nation under heaven met 4 L.R.P., ‘The Great Exhibition’, Church Sunday School Magazine 6 (1851), 172–4, 196–8, and 223–6, on 226. 5 MacFarlane, Crystal Palace, 8.

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together to glorify their own skill and the wonderful things around them, without some Catholic acknowledgment of HIM who made them all.’6 Tupper’s hymn, which appeared with translations into 23 languages, proclaimed the Exhibition as a divinely ordained event and offered the Christian a perspective from which it could be appreciated without endangering the soul. He did so by presenting the Exhibition as providentially designed. Thus he proclaimed: In the wonders all around Ever is Thy Spirit found, And of each good thing we see All the good is born of Thee!7

Adopting a more prosaic tone the editor of the Friend, Joseph Barrett, considered that to ‘a serious mind’ the Exhibition ‘will be suggestive of the ideas of the power and goodness of God; for none can survey this vast assemblage of the products of nature, and of human skill, without being reminded that it is through His bounty, and under His control, that we are permitted to enjoy them’. He then quoted from the twenty-fourth Psalm: ‘the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof’.8 At Prince Albert’s instigation the first verse of Psalm 24 featured prominently in the frontispiece of the Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Great Exhibition (Figures 28 and 29) and in many other publications associated with the Exhibition. The text was not that of the King James Bible but was instead taken from the Book of Common Prayer: ‘The earth is the Lord’s and all that therein is; the compass of the world and they that dwell therein.’ The citation from Psalm 24 was frequently accompanied by the Latin and English translations of two texts that Albert had selected: Say not the discoveries we make are our own— The germs of every art are implanted within us, And God our instructor, from his concealment, Develops the faculties of invention.

and The progress of the human race, Resulting from the common labour of all men, Ought to be the final object of the exertion of each individual. In promoting this end we are carrying out the will of the great and blessed God.9 6

Tupper, Hymn, 9. Ibid., 15. 8 Friend 9 (1851), 89. 9 See Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, I, which carried these two aphorisms in Latin; Official Catalogue, 2, included both Latin and English. Slightly different English 7

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Figure 28 The frontispiece of Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue incorporated the first verse of Psalm 24. Reproduced with permission of Special Collections, UCL Library Services.

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Figure 29 The one-volume Official Catalogue included the first verse of Psalm 24 on its title page. On the reverse were printed in both Latin and English the two texts selected by Albert. Reproduced with permission of V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum.

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Albert’s decision to display Psalm 24:1 prominently in the Catalogue was warmly welcomed by the religious press and he was praised not only as the heroic originator of the Exhibition but also as a Christian prince and a man of virtue and piety.10 Following Albert religious writers paraded this biblical verse as providing the leitmotif for the whole Exhibition. For example, Thomas Binney’s The Royal Exchange and the Palace of Industry consisted principally of a series of reflections on Psalm 24 and especially on ‘the great primary religious truths’ proclaimed in its opening verse.11 Many Christians also considered that the first verse, together with Albert’s two reflections on the divine influence on human creativity, provided a religious legitimation for the Exhibition. From this perspective the aim of the Exhibition was not simply to display material artefacts but instead to celebrate the riches of God’s Creation and of the divinely inspired products of artisans. Both Albert and the Archbishop of Canterbury repeated this message in their speeches at the opening ceremony on 1 May.12 Although design arguments had already lost some of their appeal by the midcentury and would subsequently be criticized by advocates of the naturalistic account of design proposed in Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859), the Great Exhibition provided a grand opportunity for reflection on natural theological themes. There were, of course, numerous exhibits of natural substances, including minerals and plants, that were the direct result of God’s handiwork. Indeed, the first four classes of exhibits were listed under the heading ‘Raw Materials’. Moreover, the display of large blocks of coal and other minerals close to the west entrance of the Crystal Palace stressed industry’s dependence on the materials God had gifted to humankind. Such exhibits could readily be appreciated as signs of design. However, the remainder of the Exhibition was largely devoted to human handiwork, not God’s. ‘Wherever the eye turned,’ commented Henry Howarth the rector of St George’s (Anglican) Church, Hanover Square, ‘there were proofs of genius and manual skill, splendour and utility; everything that Man, translations were sometimes printed. The second, third, and fourth lines of the first text are taken from Seneca, De Beneficiis, bk. 4, ch. 6. 10 In ‘The Motto in the Catalogue of the Great Exhibition’, John Bull (14 June 1851, 381) defended Albert against the charge of being a Catholic sympathizer. 11 Among the many writers who cited the 24th Psalm approvingly were Bensted, Great Exhibition, 5; [Newcombe], Fireside Facts, iv; Overton, Crystal Palace, 7 and 10; ‘The Opening of the Great Exhibition’, Friend 9 (1851), 100; L.R.P., ‘The Great Exhibition’, Church Sunday School Magazine 6 (1851), 196. See especially Binney, Royal Exchange, 3–40 (quotation on 8). Here Binney noted that Prince Albert was also responsible for the text of Psalm 24, verse 1, adorning the recently rebuilt Royal Exchange. 12 ‘The Opening of the Great Exhibition’, The Times, 2 May 1851, 5. The Archbishop’s speech won wide approval, being reprinted in a number of books and periodicals (e.g. SPCK, Industry of Nations, 159; [Newcombe], Fireside Facts, 22–3) and also published by the RTS as an octavo handbill.

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the great artificer on earth . . . has invented for comfort and enjoyment, the use and adornment of life’. In a sermon delivered to his fashionable London congregation shortly after the close of the Exhibition, Howarth insisted that we should not see all these examples of human ingenuity emanating from the artisan; rather, they came ultimately from God. The skilled worker was only a ‘subordinate artificer’ carrying out God’s will. Thus when examples of ingeniously designed machinery or beautiful statues were viewed, he argued for recognition that God had endowed the craftsmen with the ability to design and construct those artefacts. Since the power to design any artefact comes ultimately from God, His hand should be seen in all the objects on display throughout the Exhibition. To substantiate this way of understanding the Exhibition Howarth cited several passages from the Psalms and adopted Acts 7:50 as his proof text: ‘Hath not my hand made all these things?’13 Even before the Exhibition opened George Clayton, the Congregational minister at York Street Chapel, Walworth, urged his flock to remember that God is ‘the AUTHOR of all those gifts and qualifications by which men become skilled in the Arts and Sciences, and experts in the productions of Industry’. To underpin this argument he cited several biblical passages including James 1:7 (‘Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above’) and Isaiah 28:24–6 (concerning the instructions God gave to the ploughman). ‘When you gaze with admiration and delight upon the rare productions [in the Crystal Palace]’, he continued, ‘you will naturally rise higher than the shuttle and the forge: you will rise higher than the axe, the saw, and the chisel: you will think of mind, the skill and ingenuity of the workman’. But visitors should not limit their appreciation to the abilities of the artisan, he argued, because if they acknowledged that God had endowed those artisans with skill, they ‘will rise higher still, and devoutly acknowledge the hand of God in all these things. Without Him, believe me, not a single specimen could have had being, or beauty, or brilliancy’.14 Although Clayton warned his congregation not to be seduced by sinful feelings, such as the sin of pride, or by materialism, he considered that the cautious and informed Christian could gain much from visiting the Exhibition. He therefore postulated how their visit transcending mere enjoyment could devolve into a safe and satisfying religious experience. Thus, far from being a threat to religion, the Exhibition could be turned into a spiritual aid. Reflecting on the Exhibition, a contemporary Anglican minister likewise instructed his congregation in Rochester (Kent) that in viewing ‘all the discoveries of science, and . . . all productions of art, we cannot fail to recognise

13 Howarth, Sermon Preached, 5 and 14. See also Milner, Design of God, passim; Pearce, Our Age and Our Country, 21–8. 14 Clayton, Great Exhibition, 16–17.

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the perpetual supervision of God’s Providence’.15 By appealing to notions of divine providence, this clergyman, like many others, indicated how a potentially secular experience could be transformed into a profoundly religious one. Similarly, in a sermon preached before a London congregation another Anglican cleric insisted that the Exhibition ‘is in reality, and ought to be viewed by us, [as] an occasion of man glorifying the Creator’.16 In order to Christianize the Crystal Palace these ministers—both Anglican and dissenting—imposed the long-established argument from design on the Exhibition and its exhibits. Yet some religious commentators were uneasy about using design arguments in this way. Although they conceded that the artefacts on display demonstrated man’s ability to design and manufacture objects that are beautiful and useful, they insisted that all such examples of human ingenuity are far inferior to the quality of design evident in the natural world. For example, in sermons delivered at the Broomgate United Presbyterian Church in Lanark, the minister (P. MacFarlane) argued that the moral effect of visiting the Exhibition ‘will not be pride but humility of intellect’. For although he saw much to praise in the machines and artefacts on display, he considered that they were merely the products of artisans and were therefore vastly inferior in design to the things created by God. ‘Far, far below the least of God’s works,’ he asserted, ‘is the greatest of man’s.’ He even considered that every leaf of the stately elm tree that stood within the Crystal Palace is ‘a greater mystery than any work of man in that building’.17 As in other contexts, design arguments could be used to draw a wide variety of inferences. The problem of applying design arguments to man-made objects was addressed in the final chapter of a book published by the YMCA with the title The Useful Arts (1851). This survey of the technologies on display at the Exhibition was edited by a Congregational minister and was directed at young artisans. This particular chapter, however, was written by James Hamilton, the minister at the Regent Square Presbyterian Church and a Fellow of the Linnaean Society. As Hamilton pointed out, the design argument can readily be applied to the instinctive behaviour of lower animals; thus divine design can be appreciated when a bee is observed collecting nectar. The reason why God’s providence is not so easy to appreciate in the work of a craftsman—in, say, a potter throwing a pot—is that the potter’s actions appear to be directed by his faculty of reason. By contrast, the bee is acting instinctively. Yet, argued Hamilton, it is difficult to appreciate divine design in the case of the potter making a pot because the observer intuitively makes moral judgments; the

15

Conway, Great Exhibition, 12. Gleadall, Man Subduing the Earth, 5. See also Conway, Great Exhibition, passim; Milner, Design of God, 23–4. 17 MacFarlane, Crystal Palace, 19–20. See also Clayton, Great Exhibition, 17–18; Martin, Useful Arts, 36–7. Cf. Denham, Sermon, 12. 16

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potter may be a wicked person and we therefore perceive him as deliberately opposing God’s law in his dealings with other people. If, however, such questions of morality are set aside, argued Hamilton, we see only the potter’s mechanical actions in shaping the pot. The potter throwing his pot is thus as much under God’s control as the bee collecting nectar. ‘[I]t must not be forgotten’, he added, ‘that talent, genius, [and] dexterity, are gifts of God’, and we should therefore recognize the goodness and wisdom of God in the making of artefacts. Indeed, argued Hamilton, we gain a more comprehensive appreciation of design if we do not make a distinction between reason and instinct, but instead view reason as ‘the Instinct of the human race’. While there are certainly difficulties with this argument, Hamilton nevertheless did grapple with the problem of applying the design argument to the man-made exhibits in the Exhibition.18 Some religious writers also evoked a discourse on divine design in arguing that progress in science, technology, and manufacturing formed a crucial part of God’s providential plan for humankind. This argument appealed particularly to Congregationalists; for example, in his The Royal Exchange and the Palace of Industry, published by the RTS, Thomas Binney provided an outline of God’s plan governing human history. Following the expulsion from Eden, he argued, the first men were pathetic creatures, ‘naked and ignorant, without teacher and without tools’. Subsequently, each generation improved on the previous one by the deployment of ‘discovery and invention, and labour and skill, and industry and genius’; all these cumulative improvements leading ultimately to ‘the marvellous contents of the last and greatest wonder of the world!’—the Great Exhibition. Another Congregationalist, Alexander Pearce, likewise reflected on the Exhibition as evidence of God’s plan to provide humankind not only with the natural substances but also with the skills and intelligence to use these resources for human improvement. ‘This millennium period’, he predicted, ‘will be brought about, not by miraculous interference of the Divine Being, but by the joint diffusion of the light of science and of revelation, and the practical application of the powers and principles of both.’19 The Exhibition should therefore be seen as an aspect of God’s preordained history for the human race, which was continually increasing its store of scientific knowledge and exercising its dominion over the natural world. This, in turn, implied that not only progress in science and technology but also the Great Exhibition itself provided definitive evidence of design in history and, ultimately, of God’s existence and His beneficent care for humankind. Thus the Exhibition was an instantiation of the divine plan for humankind. 18

Martin, Useful Arts, 393–401. Binney, Royal Exchange, 133–4; Pearce, Our Age and Our Country, 50–1. See also Fisher, ‘Who Really Needed the Idea of Progress?’ 19

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For the writers discussed in this section, together with many others, the Exhibition offered a rich source for natural theological reflection. The Exhibition could thereby be rescued from the charge of engendering materialism and sinful pride. A visit to the Exhibition was not merely acceptable to the Christian but should be a profound religious experience. This line of argument appealed to Dissenters and many Anglicans but not High Churchmen. Evangelicals, however, were divided. As Boyd Hilton has argued, ultra-evangelicals read the prophetic books from a pre-millennial perspective and dismissed natural theology as inconsequential. They particularly criticized William Paley for portraying nature in overly optimistic terms in his influential Natural Theology (1802) and for ignoring the issues of evil and of God’s wrath, as manifested in, for example, earthquakes. By contrast, moderate evangelicals accepted natural theology as providing evidence for the world having been created by God. Yet they generally viewed design arguments as far inferior to Revelation and, if overvalued, as potentially harmful.20 Although they stressed the importance of the world to come, rather than of the present world, emphasizing the Bible and Christ’s saving grace, evangelicals had long struggled to define their proper response to aspects of contemporary culture. As Doreen Rosman has argued, although in their rhetoric evangelicals advocated a world-denying faith they nevertheless participated (to a greater or lesser extent) in contemporary culture. For example, not rejecting reasonable physical comfort, many evangelicals read secular literature, listened to and played music, and even appreciated the fine arts as a way of enhancing their lives. Despite their frequent condemnation of the theatre, cards, and field sports, some of the more liberal evangelicals even participated in these activities.21 As we shall see in the next section, this ambivalence was likewise reflected in their responses to the Exhibition, although some, especially Congregationalists, responded more positively by locating it within a larger eschatological framework.

THINGS UNSEEN: ‘ LOVE NOT THE WORLD’ In contrast to those who legitimated the Crystal Palace and its contents as providing examples of God’s providential plan, many evangelicals argued that the Exhibition and its contents were of little significance when compared with the inestimable value of the Christian religion, notwithstanding the impressive appearance of the exhibits themselves. Although such commentators rarely Hilton, Age of Atonement, 7–26 and 91–100. See also Beddington, ‘Science and Evangelical Theology’, 126–9; Rosman, Evangelicals, 43–7; Topham, ‘Science, Natural Theology’, 42–9; Topham, ‘The Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine’, 73–81. 21 Rosman, Evangelicals, 68–195. 20

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advocated non-attendance of the Exhibition, they insisted that the soul and its salvation were matters of incalculable importance, against which the telegraph, soda fountain, and steam engine were seen as utterly insubstantial and irrelevant. Some found the Exhibition thoroughly uncongenial, none more so than Lord Ashley (soon to be the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury), an ultra-evangelical who had recently been installed as president of the BFBS (Figure 30). After visiting the Exhibition on 17 May he wrote the following diary entry: crowd immense, admiration, almost adoration, unbounded amongst them! All are carried away by their impulses; and not a few regard it as the highest of all achievement, & the proof of the perfectibility of the Human Race. There is a strong tendency, just now, perhaps only more developed than at any other times, to estimate the moral progress of man by his intellectual, scientific, and material advancement. The character of the future is calculated on China-plates, Steam-Engines, brilliant conceptions, & skilful executions. They see not that all this may consist with the hardest & vilest hearts. Except [for] the 148 Translations of the Bible, exhibited by the [British and Foreign Bible] Society (& these the Commissioners have thrust into a remote corner) there is not one thing to distinguish a moral, from a material existence, a Christian, from a Heathen generation. And yet we are told that this ‘great fair’ is to show the world’s progress.22

Cultural critics, such as John Ruskin and William Morris, also dismissed such exhibits but on aesthetic criteria. However, Ashley and doubtless many other ultra-evangelicals were not motivated by aesthetics but rather by a religious aversion to the materialism and hubris that the Exhibition was liable to engender and against which the BFBS display of Bibles offered an antidote. Like Ashley, the writer of a contemporary tract explained that the Exhibition ‘sinks into littleness when contrasted with the gathering spoken of in Matt. xxv.32, when God, the Judge of all, will “gather before him all nations, and separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats”’.23 As the following examples demonstrate, this argument could be articulated with a variety of emphases. For example, some commentators argued that while Christians should visit the Crystal Palace, they ought not to be deceived by the apparent magnificence of the exhibits but remain aware that the salvation of the soul is of far greater importance. At the other end of the spectrum stood those writers who considered that the spiritual truths contained in the Bible rendered the Exhibition mundane, trivial, valueless, and even threatening. An example of the former position is the sermon delivered in mid-July 1851 at Emmanuel Church, Lockwood, Huddersfield, by Thomas Bensted, the 22

Shaftesbury’s diaries: MS62/SHA/PD/6, ff. 55r–v. Part of this entry was published in Hodder, Life . . . of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, 2: 343–4. See also Finlayson, Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, 30–9. 23 Drummond, Tract 24.

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Figure 30 Lord Ashley, c.1850. Artist William Charles Ross; Engraved by Henry Robinson.

Cambridge-educated incumbent. Having visited the Exhibition on several occasions Bensted used this sermon as an occasion to reflect on his experience for the benefit of his parishioners. While his mind had been ‘filled with . . . excitement and wonder’ at the visual spectacle presented by numerous exhibits, he warned his congregation that they should not be seduced by ‘the sight of a rich, beautiful, and useful collection of this world’s goods’ as this will ‘secularize the mind, and . . . draw forth our desires after such things as are

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presented to the eye of sense’. For the Christian, then, the objects on display were merely part of that material world that John’s gospel had cautioned against: ‘Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world’ (1 John 2:15). By diminishing the significance of the Exhibition, Bensted emphasized the importance of earnestly seeking salvation. He therefore concluded his sermon by advising his flock that ‘However intense . . . may be the desire of any one to visit the Palace of Glass, incomparably greater ought to be the desire to dwell in the City of Glass and Gold, the Heavenly Jerusalem’.24 To contrast the Crystal Palace and the ‘Heavenly Jerusalem’ was a very effective rhetorical strategy in order to assert the importance of salvation. Yet Bensted was clearly enamoured of the Exhibition and having enjoyed his own visits to the Crystal Palace, he did not deter the vigilant Christian from visiting it. A rather less conciliatory note was struck by Theophilus Flower. With the approach of the Exhibition’s close, he recounted before a meeting of Congregationalists in Wimborne, Dorset (and later in Bournemouth), that although he had admired the many grand and valuable exhibits he had seen during his visit to the Crystal Palace, he had been prompted by an inner voice whispering ‘the things which are seen are temporal’ (2 Cor. 4:18). He proceeded to remind his congregation that the exhibits were transitory objects and would all soon decay; likewise, all the exhibitors and visitors would soon be dead. By contrast, God is eternal, as are heaven and hell. Compared with the mundane, ephemeral nature of the Exhibition and its contents, the Christian message possessed inestimable value and dealt with eternal verities. He added: ‘What shall it profit a man; though he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man gain in exchange for his soul?’ Despite its impressive display of the arts and manufactures, he considered that the Great Exhibition offered nothing that was of true, lasting value.25 The High Church curate of Christ Church, St Pancras, Henry William Burrows, likewise sounded a note of caution and advised Christians to remain both apprehensive and humble when visiting the Exhibition. The specific source of his anxiety derived from those biblical passages that warned of glory being followed by a fall, such as Nebuchadnezzar’s mighty kingdom falling into disorder. Likewise the building of the Tower of Babel was ‘an unsanctified attempt at unity [which] resulted in disunion’. Far from adopting the views of the Exhibition’s proponents who portrayed it as a harbinger of progress and enlightenment, Burrows emphasized its limitations when compared with the truths and certainties of Christianity. He therefore reminded his congregation that ‘[t]he palaces raised for man and for man’s productions are in their nature temporary, fragile, and for a day’.26 24 25 26

Bensted, Great Exhibition, 3, and 16–19. Flower, Great Exhibition, 14–16. Cf. Matt. 16:26 and Mark 8:36. Burrows, Great Exhibition, 10–11 and 16.

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For Burrows, Flowers, and many other writers, both evangelical and High Church, the assurance of salvation and the promise of an eternal future life were contrasted with the transitory nature of the Exhibition and its contents. Thus one cheap and widely distributed tract portrayed the Crystal Palace as being ‘for time, [whereas] the palace of the King of Zion [is] for eternity’. Because of its ephemeral nature, the Great Exhibition would fall ‘infinitely short of the LAST “great exhibition”’, at which every individual would stand in judgement before the throne of God. Readers of this tract were therefore urged to maintain faith in Jesus the saviour and to disregard the earthly palace in Hyde Park.27 Salvation alone mattered. Likewise, the magazine of the Wesleyan Methodist Association characterized glass as ‘the emblem of brief duration:—brittleness is one of its characteristics’, and suggested that the Crystal Palace should be understood from the perspective of Ecclesiastes: ‘Vanity of vanities; all is vanity!’28 Another indicator that Methodists perceived the Exhibition as an insignificant event was an article directed to a juvenile readership that appeared initially to concern the Great Exhibition, but instead soon directed the reader to a much more noteworthy exhibition on display at the Mission House, Bishopsgate Street, featuring the work of missionaries in Fiji and Tonga.29 Many of the sermons and pamphlets of the period sought to illuminate key aspects of Christianity by comparing and contrasting them with facets of the Exhibition. Among those who used this rhetorical strategy was Henry Birch, the author of a 72-page monograph entitled The Great Exhibition Spiritualized. Birch, an Independent minister from Driffield, Yorkshire, reflected on the cost of the Exhibition, the prizes on offer, and also the building itself, but contrasted all these aspects of the Exhibition with their spiritual counterparts. Thus, after noting that the ‘Crystal Palace is a palace of LIGHT!’, he moved quickly to assert that the spiritual light that comes from God is of profoundly greater importance. Likewise, after referring to the sacrifices some individuals had made in travelling vast distances to attend the Exhibition, Birch argued that in order to gain salvation the Christian has to make even greater sacrifices, such as keeping the Sabbath holy and eschewing sensual pleasures such as the theatre and horseracing: these great ‘exertions and sacrifices [must] be [made in order] to see the Palace of the Great King, and to secure for yourselves an eternal residence in the skies!’ Written for visitors to the Exhibition, Birch’s

Anon., Last Great Exhibition. The copy in the Victoria and Albert Museum is a fifth edition, of 10,000 copies. The 7-page tract sold for 2/- per hundred. 28 J.S., ‘The Crystal Palace’, Wesleyan Methodist Association Magazine 14 (1851) 503–13 and 551–65, on 504. See also [Cox], Temple of Truth, passim (Cox was vicar of St Helen’s, Bishopsgate); Davies, Crystal Palace, 9 (Davies was the rector of Ecton, Leicestershire); Cumming, Great Exhibition, 43. 29 ‘A Peep at the Exhibition and Sale’, Wesleyan Juvenile Offering 8 (1851), 99–101. 27

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only concern was their spiritual wellbeing.30 Yet his small book, like many contemporary tracts, used the image of the Exhibition rhetorically in order to instil into readers an appreciation of the importance of religious faith for the soul’s salvation. A diary entry by Edward Pease, an entrepreneur who made major contributions to the development of the railway system, illustrates how one evangelical Quaker reacted to the Exhibition. After participating in the Quaker Yearly Meeting, held in London in May 1851, he spent four or five hours at the Exhibition and, not surprisingly, found it ‘most wonderful’ and was ‘greatly gratified’. Yet, he added in his diary, ‘on laying my head on the pillow, and remembering how the day had been spent, I thought one hour’s communing with, and a feeling of my saviour’s confirming, cheering love, was to me of more value that all my eyes beheld’ at the Crystal Palace.31 However impressive the Exhibition might have appeared during his visit, Pease’s subsequently recognized its insignificance when compared with his vastly more valuable personal experience of God. A similar contrast was captured by an anonymous evangelical who claimed that that which is ‘Inexhibitable . . . must never be forgotten, amidst all the attractions and wonders of the Exhibited or Exhibitable’.32 A proper sense of values needed to be maintained. As these examples show, the Exhibition was the occasion—sometimes the excuse—for clergymen from across a range of religious denominations to direct people’s attention to the urgent need to strive for salvation. For evangelicals in particular this was a familiar message. Yet in 1851 the great public enthusiasm for the Exhibition provided ministers and clergy with an opportunity to deploy rhetorically various facets of this highly public event in order to propagate their Christian message. They articulated many different ways of linking the Exhibition and the promise of salvation. This message, preached from pulpits and propagated in many of the tracts issued by the evangelical publishing societies, was part of their offensive to convert the heathen and raise the religious fervour of fellow Protestants. Thus, somewhat paradoxically, an exhibition dedicated to the arts and manufactures created a deluge of salvationalist literature. As one evangelical noted, this gathering of nations at ‘this time of peace’ offered Christians the opportunity ‘for propagating the Gospel’.33 Moreover, although the thrust of such sermons and tracts was to contrast the transient Crystal Palace and the eternal Crystal City, in doing so they endowed the Exhibition with a degree of religious legitimacy. As this world was considered to be an ante-chamber of the world to come and the Exhibition functioned as a simulacrum of that heavenly city, it could not be 30 31 32 33

Birch, Great Exhibition Spiritualized, esp. 9–11, 44, and 47. Pease, Diaries of Edward Pease, 295. Excelsior, Dial of the World, 17. ‘Introductory Remarks’, Missionary Register 40 (1852), 2.

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ignored or totally despised.34 Indeed, for many of these writers the Exhibition served as an imperfect but humanly graspable model of the New Jerusalem. Most Christians, far from rejecting the Great Exhibition, welcomed it as a great boon and a means of evoking the even greater exhibition. As one evangelical exhorted, ‘May the sight of the Crystal Palace lead to a desire to enter the New Jerusalem!’35 34

Rosman, Evangelicals, 54–8. Cited in Battiscombe, Shaftesbury, 103. Unfortunately Battiscombe does not give a source for this quotation. 35

6 Catholic, Secular, and Jewish Perceptions Protestant reaction to the Exhibition, as noted especially in Chapters 1 and 4, was frequently fuelled by anti-Catholic sentiment. How then did Roman Catholics view the Exhibition? As we shall see in the first section of this chapter, Catholics were prone to criticize the Exhibition as part of an avowed strategy by Protestants to undermine Catholicism. Yet Catholics were not the only group to mount social and political criticisms of the Exhibition; interestingly similar arguments were articulated by some of the freethinkers and secularists whose reactions to the Exhibition are discussed in the second section. It is important to include their perspective since although they rejected Christianity, and indeed all conventional religions, their perceptions of the Exhibition formed a significant part of contemporary discourse on the place of religion in Britain. In the final section we turn to Anglo-Jewry, the only substantial non-Christian religious community in the mid-nineteenth century. Although the Catholic and Anglo-Jewish responses to the Exhibition were very different, they reflected each group’s anxieties about its social standing in early Victorian Britain. Hence in this chapter the reactions of three non-Protestant ‘religious’ groups will be compared and contrasted, but they will also be discussed in relation to the dominant Protestantism.

ROMAN CATHOLIC REACTIONS As the editor of a newly founded Catholic weekly complained in the autumn of 1850, Catholics in Britain and Ireland were poorly served by periodicals, with the choice between a quarterly review, two monthly magazines, two weekly newspapers, and two further titles that provided cheap and acceptable literature for the working classes.1 One of these weeklies was the Tablet, which is a key source for understanding Irish Catholic attitudes to the Exhibition

1

Editorial: ‘We Must Have Education’, Lamp, 26 October 1850, 475–7.

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and, indeed, to many other contemporary topics. Published in Dublin at sixpence—and therefore addressing a reasonably affluent readership—it was largely devoted to Irish issues, although a significant portion of each number chronicled the deliberations of the ‘Imperial Parliament’, sitting in Westminster, on any topic of Irish or Catholic concern. In 1851 Catholics were reeling from the furious and, as they saw it, bigoted reaction of many Protestants to the recent creation of the Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster and its twelve English and Welsh bishoprics. The Tablet therefore reported at length on English sermons and other publications that either supported or, more often, lambasted what others perceived as ‘papal aggression’. The Exhibition received extensive reportage in the Tablet. Beginning in the autumn of 1850 and continuing into the early months of 1851 snippets detailing the progress of the Exhibition were frequently published. Thus on the page devoted to news from ‘Great Britain’, readers learned about the progress made in constructing the Crystal Palace, the Queen’s visits to the building site, and the Commissioners’ decisions on entry charges.2 Such brief entries were often copied from London-based periodicals, such as the Athenaeum. The editor of the Tablet particularly enjoyed reflecting on some of the more bizarre exhibits, such as a massive pie allegedly sent from Holland and the ‘gas-exhausted metal coffin’ from America. The provision of refreshments for visitors to the Crystal Palace also received extensive coverage.3 Throughout the duration of the Exhibition, the Tablet printed the attendance figures and income from takings, and noted that attendance was highest on shilling days and when the weather was fine. Various exhibits were described, such as the displays of electro-plating and Charlotte Readhouse’s detailed model of the moon. The paper’s London correspondent also commented on the increase in traffic in the vicinity of Hyde Park and the fact that most visitors showed little interest in the large fixed machines, so crucial to Britain’s success in manufacturing, such as the 700-horsepower engine displayed by Watt & Co.4 While much of its Exhibition reportage was not dissimilar from that found in contemporary English newspapers, the Tablet focused on Irish and especially Catholic issues. Thus the newspaper covered the preparations made in Ireland itself, including a report of a meeting held at the Dublin Society in order to arrange for cheap transport to London and suitable accommodation, presumably for short-term visitors as well as Irish exhibitors. It also drew its readers’ attention to two bells forged by John Murphy of Dublin that were widely admired by experts, but noted the absence of Irish poplin from the

2 3 4

Tablet, 2 November 1850, 693; 28 December 1850, 821; 15 February 1851, 103. Ibid. 22 March 1851, 189; 5 April 1851, 212–13. Ibid. 10 May 1851, 292; 17 May 1851, 307–8.

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Exhibition.5 The content of the Medieval Court (illustrated in Figure 22) received some attention, including both its ecclesiastical and its secular exhibits. According to a snippet reprinted from the Morning Chronicle, the Medieval Court was ‘a dazzling museum of the results of the medieval artspirit as applied to matters of comparatively minor detail’.6 In contrast to so many Protestant commentators, the Tablet’s London correspondent was disappointed by the general neglect of ecclesiastical objects relevant to Catholicism. He noted that a few vestments and tiles were on display together with some chests from Aix-la-Chapelle used to house relics. ‘I do not suppose that the ultra-Goths will be much pleased with the collection [of chests],’ he wrote, ‘but they appear to me to be exceedingly handsome.’7 He was also greatly perturbed by a recent article in Punch that claimed that those who converted to Catholicism were manifestly ignorant of science.8 In response he suggested that anyone who ‘walk[s] through the Exhibition, and examine[s] well the scientific productions of the different European Catholic nations’, should ‘then say fairly whether they do not show [that Catholic countries have] “an acquaintance with the sublime law, and the masterly handiwork which govern and characterise the universe” as profound and accurate as that of any Protestant country’. He particularly cited the Imperial Printing Press of Vienna, which displayed the Lord’s Prayer printed in 608 languages, with characters drawn from 206 foreign alphabets. In his opinion, this exhibit was far superior to the display of Bibles on the BFBS stand, which utilized fewer character sets. Smarting under Punch’s insult, this contributor to the Tablet argued that many of the foreign displays showed a more profound knowledge of the sciences than did those of English exhibitors.9 Like its anti-Catholic counterparts, the Tablet perceived the Exhibition in religious and nationalistic terms, but in ways that mirrored the concerns of its opponents. Thus in early March 1851 it carried an article in which the writer (probably the editor, Frederick Lucas) admitted that initially he could summon little enthusiasm for the Exhibition, but had warmed to it when he realized that it would draw large numbers of foreigner visitors, including many Catholics. Faced with this influx, the English would, he hoped, become more tolerant; a dose of toleration was urgently needed since, in his opinion, the English were preoccupied with denigrating Catholicism. Yet the writer then noted with evident concern that the Bishop of London had arranged for the Protestant 5 Ibid. 11 January 1851, 30; 1 March 1851, 143; 31 May 1851, 345–6; letter from Richard Meade on 12 July 1851, 439. The Illustrated Exhibitor (142–60, 162–78, 197–200, 217–18) paid considerable attention to the Irish exhibits. See also Purbrick, ‘Defining Nation’, for an analysis of the connotations attributed to the various exhibits from Ireland. 6 Tablet, 5 April 1851, 212–13; 19 April 1851, 244; 17 May 1851, 307. 7 Ibid. 17 May 1851, 307; 24 May 1851, 324. 8 ‘The Koh-i-noor is a real “Mountain of Light! ” ’, Punch, 26 April 1851, 165. 9 Tablet, 14 June 1851, 372.

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Bible to be printed in many languages in order to entice foreigners and aid their conversion. This evoked the image of aggressive missionaries forcing Bibles into the hands of Catholic visitors to the Exhibition—just what the missionary societies themselves hoped to achieve.10 A month later the Tablet included an abridged report listing the plans made by various Protestant organizations to accommodate the religious needs of foreign visitors, including services in several languages, and the distribution of Bibles and the Book of Common Prayer in translation. The heading—‘Protestant Tactics for the Great Exhibition’—made clear the Tablet’s view that Protestants would exploit the forthcoming Exhibition in order to mount an aggressive campaign against Catholics.11 Although there had been earlier indications of the Tablet’s antipathy towards the Exhibition, the full force of criticism was reserved for the issue of 3 May. Accompanying an account of the opening ceremony copied from the Sun, the Tablet quoted approvingly two English sources—one being the staunchly anti-Catholic John Bull!—that criticized as inappropriate the Archbishop’s prayer at the opening ceremony.12 Then a separate article roundly condemned the Exhibition as vain, selfish, and impious: ‘The world is coming together to the modern Babylon to do honour to itself, and to burn incense at the altar of its own magnificence.’ The exploitation of the Exhibition by the English to promote their own glory was a major objection voiced not only by the Tablet but also by other Catholics as well as High Churchmen. The writer of this particular article then evoked the sense of dread he claimed was gripping London as it embarked on this contemptible self-serving celebration. He pointed out that while the masses rejoiced, extra police were being recruited and the army was on alert in order to deal with troublemakers. The hideous state of London was all the more striking when contrasted with events in Ireland; for while Londoners feasted, the Irish went hungry. Although its promoters had claimed that the Exhibition would enhance universal peace and world unity, the Tablet insisted that one significant group had been excluded: [T]he Catholic [is shut out] from the fold of this new circumspection. Pains and penalties await us, while the Hindoo and the Turk are embraced together with the Jew. We are not objects of love, but hatred; we are to suffer while others rejoice. ‘The statue of gold’ is set up, and close beside it ‘the furnace of burning fire’ for the man who believes in God. The Whigs of modern Babylon must have their victims, and they find them in the Bishops and Nuns of the Catholic Church.13

10 11 12 13

Ibid. 8 March 1851, 153–4. Ibid. 26 April 1851, 260. See Chapter 2: ‘The opening ceremony’, pp. 63–70. Tablet, 3 May 1851, 276, 280, and 283. The quotations are from Dan. 2:32 and 3:26.

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With this reference both to England as the ‘modern Babylon’ and to the contemporary hostility towards Christianity, the Tablet’s perception of the Exhibition was strikingly similar to the views of the Protestant prophets of doom discussed in Chapter 1. However, in contrast to those writers on prophecy, the Tablet cast Roman Catholics as victims and portrayed the Exhibition as part of an ongoing campaign by Protestants to destroy Catholicism, which the writer portrayed as the only effective bulwark against the Protestant religion—a religion that, in the Tablet’s view, was shallow, was lacking in commitment to God and his laws, and had exalted the worship of Mammon. A similar argument was adopted by the Rambler, the liberal Catholic monthly magazine that functioned as the main mouthpiece of English converts to Catholicism, who had often defected via the Tractarian Movement. Published in London, the Rambler carried articles on a wide range of political, religious, and cultural topics. Its attitude to the Exhibition was clearly expressed at the beginning of a trenchant article in its June 1851 issue attacking the proposal to implement new penal laws in response to the recent restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales. The editor, the Oxford-educated John Moore Capes, proceeded to explain that the Rambler did not intend to publish a separate notice of the Exhibition because, in the light of the current attacks on Catholicism by the English government, ‘we cannot force ourselves to entertain any warm feelings of respect or admiration for this or any other manifestation of English pomp and power’. With anti-Catholic legislation currently before parliament, the Exhibition, which he described as a ‘fragile creation of national glorification’, was to be understood as an expression of the Englishman’s conceit that he was well advanced in vanquishing Catholicism from his country. But, he claimed, this vain fantasy bore no relation to reality, for God would surely visit His vengeance on the English. Before the breath of God, he reminded his readers, ‘the universe is as fragile as this temple of glass, where the world has gathered together to worship the works of its own hands’. This article in the Rambler suggests the intelligentsia of the Anglo-Catholic community perceived the Exhibition not only as a creature of Protestantism but also as an event in the mundane world that stood in opposition to the immutable values of (pre-Reformation) Christianity.14 The third main Catholic periodical, the quarterly Dublin Review, was directed to educated Catholics, especially English Catholics, and those High Anglicans who were attracted to Rome. At mid-century Cardinal Wiseman was its sole proprietor, and it functioned as his semi-official publication. In the December 1851 number Thomas William Allies, another Oxford-educated convert, criticized the Great Exhibition in an article claiming that Protestantism was intellectually and morally bankrupt and arguing at length the case for

14

[John Moore Capes], ‘Ireland’s Duty to England’, Rambler 8 (1851), 534–41, on 534.

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a Catholic university in Britain. Using The Times’s report of the closing of the Exhibition as the occasion to vent his criticisms, Allies roundly condemned ‘that absolute idolatry of the material arts which forms the temper of our age’. Widespread enthusiasm for technological progress had created ‘this prodigious vanity fair’ that had been trumpeted as ‘the turning point in’ the world’s ‘future destinies, and to convert first England, and then the whole earth into a manufactory of utilitarianism, and realise, we suppose, the scheme which was frustrated at Babel’. For Allies, this ‘temper of the age’, which he condemned outright, included a deep antipathy towards religion. Protestantism, with its emphasis on individual fulfilment, necessarily gave rise to this sense of alienation and only Catholicism could offer a robust spirituality that placed God at the centre of human understanding. Although Allies agreed that science education and technological advances were necessary, he insisted that both science and technology should be accorded a subsidiary place in the curriculum and should be studied within the broader framework provided by the Catholic religion.15 In contrast to the above periodicals, the Lamp was primarily directed at working-class and lower middle-class Catholics. Selling at one penny for each weekly issue, it was edited in York by Thomas Earnshaw Bradley. The Lamp exhorted poorer Catholics to gain an education not only in order to better themselves but also to refute the widespread view among Protestants that Catholics were unintelligent and lacked education. ‘Progression’, wrote Bradley, ‘is the ruling spirit, the grand absorbing thought of the day! We hail that spirit!—we freely avow ourselves progressionists, with only one slight modification, namely we are Catholic progressionists.’16 In accordance with this proclamation, the Lamp carried a large number of articles on scientific and technological subjects, including a multi-part ‘Easy Lessons in Science’ series, a column entitled ‘Science the Handmaid of Art’ (abridged from Fraser’s Magazine and covering such subjects as the steam engine, electricity and the lightning rod, Davy’s safety lamp, electro-plating, and the telegraph), and a series of botanical articles. Apropos this emphasis on education, science, and improvement, we might have expected the Lamp to welcome the Great Exhibition as an occasion when working-class Catholics could share with other workers an interest in the technological innovations on display. Yet the principal sign of enthusiasm for the Exhibition was a double-page illustration of the Crystal Palace in the issue of 8 March 1851, together with details of its dimensions, opening times, and admission charges. There were also a few reports on the Exhibition and its displays, including an account of Dr [Thomas William Allies], ‘The Catholic University’, Dublin Review 31 (1851), 529–88, on 547–50. 16 ‘To the Catholics (Chiefly the Industrious Classes) of Great Britain and Ireland’, Lamp, 16 March 1850, 2–5. 15

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Merryweather’s tempest prognosticator, which the Lamp deemed a worthy invention because it might save sailors’ lives. However, the only exhibits to receive effusive praise were the Medieval Court and the ornate custodia made for the Cathedral at Lima (illustrated in Figure 23), which was described in considerable detail.17 Like other Catholic periodicals the Lamp was, however, highly critical of Albert’s very notion of the Exhibition. As early as December 1850 a letter appeared from one Sister Erin charging the English with hypocrisy: ‘You preach peace abroad [by inviting all nations to participate in the Exhibition] and you break the peace at home! At home you are hunting down the Queen’s Catholic subjects! From the Prime Minister to Punch, every man flings a stone at them!’18 Surprisingly, the Lamp carried no report of the Exhibition’s opening ceremony, but early in May 1851 it published a satirical article that contrasted the opulence of the Exhibition with the poverty, malnourishment, and degradation of Irish paupers. Two weeks later the Lamp reprinted criticisms of the Exhibition that had appeared in the Morning Chronicle and John Bull (and had also been reprinted in the Tablet).19 That autumn two editorials further criticized the Exhibition. In the first Bradley contrasted the luxury, magnificence, and prosperity that the Exhibition appeared to confer on London, with the sordid reality of a city crowded with prostitutes and profligates. Moreover, Britain was, he claimed, a country of repression, with ‘Our Commoners, our Lords, and our Bishops (!) —putting down the Papists and keeping out the Jews.’ In a second editorial, published a month after the Crystal Palace closed, Bradley asked what the Exhibition had achieved. Sceptical of the claim that it had raised the levels of wisdom, virtue, and morality of the British people, he sharply criticized the Commissioners for not spending any of the substantial profit from the Exhibition on improving the condition of the poor. He ended his critique by claiming that the Exhibition’s ‘history will rise in testimony against the want of devotion, the insidious infidelity, the gross materialism of England’.20 All these four Catholic periodicals condemned the Exhibition as jingoistic propaganda on behalf of English Protestantism and as a tool for the repression of Catholicism. Moreover, like many Protestant critics of the Exhibition they found the emphasis on the material world highly objectionable and strongly urged that religion must not be displaced by the materialism that the Exhibition so manifestly characterized. Like some of the Protestant critics who appealed to biblical prophecy, these Catholics also viewed the Exhibition through a biblical lens provided by the narratives of the Tower of Babel and ‘The Mediæval Court’, Lamp, 31 May 1851, 352. For the custodia see pp. 114–16 above. Sister Erin, ‘To John Bull’, Lamp, 7 December 1850, 569. ‘Pauper Spectacles. A New Whig Article for the Great Exhibition’, Lamp, 10 May 1851, 300–2; ‘Exhibition’, ibid. 24 May 1851, 317. See also Chapter 2: ‘The opening ceremony’, pp. 63–70. 20 ‘The Gorgeous Crystal Palace—the Awful State of Morality in London’, Lamp, 6 September 1851, 127–9; ‘Crystal Palace’, ibid. 15 November 1851. 267–8. 17 18 19

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Belshazzar’s Feast. Yet in contrast to most liberal Protestants, including moderate evangelicals, Catholic writers did not view the Exhibition in a positive religious light but primarily as an attack on religious tradition. Protestantism, with its weak religious principles, was deemed to encourage the materialistic values underpinning the Exhibition that were so corrosive to religion. Thus the London correspondent of the Tablet attributed an antireligious meaning to the Exhibition. ‘A goddess of reason’, he wrote, ‘is now set up in the largest temple of the world, and is worshiped not only with hymns and the incense of external devotion, but with the failing breath, the beating heart, and the absorbed soul, which the Catholic Saint of old would offer before the presence of his God in the Adorable Sacrament.’21 The Exhibition was the temple of this new and popular anti-religion.

THE SECULAR TEMPLE Returning to London after his extensive travels on HMS Rattlesnake, the twenty-six-year-old Thomas Henry Huxley sought employment and an entrée into the scientific community. Writing to his fiancée, Henrietta Heathorn, who was still in Australia, he reported a conversation with the ‘charming’ Ellen Busk, wife of the naturalist George Busk: ‘We had much talk about theological matters’, he wrote. It was clearly an intense conversation since he recounted his delight on discovering that Mrs Busk was not ‘affrightened’ by his religious scepticism, as she had ‘passed through it herself, and is familiar with its darkness’, but he averred less tactfully that Henrietta found difficulty accepting his own predisposition towards scepticism. Later in the same letter he sought to justify his views to Henrietta by stressing the need for intellectual honesty and for the freedom to follow his own convictions in opposing religion. He therefore criticized the many ‘unthinking men’ who mimic the outward forms of religion and yet like himself were in a total ‘state of practical unbelief ’. For these unbelievers, he noted, ‘The great Temple of England at present is the great Crystal Palace. 50,000—people worship there every day. They come up to it as the Jews came to Jerusalem at the time of the Jubilee [Year].’22 Perhaps because Huxley was so concerned with issues of religion throughout this letter, written in September 1851, he utilized a religious simile when describing the Great Exhibition to Henrietta. Huxley’s description is informative since he perceived the Crystal Palace as a temple dedicated to the 21

Tablet, 7 June 1851, 356. Thomas Henry Huxley to Henrietta Anne Heathorn, 23 September 1851: Huxley–Heathorn Correspondence, ff. 165–6. Parts of this letter are quoted in Desmond, Huxley, 165, 169, 403; Lightman, Victorian Popularizers, 1. Lightman reads the figure as 58,000, not 50,000. 22

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gods of the mid-nineteenth century—to science, the arts, and manufacturing—and not to the God of the Old Testament, or indeed the New. The members of this secular sect were flocking to London in large numbers from all parts of the globe just as, Huxley (incorrectly) suggested, the ancient Israelites descended on Jerusalem at the Jubilee Year.23 Although Huxley later coined the word agnostic to describe his own position on the question of religious belief,24 in his reported conversation with Ellen Busk in 1851 he stressed his fervent opposition to Christianity and portrayed the Great Exhibition as a purely secular event that celebrated science, technology, and manufacturing. As we have seen this was a complaint raised against the Exhibition by some of its religious critics, and it was also the view shared by many working-class radicals. Although the Chartists had ceased to be an effective force in 1848, at the time of the Exhibition other secular and anti-religious movements attracted extensive support principally from the working population. Owenism, based on the teachings of the nowaging Robert Owen, remained a substantial force despite its paternalistic ethos and disavowal by the more radical socialists. Owen had been the principal advocate of both workers’ communities and cooperatives as a means of avoiding oppression exerted by capitalism. Drawing on the Enlightenment rationalist tradition he argued that people should live in accord with the following fundamental principle of human nature: That man, without his consent and knowledge, is made, from his germ through every instant of his existence, solely by Nature, acting directly within, and indirectly, through society, upon him; because nature has made society;—and that the Creating Power of the Universe, whatever that may prove to be, is the sole cause of Man, of all his faculties and his conduct, and is the only responsible power in the universe.25

Since Christianity was not in harmony with this principle it was deemed irrational and worthy of rejection. He therefore repeatedly urged Christians to appreciate the error of their beliefs, in the hope that they would forsake Christianity for Owenism. Although Owen’s argument was not in itself particularly insidious, by the late 1830s his views had spread among working-class radicals who, loudly proclaiming their opposition to Christianity, inevitably prompted widespread hostility from the clergy. Yet the history of the socialist movement of this period and the emergence of the movement for free thought is marked by what Edward Royle describes as the tension between the capitalist paternalism of Owen and the far more radical and democratic tradition 23 Huxley was mistaken in his appeal to biblical history as the book of Leviticus makes no mention of the Jews assembling in Jerusalem at the time of the Jubilee. During the Jubilee Year land must be left fallow and debts cancelled. Jews were, however, required to go to the Temple in Jerusalem on Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. 24 Lightman, ‘Huxley and Scientific Agnosticism’. 25 ‘Tract II’, Robert Owen’s Journal, 17 May 1851, 22.

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arising from the writings of Thomas Paine, which at the mid-century found a new leader in George Jacob Holyoake.26 An address issued by three leading Owenites shortly before the start of the Exhibition warned that it would probably result in ‘the extension of a system which centralises wealth in the hands of the useless classes, leaving the industrious producers exposed to daily increasing poverty and suffering’. They also noted that the advance of science had often resulted in moral decline and the deterioration of social conditions; hence the Exhibition, with its emphasis on scientific innovation, was likely to lead to the further degradation of working people. While expressing concern for the suffering of the working classes, the authors nevertheless deferred to Owen himself. He eagerly welcomed the Exhibition as providing an opportunity to spread his enlightened social philosophy whose thrust was to improve the condition of humankind and create a fair and equitable society. Thus if the Exhibition of all Nations is to serve as a true and permanent blessing to all nations, it can only be by its becoming an instrument, direct or indirect, of extending a knowledge of those principles which would unite all nations in one common bond of brotherhood, each contributing to the welfare of all, and all to the welfare of each.27

Hence, like many Christians, these Owenite Socialists viewed the forthcoming Exhibition with an anxious uncertainty while simultaneously commending its irenic aims and exploiting its potential for making converts and propagating their own views.28 In order to convert Exhibition visitors to the Owenite cause, various proposals were mooted in a letter headed ‘Robert Owen and the Exhibition of 1851’ that first appeared in the Leader of 18 January 1851 and was reprinted in several other Socialist periodicals. The four signatories, who included Holyoake, proposed both that tracts on social and political subjects should be written and distributed at the Exhibition in English and in the main foreign languages and that lectures should be delivered in London during the period of the Exhibition. Furthermore, they intended to invite Owen himself to deliver a series of talks. Prompted by the need for Socialists to engage the Exhibition and to influence the visitors attracted to London, the authors sought subscriptions to promote their agenda.29 Soon, too, a committee was established under the chairmanship of the freethinker Robert Cooper, which some sources refer to as the International Exhibition Social Tract Society and others as the 26

Royle, Victorian Infidels, 59–106. Robert Owen’s Journal, 22 March 1851, 167–8. For criticisms of the Exhibition by the radical press see Gurney, ‘An Appropriated Space’, 118–22. 29 Reprinted in Reasoner, 22 January 1851, 281–2; Robert Owen’s Journal, 1 February 1851, 110. 27 28

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Central Committee of Social Propaganda for Diffusing Social Tracts at the International Exhibition.30 To avoid the charge of fostering confrontation the Committee suggested that its tracts should present Socialism ‘in a sincere and charitable spirit’. Moreover, it argued that the tracts should ‘show to the world that Socialism is a Science, and not a Creed; and that, therefore, to attach to it any sectarian appellation is as absurd and ill-advised as it would be to speak of Christian Mathematics, Mahometan Chemistry, or Infidel Astronomy’.31 Thus the Committee wished to portray Socialism as a rational scientific enterprise and to distance it from religion, which it derided as a system of belief based on arbitrary dogma. The Committee soon received Owen’s blessing, together with an offer to write a series of tracts. During the next few weeks it also received a number of donations, amounting to about £40—considerably less than the £3,500 raised by the FCEC for 1851 or the £500 earmarked by the SPCK for Exhibitionrelated activities. Owen wrote six short tracts especially for visitors to the Exhibition and 60,000 copies of each were printed, together with translations in both French and German. While other Socialist venues offered special lectures during the period of the Exhibition, Owen himself delivered an address to visitors at the John Street Institution, Fitzroy Square, a major location for Socialist and Chartist events.32 Owen published his Exhibition addresses and tracts in the weekly numbers of Robert Owen’s Journal, each twelve-page issue selling for 1d. In the text he repeatedly referred to the Great Exhibition as the ‘World’s Fair’, thus stressing its international role and astutely aligning it with the fairs that were such a prominent part of the working-class experience, rather than with Albert’s centrally organized event. The international scope of the Exhibition also resonated with the Association of All Classes of All Nations, an organization that Owen had used in the 1830s as a vehicle for propagating his rational system for society throughout both Britain and the wider world. Owen warmly welcomed the new ‘World’s Fair’ as an occasion when all nations would come together to learn about his theory of human nature, an endeavour hopeful of nurturing the improvement of humankind. In his Exhibition tracts and addresses Owen nonetheless attacked religion, arguing that religions, governments, and other institutions had traditionally abused their power in order to preserve traditional privileges and oppress other social groups. Moreover, indoctrinating its followers from birth, each religion engendered prejudice against the members of all other religions. He argued that through their false and irrational views of human nature religions had fomented social divisions and inflamed hatred. Thus religions had proved 30 31 32

Reasoner, 5 March 1851, 360, and 19 March 1851, 384. Robert Owen’s Journal, 22 March 1851, 168. Ibid. 7 June 1851, 48.

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‘grievously injurious both to priests and to people; making fools and knaves of both; teaching them to speak a language of falsehood and pursue a conduct of deception, and to be always talking one thing and doing the opposite, for there is neither congruity or common sense to be discovered in any of the churches of the world’. Owen offered his vision of Socialism as a stark alternative to these old, tired institutions and sought to replace them with a new world order based on a rational, scientifically formulated law of human nature (quoted above).33 On his view, then, humankind was fashioned by nature and not by God. This secular naturalism implied that no individual was naturally endowed with a special social or religious identity that invited a sense of superiority over other people. Instead, when the implications of this law were fully explored, Owen naively believed that everyone would become educated, and through education they would advance in knowledge, goodness, and happiness. In Owen’s utopia the beneficent influence of peace and prosperity would eradicate war and social divisions. Despite his proclaimed rationalism and opposition to Christianity, Owen frequently utilized millenarian rhetoric that echoes that of the evangelicals. Thus it is not surprising that the language of his Exhibition tracts is reminiscent of the many contemporary evangelical tracts that urged people to reject sin and to seek salvation through Christ; those saved were destined for a heavenly afterlife. A not dissimilar messianic zeal is conveyed by the header to Owen’s Exhibition tracts: ‘REJOICE ALL NATIONS AND PEOPLE, FOR THE DAY OF YOUR DELIVERENCE IS, INDEED, AT HAND!’ Likewise, in one of his addresses to Exhibition visitors he predicted that ‘the earth may be gradually transformed into a terrestrial paradise, [and] men trained to become superior’. Owen, in keeping with many contemporary evangelicals, envisaged the Exhibition as a crucial event in human history that would foment a momentous change for humanity. He therefore described 1851 as ‘this ever-to-be-remembered year’ and as ‘this auspicious era, when the delegates of nations have met in peace, for peaceful objects, at the World’s Fair, in the Crystal Palace’. He also shared with many moderate evangelicals a messianic belief that the advances in science and technology displayed at the Exhibition would help to usher in an utopian era, albeit in his case a strictly earthly utopia. ‘A new life is preparing for man;—a new state of existence for the human race!!’34 In contrast to the aging Owen, by 1851 Holyoake was the rising star among radicals and the most prominent infidel of his generation. Imprisoned for blasphemy several years earlier he coined the word secularism in 1851 to describe his programme for reforming society to achieve its independence 33 ‘To the Delegates of the World, at the World’s Fair, Held in the British Metropolis in 1851’, ibid. 28 June 1851, 65–7, 81–3, and 89–92, on 98 and 107. 34 ‘Tract II’, ibid. 17 May 1851, 22; ‘To the Delegates of the World’, 82 and 89.

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from religion and during the 1850s he created the Secular movement. As editor of the Reasoner and Theological Examiner at the time of the Exhibition Holyoake published a series of ‘Reasoner Tracts’, some of which were distributed to visitors. One, in particular, was considered particularly apposite reading material for visitors since it contained an extract from Charles Dickens’s Pickwick Papers lampooning evangelicals. However, Holyoake’s most prominent and influential intervention was an anonymous article entitled ‘The Workman and the Exhibition’, which was first published in the Leader on 21 June 1851 and was then reprinted and distributed free, with copies sent to the Commissioners and others officially connected with the Exhibition. Holyoake began by complimenting Prince Albert for creating an event that shed no blood nor raised taxes, and he also noted the euphoria and optimism that the Exhibition had generated among visitors to London. Yet, although manufacturers and shopkeepers benefited from the orders they received, hidden from view behind the opulent artefacts on display in the Crystal Palace lurked the profound misery of the working men who produced the goods—‘a motley group, pallid and haggard and sick, labouring under asthma, consumption, rheumatism, fever, poverty, curses!’—and their impoverished families. ‘Does the fair lady who admires that exquisite piece of cutlery [displayed in the Exhibition], whose polish rivals her mirror, remember that he who gave it its lustre-spit blood?’ Thus far from being a glorious festival of industry, Holyoake condemned the Exhibition as an illusion founded on the terrible exploitation of workers. Yet he expressed the hope, albeit rather forlornly, that visitors would not rest satisfied in seeing the exhibits but would appreciate the human misery involved in their production.35 Although Holyoake made no mention of religion in this article, he delivered a talk to the Finsbury Hall of Science on City Road—one of the principal venues used by radical organizations—entitled ‘The Prayer of the Archbishop of Canterbury on the Opening of the Great Exhibition, and an Exposition of what He Had Better Have Done than Deliver It’. Although I have been unable to trace this text, Holyoake’s title is sufficient to indicate his contemptuous dismissal of the Archbishop’s benediction at the opening ceremony.36 The radical, republican English Republic was equally succinct: ‘The Archbishop’s prayer was a blasphemy, and the whole pageantry [at the opening ceremony] an impudent hypocrisy.’ The writer—possibly the editor W. J. Linton— proceeded to condemn the Exhibition as a sham and as merely a celebration of the repressive capitalist system that kept ‘the toiling millions’ in their state of wretchedness. He dismissed the claim by the organizers that it would Ion [¼ Holyoake], ‘The Workman and the Exhibition’, Leader, 21 June 1851, 590–1. The pamphlet version was entitled The Workman and the International Exhibition: See Goss, Descriptive Bibliography, 14. 36 Reasoner, 9 July 1851, 124. 35

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increase peace between nations as a lie, and envisaged that the only benefit accruing from the Exhibition would be the recognition by workers that their oppression was due to their being ‘misruled, befooled, and plundered’ by those with power.37 Interestingly, the responses of these secularists and freethinkers reflect a similar diversity among religious writers. While Robert Owen’s response can be seen as a secular version of the moderate evangelicals’ perspective, the more radical reactions of Holyoake and English Republic had a marked similarity to that of the Catholic periodical press that portrayed Catholicism pitted against England’s politico-religious establishment. If the Crystal Palace was a secular temple, as Huxley claimed, the pilgrims who visited it were deeply divided over the Exhibition’s significance for the future of both socialism and secularism.

J EW I S H R ES P O N S E S At the mid-century the Anglo-Jewish community numbered 30–35,000, of whom at least 20,000 lived in London. But it was also a divided community in at least two senses. The Sephardim, who had been the first to settle in Britain two centuries earlier (from the Iberian peninsula often via Amsterdam), had constituted the powerful and wealthy section of Anglo-Jewry until well into the eighteenth century. By 1851 their numbers, wealth, and influence had, however, declined significantly. By contrast, the Ashkenazi community was in the ascendant. It was also growing slowly, with new immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and elsewhere supplementing the established community. Secondly, at the top of the communal pyramid stood the wealthy elite; perhaps two hundred families who had gained wealth principally through trade or finance. Although they were fairly Anglicized they generally maintained their Jewish identity and married among themselves. The elite included a few Sephardi families, such as the Montefiores, but Ashkenazim dominated—the Rothschilds, the Salomons, the Samuels, etc. This paternalistic elite organized the charities that catered for the numerous Jewish poor. The poor lived under wretched conditions principally in the East End of London and were employed in such occupations as tailoring and cigar making. However, by the mid-century a sizeable Jewish middle class was beginning to emerge; for example, the wealthier shopkeepers were able to move from the East End into leafier areas such as Finsbury Circus.38 ‘The Great Exhibition’, English Republic 1 (1851), 192–3. See histories of Anglo-Jewry including Alderman, Modern British Jewry; Endelman, Jews of Britain, 79–126; Englander, ‘Anglicized not Anglican’. 37 38

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By the mid-century many of the earlier civic disabilities had been removed. Jews could now become Aldermen of the City of London, they were admitted to the Bar, and they could serve on juries (and be allowed to swear on the Hebrew Bible). They could even stand for parliament. Baron Lionel de Rothschild was first elected in 1847 and David Salomons was elected in 1851. However, they could not take their seats in parliament because the oath of admission included the unacceptable phrase ‘on the true faith of a Christian’. Several attempts were made to alter the wording in order to enable Rothschild’s admission. The reformers had some success in winning the vote in the House of Commons; for example, at its first reading Lord John Russell’s 1847 bill passed by 257 to 186. However, these proposals foundered in the Lords, where there was significant opposition from the bishops. At mid-century, the campaign for Jewish emancipation centred on the political issue of admission to parliament. Members of the Jewish elite became involved in planning the Exhibition at an early stage. At the Mansion House meeting on 17 October 1849 that endorsed Albert’s proposals for mounting the Exhibition, Baron Goldsmid was one of the vice-presidents who headed the deputation from the Society of Arts. Among the leading Jewish figures who attended from the financial and commercial world were Alderman David Salomons and Baron Lionel de Rothschild. Salomons played a significant role in the proceedings seconding the motion to finance the Exhibition from voluntary contributions rather than from government funds. In this speech, Salomons praised the ‘universality’ of Albert’s vision and claimed that by providing an open and fair international competition in arts and manufactures the Exhibition should be called ‘a peace congress’. At that meeting Rothschild and Goldsmid were also chosen to serve on the committee of city businessmen—the City of London Committee for Promoting the Exhibition of Industry of all Nations—that would further Albert’s aims.39 At the Mansion House meeting held on 26 January 1850 to raise subscriptions for the Exhibition, both Rothschild and Salomons spoke in favour of that motion. Moreover, both Baron de Rothschild and his brother Sir Anthony de Rothschild were among the major subscribers, pledging £500 each, while Salomons had pledged a smaller sum.40 Earlier that month Baron de Rothschild had been appointed one of the treasurers to the Exhibition. The significance of his appointment was not lost on the Jewish Chronicle—the only Anglo-Jewish weekly—which congratulated him and then asked rhetorically: ‘Will the Lords [which had prevented Rothschild taking his seat in parliament] again reject the man whom the Queen thus delighteth to honour?’—the final

39 40

‘Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations’, The Times, 18 October 1849, 6. ‘The Great Exhibition of Industry, 1851’, The Times, 26 January 1850, 5.

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phrase resonating with King Ahasuerus’s honouring of Mordecai in the Book of Esther.41 Despite the early involvement of Salomons, Goldsmid, and two members of the Rothschild family, the Jewish Chronicle initially displayed little interest in the Exhibition. One of the first recorded references was to a toast raised to Prince Albert at a Jewish event in February 1851. The speaker—probably Nathaniel Montefiore (a nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore)—expressed the view that the Great Exhibition would raise the esteem in which Albert was held and also praised Albert’s plan for an exhibition to advance science and industry that would ‘by the commingling of the people from every country, create . . . a good, perfect, and peaceful understanding between man and man’.42 Such an improvement in understanding, argued the speaker, would certainly benefit the Jewish community. During subsequent weeks a number of Jews were named as exhibitors and a sense of excitement began to pervade the Jewish press. It was reported that a Mr Abrahams of Lisle Street ‘will be exhibiting embroidery samples’; the well-known manufacturer of gas appliances Nathan Defries would be showing a number of his inventions; Morris Lyons of Birmingham would be displaying his innovative electro-plating process; another coreligionist was to exhibit a ‘chased silver . . . odorous spice box . . . used by Jewish families on the departure of the Sabbath’. A reader also reported that Lewis Sternberg of Brussels would exhibit two ‘very beautifully-toned three-string pianos, on a new construction’.43 Thus by the time of the opening on 1 May the Jewish press was enthusiastic about the Exhibition and keen to see Jewish exhibitors and Jewish-related exhibits well represented. Shortly before the opening date a specifically Jewish problem arose. As well as the regular day tickets, season tickets could be purchased costing 3 guineas for a man and 2 guineas for a woman. On entering the Exhibition season ticket holders, having shown their tickets at the entry booth, had to sign their names in a book. This signature could then be checked against the signature on the ticket itself in order to detect fraud. However, observant Jews would not write their names on the Jewish Sabbath. Thus Morris Oppenheim, the secretary of the Jews and General Literary and Scientific Institution, wrote to the Commissioners pointing out that this procedure would prevent many Jews from visiting the Exhibition on Saturdays, ‘which is more convenient than any other day of the week for those members of our community who are engaged

‘The Exhibition for 1851’, Jewish Chronicle, 11 January 1850, 111. See Esther 6. ‘Friday Evening Lectures at Sussex Hall’, Jewish Chronicle, 21 February 1851, 157–8. ‘National Exhibition of 1851’, Jewish Chronicle, 14 March 1851, 179; ‘More Jewish Contributors to the Great Exhibition’, ibid. 4 April 1851, 207; ‘Exhibition of 1851’, ibid. 16 April 1851, 219; ‘The Great Exhibition’, ibid. 23 April 1851, 227; N.H.S., ‘The Great Exhibition’, ibid. 23 April 1851, 229. 41 42 43

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in commerce or [are] performing occupations’. He therefore requested that some procedure be devised to enable Jews to enter on the Sabbath but without having to sign. The Commissioners initially rejected this request, because a signature was deemed necessary to maintain security.44 Oppenheim’s intervention annoyed one correspondent, ‘M’ from Maldon, who reminded readers of the Jewish Chronicle of the Commandment, ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy’. He therefore chastised those wealthy Jews who broke this Commandment by attending the Exhibition on Saturdays. They would, he argued, also set a bad example to less affluent Jews who were constantly exhorted to strengthen their religious observance. Furthermore, ‘M’ drew attention to the Commissioners’ decision to close the Exhibition on Sundays in accordance with the Christian Sabbath. If Christians could not attend the Exhibition on Sundays, it seemed inappropriate for Jews to be seen promenading at the Exhibition on their Sabbath.45 Undeterred by ‘M’s arguments, the ever-persuasive Sir Moses Montefiore contacted the Commissioners, who now obligingly agreed that ‘all persons of the Jewish religion who object to sign the book on Saturday, will, on producing their tickets at No. 11 Box, in the South Centre, be admitted’.46 The introduction of this special arrangement suggests that significant numbers of wealthy Jews were intent on visiting the Exhibition on Saturdays, whether or not they had attended Sabbath morning services at their synagogues. Following the impressive opening ceremony, the Jewish Chronicle shared in the widespread euphoria by proclaiming the Exhibition a harbinger of peace and goodwill to all men, a particularly pertinent message for a small and often despised religious minority. The editor also praised Albert for having taught ‘a lesson of religious equality’, especially by selecting Rothschild as one of the treasurers. But the date of the opening possesses further significance in AngloJewish history because later that same day Lord John Russell moved the second reading of the Oath of Abjuration bill in the House of Commons, which sought once again to remove the offensive phrase ‘on the faith of a true Christian’ from the oath and would thus enable Rothschild to sit in parliament. On that occasion the majority was a mere 25, compared with majorities of 71 and 73 for the 1847 bill. Not surprisingly the bill was again rejected when it came before the Lords. The reduced majority in the Commons on 1 May 1851 was due to the low turnout, especially by the Whigs, many of whom had not returned to Westminster after participating in the exciting events that

44 Morris Oppenheim to Lords Russell, &c., 21 April 1851: Commission Correspondence, 1851/212; Edgar A. Bowring to M. S. Oppenheim, 22 April 1851: Jewish Chronicle, 25 April 1851, 227. See also Cantor, ‘Sussex Hall’. 45 Letter from ‘M’, Jewish Chronicle, 2 May 1851, 237. 46 ‘Exhibition of 1851’, Jewish Chronicle, 9 May 1851, 247; Loewe, Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, 2: 24.

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morning in Hyde Park.47 Thus, ironically, the opening of the Great Exhibition marked a minor setback to the cause of Jewish political emancipation. We know little about the Jews who mingled with the six million other visitors in Hyde Park. The Jewish press reported a number of eminent visitors from abroad: Among the ‘clerical notables who are daily expected to arrive in this country, attracted hither by the Industrial Exhibition, is the erudite Chief Rabbi of Denmark, the Rev. Dr. Wolff. Dr Isaacson, Chief Rabbi of Rotterdam, is also expected, as well as other Rabbies [sic] of renown’. On another occasion the Jewish Chronicle was ‘happy to record the fact, that of six persons who have been deputed by the Bey of Tunis to take charge of the valuables forwarded to the Exhibition of the Industry of all nations, four are of the Jewish faith’.48 Through the generosity of philanthropists in the community many Jewish children from poor homes attended. The Jewish Chronicle praised their good behaviour, but also emphasized the great educational value of the Exhibition and remarked that fifty years later many of those children would look back on their visit as a formative influence on their character.49 Thus among the profusion of visitors Jews played their part, not only from Britain but also from distant lands.50 The Jewish Chronicle now enthusiastically supported the Exhibition, a stance that cohered with its liberal, progressive values.51 But the Jewish Chronicle, and particularly its editor, Marcus Bresslau, had another reason for championing the Exhibition. Very few contemporary Jews held positions in the professions, in science, or in literature. The Jewish Chronicle therefore repeatedly complained that the Jewish community had failed to make an adequate contribution to British culture. Thus, for example, at the end of the Jewish year 5608 (September 1848) Bresslau noted that ‘the soil of our literature lies barren’.52 Having frequently harangued Anglo-Jewry for its lack of cultural achievement, he viewed the fairly extensive Jewish participation in the 1851 Exhibition as a source of pride and encouragement for the Jewish community. In one of his editorials Bresslau therefore reported that while standing in the Crystal Palace he had reflected on the question often raised by anti-Semites: ‘Are the Jews given to Intellectual Pursuits?’ Anyone inclined to answer in the negative should, he asserted, visit the Exhibition, ‘official catalogue in your hand, [and] tell us whether among the many artistic and scientific benefactors and competitors which the mighty exhibition has drawn ‘The Oath of Abjuration Bill’, Jewish Chronicle, 9 May 1851, 241–2. Jewish Chronicle, 27 June 1851, 296; 4 July 1851, 311; and 11 July 1851, 319. Jewish Chronicle, 4 July 1851, 311; 18 July 1851, 327; 25 July 1851, 331. See also First Report of the Commissioners, 92–100. 50 A Scottish clergyman visiting the Exhibition shared a coach with a bearded German, possibly ‘of Hebrew extraction’. See A Country Minister, ‘Notes on a Visit to the Great Exhibition’, MacPhail’s Journal 12 (1851), 245–7. 51 Cesarani, Jewish Chronicle. 52 ‘Retrospect of 5608’, Jewish Chronicle, 27 September 1848, 689–91. 47 48 49

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together, the derided and contemned Jew does not take a fair and honourable stand’.53 Just as the Tablet sought to refute the charge of ignorance that had been levelled at Catholics by citing impressive exhibits from Catholic countries, so the Exhibition provided the Jewish Chronicle with evidence to refute the charge that Anglo-Jewry had failed to make a substantial contribution to the science, technology, and commerce of Britain. During the course of the Exhibition and for several months thereafter Bresslau recorded the many Jewish exhibitors, from home and abroad, and the several successes in gaining prizes.54 The most eminent Victorian Jew, Sir Moses Montefiore, took considerable interest in the Exhibition and extended his patronage to certain exhibits of Jewish significance, such as the ‘two beautiful vases executed by Mordechai Schnitzer of Jerusalem’. In its report the jury commended these vases, describing them as ‘the work of an Israelite’ that shows ‘much ingenuity and patient labour’. Montefiore also facilitated the display of ‘the silver testimonial . . . presented to him and Lady Montefiore on their return from Damascus’, after winning the freedom of its Jewish community who had maliciously been charged with the blood libel (Figure 31).55 One exhibit particularly attracted the attention of both Montefiore and Bresslau, since it symbolized the potential of Jews to contribute not only to technology but also to the highest levels of intellectual endeavour. During his perambulations at the Exhibition Bresslau visited the Russian stand and encountered a calculating machine and its Jewish inventor, Israel Abraham Staffel. So impressed was Bresslau that he devoted more than a full page spread to this invention in the 18 July issue of the Jewish Chronicle, which also included a testimonial from the Imperial Academy of Sciences and an illustration of the machine (Figure 32). As the Jewish Chronicle had not previously printed illustrations (apart from a few small advertisements) this departure signalled the importance Bresslau attached to Staffel’s invention. Not only did he describe the machine and its mode of operation, but he also noted that Staffel was widely acknowledged for his inventions; he had displayed his 53 ‘Are the Jews Given to Intellectual Pursuits: A Retrospective Glance’, Jewish Chronicle, 11 July 1851, 313: See also Cantor, Quakers, Jews, and Science, 41–3 and 147–58. 54 The Jewish Chronicle drew its readers’ attention to Joseph Braham’s patent spectacles, to the great bed displayed in the needlework section by Faudell and Phillips, to the stained glass and lithographs exhibited by George L. Lee of High Holborn, to the ornamental dress stitched by Mrs Salom of York St., Westminster, and to the magnificent sets of false teeth made from hippopotamus by S. L. Finzi. Among those manufacturers awarded medals were Nathan Defries, Faudel and Phillips (needlework and embroidery), B. Jonas and brothers (cigar makers), Barnett Meyers (walking sticks), S. and M. Meyer (who specialized in dressed English rabbit skins, riding boas, muffs, and gloves), Moses, Son and Davis (tallow), M. Myers and Son of Birmingham (steel pens), and Mrs Salom. Among the Jewish prize-winners were three Dutch Jews and ten French Jews. 55 Loewe, Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, 2: 22–3. The vases were listed as Class XXX, no. 161—see Official Catalogue, 151; Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, 2: 830; Reports of the Juries, 558. The testimonial, made by Hunt and Roskell was in Class XXIII, no. 97—see Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, 2: 686–7.

Figure 31 This silver testimonial was presented to Sir Moses Montefiore in 1843 in acknowledgement of his successful attempt to rescue the Jewish community in Damascus. It was designed by Sir George Hayter and manufactured by Hunt and Roskell, on whose stand it was displayed in the Crystal Palace. The OfficialDescriptive and Illustrated Catalogue describes it thus: ‘The sphinxes are indicative of the captivity of Israel in Egypt. The figures are, Moses and Ezra, the great deliverers of their people; a Jew of Damascus loaded with chains, and a released Jew. Under each is an appropriate text in Hebrew, the vine and fig-tree overshadowing. The group on the summit represents David rescuing the lamb from the jaws of the lion. The bassi-relievi represent the crossing of the Red Sea, and the destruction of Pharaoh’s host. Lawless violence in the world typified by wolves devouring the flocks.’ Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, 2: following 686. Reproduced with permission of Special Collections, UCL Library Services.

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Figure 32 Israel Staffel’s calculating machine: Illustrated London News, 20 September 1851, 354. An engraving was also published in the Jewish Chronicle, 18 July 1851, 324.

calculator at the Imperial Russian court and received patronage from various Russian and Polish noblemen. Staffel was not merely an able mechanic but a philosopher who had mingled with the intellectual giants of the day. He was subsequently awarded a prize by the jury for his calculating machine, which was assessed the best machine of its kind in the Exhibition. The example of Staffel provided Bresslau with a convincing rejoinder to those who claimed that Jews were intellectually inferior.56 Staffel also won the esteem of Montefiore, who invited him to his home, made him a ‘handsome present’, and then lectured him on the importance of extending Jewish education in Russia and Poland.57 During one of their many visits to the Exhibition, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert examined Staffel’s calculator and were reported to have been greatly impressed. The Governor of the Bank of England also closely inspected the calculator and another machine invented by Staffel that was used to test precious metals. This exhibit was later transferred to the Bank for further tests. As a coda to Staffel’s successes in London, Prince Albert took the unusual step of sending him £20, ‘in appreciation for his invention’.58 The extensive reporting of the successes of Staffel and other Jewish exhibitors in the Jewish press was intended to demonstrate that Jews were not inferior but that Jewish scientists, artisans, and manufacturers were indeed ‘The Great Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations’, Jewish Chronicle, 18 July 1851, 324–5. Loewe, Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, 2: 23–4. 58 ‘The Great Exhibition’, Jewish Chronicle, 1 August 1851, 336; ‘Mr Staffel’s Calculating Machine’, ibid. 1 August 1851, 339; ‘Liberality of the Prince Albert’, ibid. 21 November 1851, 55. 56 57

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able to compete with others, from home and abroad, and even to succeed in gaining prizes in several areas. Although Anglo-Jewry had yet to make a significant contribution to the fine arts and the sciences, it had acquitted itself satisfactorily at the Exhibition by contributing to various branches of the mechanical arts and manufactures. Jewish businesses also took advantage of the influx of visitors to London, including the famous retail tailoring firm of E. Moses and Son, which issued a special Exhibition catalogue.59 The Great Exhibition thus helped to raise the standing of Anglo-Jewry and also the community’s self esteem. With a significant number of Jewish manufacturers ready to exploit the improved economic conditions of the 1850s, it seems likely that the Exhibition contributed to the rise of the Jewish middle classes, which were to become a solid and respectable section of Victorian society. *** The Exhibition was subject to very different interpretations by Catholics, Secularists, and Jews. Yet their individual reactions reflected not just their views on religion but more importantly the ways in which their communities were perceived in relation to the socio-religious establishment that had mounted the Exhibition and sought to control its meaning. Thus while Catholics saw the Exhibition in terms of Catholic oppression, the AngloJewish elite perceived the successes of Jews in the Exhibition as legitimating the equality of Jews at the height of the arguments over emancipation. Secularists appear to have been divided on the value of the Exhibition, with Owen in particular using it to propagate his messianic vision, while more radical Socialists saw only its social dangers; in this their response was similar to the Catholic reaction. But for all three groups the Exhibition raised the issue of identity, as they struggled to position themselves on the religious landscape at the mid-century. 59

The John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera at the University of Oxford includes the Exhibition Catalogue of E. Moses and Son (shelfmark, Men’s Clothes 4 (25)) and also an advertisement for Samuel Brothers, tailors of Ludgate Hill (shelfmark, Men’s Clothes 2 (49)).

7 Paradise Regained In contrast to those prophetic writers (discussed in Chapter 1) who viewed the Great Exhibition as the precursor to a terrible calamity, the focus of this chapter is on the optimistic Christians who envisaged the Exhibition as heralding a better world. Although opponents of the Exhibition often cited the account of the dispersion at Babel in Genesis Chapter 11 in order to justify their anxieties, in the first section we shall see that the very same text was used by supporters of the Exhibition to confer positive historical significance on contemporary events. Subsequently there is discussion of those religious writers who interpreted the gathering of people from many nations at the Exhibition as a sign of human progress and improvement. While some of these aspirations dealt principally with economic, scientific, and technical progress, they also conceived of a new reign of Christianity leading to a world order in which people developed higher moral sensibilities, lived with one another in peace, and ultimately achieved salvation. Such scenarios appealed particularly to Congregationalists, some of whom even linked the Exhibition with the new Millennium. In the final two sections we examine the connections between the Exhibition, internationalism, and pacifism, especially through the high-profile Peace Congress that was held in London in the summer of 1851 so as to coincide with the Exhibition.

COMPENSATING FOR BABEL John Charles Whish’s successful Great Exhibition Prize Essay opened by relating the Exhibition to the events that had occurred on the plain of Shinar as recorded in the Book of Genesis. At that time people had denigrated God and instead glorified themselves. God had therefore separated the nations by making them speak different languages. This resulted in ‘confusion and separation, the breaking up of the human family, a severe check to the progress of science [sic], and . . . the necessity of commencing anew the fabric of their domestic and social prosperity’. By contrast, argued Whish, with God’s

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blessing, the Exhibition in Hyde Park will have the very opposite consequences. Indeed, ‘this marvellous edifice [the Crystal Palace] shall prove to our race, a kind of compensation for the Tower of Babel, and become the means of promoting the brotherly union, the peace and prosperity of mankind!’1 By portraying the gathering of nations at the Exhibition as ‘a kind of compensation’ for Babel, Whish tied Albert’s pacifist and internationalist vision of the Exhibition firmly to biblical history. A similar view of the relation between the Tower of Babel and the Exhibition appeared in a frequently cited prose-poem by Samuel Warren entitled The Lily and the Bee: an Apologue of the Crystal Palace of 1851. Warren, a prominent lawyer and novelist who had also received a medical education, was a Fellow of the Royal Society and an evangelical. The ‘bee’ in his title relates, among other allusions, to an article that had recently appeared in the Morning Chronicle in which the Exhibition was described as ‘a vast confusion of tongues—like Babel. The noise in it is like that of bees: a strange humming, or buzz, mixed of walking and talking—tongues and feet’.2 Like many other commentators, the confusion of tongues at Babel provided Warren with a ready simile for the many languages spoken by visitors to the Exhibition. For Warren, however, the biblical narrative offered not just an accessible trope but a way of understanding the Exhibition in historical terms. Indeed, he introduced the topic with his own reflections on the biblical account of the building of the Tower of Babel by noting that although all nations had previously shared a single language, the attempt to build this tower in order to reach up to heaven in praise of God had resulted in discord, the multiplication of languages, and the dispersion of nations. Many centuries after this initial dispersion, there had been a first attempt to bring the nations together during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. However, this had failed because of the prevalence of idolatry; instead, as related in the Book of Daniel (Dan. 3:6), God in His anger had cast the idolaters into the fiery furnace. Moving to the present, Warren portrayed the Great Exhibition as a further attempt to bring together ‘all people, and nations, and languages’. On this occasion, however, they had come ‘on a royal invitation, and for a royal Dedication’. The Queen and ‘her illustrious and philosophic Spouse’ had presided over the opening of a manifestly Christian event intended to praise God, ‘cement . . . universal brotherhood, and promote among all nations,

Whish, Great Exhibition Prize Essay, 6–8. A similar point was made in ‘The Opening of the Great Exhibition’, Evangelical Magazine n.s. 29 (1851), 330–2, on 331: ‘Those who compared it to the Tower of Babel, and identified its interest with the presumption of the Babel-builders, under the guise of piety, were chargeable with the grossest calumny.’ 2 Warren, Lily and the Bee, 56, quoting the Morning Chronicle of 9 August 1851, which in turn quoted Bishop John Earle’s Microcosmographia (1628). Warren returned to the subject of bees later in his poem. 1

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unity, peace, and concord’.3 Thus, unlike the idolatrous gathering under Nebuchadnezzar, the Great Exhibition was being mounted in a Christian country under the patronage of a Christian queen, and was unquestionably dedicated to God. Therefore, he believed, no evil would befall the Exhibition. Like many contemporaries, Warren followed Albert’s lead in proclaiming that science, technology, and commerce would encourage peace and bring together people from many different nations in a spirit of friendship and cooperation. Moreover, as an Anglican evangelical, Warren envisaged England as the flagship of Protestantism and the epicentre from which Christ’s message of salvation would be spread throughout the world. The theme of Babel and the dispersion of tongues appeared in many other religious commentaries on the Exhibition including the travelogue written by a clergyman from a rural Scottish parish and published in MacPhail’s Edinburgh Ecclesiastical Journal. Arriving in London after a long journey by coach, he was bewildered by the bustle of the metropolis and by the immensity and diversity of the exhibits. He soon found himself surrounded by people speaking many different languages and dressed in ‘strange and various costumes’. This, he recounted, ‘irresistibly impelled my mind to ascend the stream of time and contemplate the scene around the Tower of Babel, where also the human race, as yet in its infancy, was assembled’. For this clergyman the biblical narrative indicated the ‘lordly arrogance and political tyranny’ of the people who gathered at that time on the Plain of Shinar. God had then dispersed the fractious nations in order to populate the earth and He had divided their languages so that they would not be oppressed by the authority wielded by Nimrod, the impious ruler. Yet, like Warren, this Presbyterian posited a significant difference between the events at Babel and the magnificent Crystal Palace in which he was standing: ‘Instead of a centre of dispersion, it [the Great Exhibition] is a focus of convergence.’ The ‘families of mankind’ that had been dispersed at Babel were now converging on Hyde Park from all over the world in order to participate in the Exhibition. Just as God had decreed the earlier dispersion, so He was now bringing the nations together in London. In contrast to the repressive tyranny of Nimrod, the present regrouping of nations was taking place under a spirit of British and Christian liberty. The Christian ethos of mid nineteenth-century Britain was therefore responsible for this momentous event.4 Enthusiastic about the good that would result from the Exhibition this Scottish clergyman proclaimed it ‘the noblest trophy of Christianity the world has even seen’.5

3

Warren, Lily and the Bee, 18–19. A Country Minister, ‘Notes on a Visit to the Great Exhibition’, MacPhail’s Journal 12 (1851), 285–6. 5 Ibid. 13 (1852), 217. 4

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Unlike those who conceived the Exhibition as a harbinger of doom and as leading to a repeat of the events at Babel or at Belshazzar’s court, these optimistic Christians understood contemporary events in Protestant England as crucially different from those episodes chronicled in the Bible. For many of these writers, too, the gathering of nations at the Exhibition possessed a wider religious significance and connoted progress towards a better world. Thus in his autobiography John Stoughton, the Congregational minister at Hornton Street Chapel in Kensington, reminisced: ‘There was a moral atmosphere created by the enterprise [the building of the Crystal Palace], which those who do not recollect it are unable to appreciate. It inspired thousands of people with expressions of charity and goodwill.’ He also remembered the opening ceremony as a heartwarming event that seemed to indicate that ‘war and strife were approaching an end, and a millennial age of goodwill had dawned on mankind’.6 After noting how peaceable and good-natured were the crowds, despite the large number of visitors and their diversity in terms of both social class and nationality, other religious commentators took this to be a sign of the approaching age, envisaged in Isaiah, when swords will be beaten into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks.7 As the remainder of this chapter seeks to show, notions of equality, brotherhood, and progress were closely aligned with the expansion of trade, the doctrine of Free Trade, and the development of science and technology. But for many evangelicals, the gathering of nations at the Exhibition also possessed a more prophetic meaning—it was seen as a harbinger of Christ’s Second Coming.

THE UNITY OF NATIONS, PROGRESS, AND THE MILLENN IUM A number of religious authors understood the Exhibition to illustrate, if not to justify, humankind’s mastery over nature. These early Victorians, believing that such mastery was rapidly increasing, propounded a vision of progress that encompassed science, technology, economics, and—most importantly— religion. Theirs was not a secular view of progress; rather, they considered that moral and spiritual progress was a crucial aspect—often the most important aspect—of long-term human development. An extreme example of this position is provided by the sermon delivered in London on 4 May 1851 by John William Gleadall, a Fellow of St Catherine’s Hall, Cambridge. Gleadall took Genesis 1:28 as his text: ‘Replenish the earth, and subdue it.’ Warmly 6

Stoughton, Recollections, 104. e.g. Flower, Great Exhibition, 5 and 16–17. The Final Report of the Commissioners (129) claimed that only twenty-one crimes occurred at the Exhibition. 7

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welcoming the recently opened Exhibition as an occasion for mankind to glorify God, the Creator, he also viewed the exhibits as demonstrating human success in harnessing nature for useful purposes. Enthused with a sense of optimism and progress, he stressed that Christians have a duty to study the natural world and to use its products in order to supply human needs. Quoting the Scottish natural theologian Thomas Chalmers, he celebrated scientific and technological advance as the divinely ordained outcome of the cooperation between mind and matter. He also interpreted the injunction to subdue the earth to mean that God intended people from all the nations to cooperate in subduing the earth, thus improving physical conditions for all people. He contrasted this cooperative effort with the earlier human tendency to ‘subdue and oppress and plunder each other, and live by rapine and injustice’. Thus although the Exhibition helped to advance peace and love between the various nations, it also celebrated and justified the divinely sanctioned mastery over nature and destruction thereof. Despite warning against the idolization of matter, Gleadall read Genesis 1:28 as providing a strong religious sanction for plundering the earth of its coal, minerals, trees, plants, etc.8 Gleadall’s argument seems to confirm Lynn White’s much-discussed contention that the Bible has provided a significant justification for the exploitation of nature (and that the Judeo-Christian tradition is thus a major cause of the modern ecological crisis).9 However, when compared with the many other contemporary commentators on the Exhibition, Gleadall adopted a particularly extreme view of the biblical warrant to justify the exploitation of the natural world. Probably the only other Exhibition-related text to cite Genesis 1:28 prominently was Samuel Wilberforce’s rousing speech at the February 1850 Westminster meeting at which he extolled the God-given right of artisans to use the products of nature for human advancement.10 It is significant that Gleadall and Wilberforce were almost alone among religious writers to evoke Genesis 1:28 in their reflections on the Exhibition. Although the religiously sanctioned exploitation of nature was not a prominent theme among contemporaries, many religious commentators of the day conceived the Exhibition as incontrovertible evidence of human progress, tying their conceptions of progress to a variety of religious themes. Sometimes progress was seen in strongly nationalistic terms that attributed the superiority of England both to its Protestant heritage and to the ability of all its inhabitants to access the Bible. As mentioned in Chapter 4 the Congregationalist William Forster took the ‘nation’ mentioned in Psalm 147:20—‘Thou hath not 8 Gleadall, Man Subduing the Earth, passim. On Chalmers see Smith, ‘From Design to Dissolution’. 9 White, ‘The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis’. For a recent analysis of White’s thesis see Harrison, ‘Subduing the Earth’. 10 Samuel Wilberforce, On the Dignity of Labour: Albert’s Correspondence, vol. 2, item 95.

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dealt so with any nation’—to refer to England. For Forster Protestantism was responsible for England’s moral superiority and its supremacy in science, technology, and manufacturing. But Forster’s argument went well beyond explaining present-day glories, for he conceived England to be ‘a prophetnation’ and considered that the country possessed a divinely ordained role to spread the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity to all the nations: ‘We are called by the King of all the Earth to fulfil a great and beneficent purpose. We are to take a leading part in bringing about the world’s regeneration.’ Indeed, he believed that the Great Exhibition was a harbinger of a great spiritual revival that would emanate from England.11 Like a number of other Dissenters, Forster’s prescription for England’s moral and technological leadership was also firmly tied to his commitment to Free Trade, which, he believed, encouraged intercourse between nations and stimulated economic and technological advance. In his sermon on 4 May to the High Street Chapel in Warwick, the Unitarian minister Thomas Marshall likewise expressed his enthusiasm for the Great Exhibition and praised the considerable advances that had been made in science and technology. Like Forster, he conceived the Exhibition as ‘the glorious result of Free-trade legislation’ and envisaged Free Trade as the bond that held together the members of all nations. Taking as his text Acts 17:26—‘And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth’—he argued that unrestricted trade would not only increase happiness and prosperity but extend peace and Christian benevolence.12 In keeping with many other prophets of progress from dissenting chapels Marshall saw the Great Exhibition as a natural confluence of Protestantism, science, and Free Trade, all of which would be further enhanced by the Exhibition itself. One of the strongest articulations of the ethic of progress can be found in an RTS publication, The Royal Exchange and the Palace of Industry, by Thomas Binney, minister at the King’s Weigh House Congregational Church in the City of London. He, too, viewed the gathering of the nations in London as highly significant. ‘For the first time in the history of the world’, he wrote, ‘there is to be a flowing of the peoples of all lands’ to London in order to compete with one another in a spirit of friendly rivalry. This, he predicted, would lead to a profound change in the world: ‘it is hoped and expected that the crowds will disperse wiser and better,—more loving and more fraternal. . . . The whole thing . . . is thus shaping itself into a prophetic type of a new aspect of the civilized world.’ In this new world everyone would benefit from trade and commerce. However, he particularly emphasized the great changes that would be engendered in religion and morality. Atheism, pantheism, scepticism, 11 12

Forster, Closing of the Great Exhibition, 4–5. See above p. 126. Marshall, Moral Aspects of the Great Exhibition, passim.

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and polytheism would be eliminated, as would deism and other religions, including the ‘myriad Gods’ of Asian religions. With the eradication of these other religious traditions, ‘everything gross, cruel, and obscene will have passed away’. Everyone would instead subscribe to a pure, Bible-based Christianity that inculcated the highest moral principles; hence there would be no drunkenness, robbery, or murder. In Binney’s ideal world the traditional hierarchical structure of British society would nevertheless remain, but everyone would live in harmony while maintaining their position in society; he clearly opposed all movements for social change, including Christian socialism. He also advocated universal education: Science would be devout, and literature pure. The universe would be explored with reverence and humility; discoveries announced without boasting; and improvements and inventions received with gratitude. . . . Industry would be cheerful, and labour honoured; the fruits of the earth would be taken and used as a Divine gift; and the productions of skill would be connected with thoughts of the Maker of the mind.

Although Binney’s vision was not explicitly tied to Christ’s Second Coming, he conceived the Great Exhibition as initiating a new era on earth marked by divinely ordained progress in religion, peace, and prosperity.13 Others, like Stoughton, saw the Exhibition in more strongly prophetic terms, including his fellow Congregationalist William Leask. In a Sunday sermon delivered in Kennington a fortnight before the opening of the Exhibition he reflected both on the significance of the nations assembling in the Crystal Palace and especially on the many languages that would be spoken by these visitors. Moving quickly from the biblical description of Babel, he focused on the gathering of all nations at the Second Coming, as predicted in Matthew 25:31–2. More particularly in his view, just as people would be judged at Christ’s return according to their deeds, a similar judicial procedure would be implemented at the Exhibition. Exhibits would come under close scrutiny, and the impartial judges appointed by the Commissioners would ‘estimate the intrinsic and relative value of the articles’. This procedure filled Leask with the optimistic vision that associated the Exhibition with the messianic era. ‘Brethren,’ he confided in his congregants, I cannot help expressing the feeling, that there is something in all this more than meets the eye; something of which neither the projectors [of the Exhibition], nor the exhibitors, nor the spectators are aware. . . . [B]ut there are so many points of undesigned coincidence, that a feeling of awe settles on my mind when I contemplate the ‘Crystal Palace’, and the objects of its erection.14

13 Binney, Royal Exchange, esp. 85, 97–8, 111 and 122–3; a similar but much briefer argument was articulated by the Anglican cleric Thomas Bensted in his Great Exhibition, 13–15. 14 Leask, Great Exhibition, esp. 24–5.

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In contemplating the Exhibition Leask could almost hear the Archangel’s voice ushering in Christ’s return and the new order of universal righteousness that would ensue. Another Congregationalist, writing in the Christian Witness, which was associated with the Congregational Union of England and Wales, was even more explicit in relating the Exhibition to the Millennium. The August 1851 issue contained an anonymous article on the Exhibition, possibly written by the editor, John Campbell, the minister at the Finsbury Tabernacle. Describing the Crystal Palace as the ‘sublimest spectacle on earth, at this moment’, the author was ‘inclined to view it as the foreshadowing of another and a mightier event, in which we also believe it is reserved for England to take the lead’. He justified this inference by citing another gathering prophesied in the Bible: [There] shall come people and the inhabitants of many cities, and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily and pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of Hosts; I will go also. Yea, many people and strong nations shall seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord. [Zech. 9:20–2]

Other biblical passages that prophesied peace, such as Isaiah 2:4, also resonated with the ethos of the Exhibition and strengthened his conviction that ‘we look upon this affair of the World’s Exhibition as a stupendous and glorious prelude to that long looked-for consummation’.15 Other writers likewise interpreted the gathering of nations in Hyde Park in prophetic terms as ushering in the Millennium. For example, an SPCK publication that mentioned the gathering at the Crystal Palace immediately referred to ‘another, and a truly universal meeting of all the kindred of mankind [that] shall take place. “It shall come,” saith the Lord,—“that I will gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come, and see my glory” [Isa. 66:18].’16 Likewise, in the second of two linked sermons at Woolwich barracks delivered to members of the artillery, the Anglican chaplain represented the Exhibition in distinctly prophetic terms. In the first of his sermons Walter Melville Wright had stressed the need both for England to be a truly Christian country and for her citizens—especially members of her armed forces—to adhere to and promulgate Christian values. The second sermon was based on Jeremiah 3:17, which refers to the time when ‘all the nations of the world shall be gathered unto’ Jerusalem, ‘the throne of the Lord’. Wright regarded London as the new Jerusalem and he considered that this scriptural prediction was ‘now actually taking place, not in distant lands only, but in our own’. The influx of numerous visitors offered the prospect of mass conversions. He therefore expected that ‘beneficial effects . . . will arise from this great event’

15 16

‘Crystal Palace’, Christian Witness 8 (1851), 346. SPCK, Industry of Nations, 268.

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and he viewed the Exhibition as heralding the forthcoming Millennium.17 Some commentators advanced an even stronger connection by citing Chapter 21 from the Book of Revelation. For example, an Anglican clergyman in Liverpool informed his congregants that on entering the Crystal Palace he had recalled the city of gold ‘like unto clear glass . . . and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like unto jasper stone, clear as crystal’ evoked in that biblical passage.18 Likewise, in addressing the advantages that were expected from the Exhibition, the Congregationalist George Clayton quoted at length from Revelation Chapter 21, verses 10–27, to adduce similarities between the Crystal Palace and the new Jerusalem, with its ‘light like that unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal’.19 Many Christians, especially moderate evangelicals, therefore viewed the Exhibition as a significant moment in the history of humankind when the nations assembled for mutual benefit. Trade would increase (aided by the elimination of trade barriers), prosperity would advance, science and technology would make rapid progress, and wars would no longer be fought. But in their view these improvements would occur in tandem with the rapid spread of Christianity. Yet some of these evangelicals conceived the events of 1851 as ushering in not just a materially and morally better world but the new Jerusalem prophesied in the Bible. The Great Exhibition thereby became imbued with prophetic, spiritual significance. It is important to note that, while a few evangelical Anglicans engaged in these futurological speculations, most of the prophets of progress were Dissenters, especially Congregationalists. As will be discussed further in the next chapter, Congregationalists combined a strong emphasis on worldly success, support of Free Trade,20 and an evangelical stress on salvation. The unity of humankind was also an important element in their religious thinking.

INTERNATIONALISM AND PACIFISM At one of his earliest meetings with Henry Cole of the Society of Arts, Prince Albert insisted that the Exhibition ‘must embrace foreign productions . . . international, certainly’.21 Coming so soon after much of mainland Europe had been engulfed in political and social conflict, Albert’s international perspective appealed to many as a means to encourage cooperation between nations and as an aid to securing peace throughout the world. These themes were 17

Wright, England, 10, 12, and 14. Conor, Certain Parts of the Exhibition, 5. Clayton, Great Exhibition, 34–5. 20 On the close link between Free Trade doctrines and the Exhibition see Auerbach, Great Exhibition, 56–69. 21 Cole, Fifty Years, 123–5. 18 19

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emphasized on a number of subsequent occasions, especially at the Mansion House banquet held on 21 March 1850 and attended by representatives from 17 countries and mayors from over 130 British towns. In this widely reprinted speech Albert argued that ‘we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end—to which indeed all history points—the realization of the unity of mankind. (Great cheering).’ He proceeded to reflect on the Exhibition’s potential role to advance ‘peace, love, and ready assistance, not only between individuals but between the nations of the earth’.22 This message was often interpreted as Albert making public a personal commitment to pacifism; thus the Liverpool Peace Society responded by congratulating him on his ‘statesmanlike views, and truly Christian sentiments’.23 A similar conviction was subsequently articulated prominently in one of the Exhibition’s mottos, which Albert borrowed from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1:25): ‘Dissociata locis concordi Pace ligavi.’ [What space has separated, I have united in harmonious peace.] In keeping with Albert’s repeated emphasis on peace, the popular press soon christened the Crystal Palace the ‘Temple of Peace’.24 In this section and the next we explore the ways in which religiously motivated internationalists and pacifists sought to align the Exhibition with their own campaigns. The role of the Exhibition in cementing peace and brotherhood between people of different nations was a favourite theme for religious commentators. Thus the curate of Christ Church, St Pancras, conceived the Exhibition as promoting ‘unity and good-fellowship’, while the rector of St Mary-le-Strand considered that it demonstrated ‘a tendency towards unity in the human species’.25 While there was a widespread sense that the Exhibition heralded a better world and even perhaps the Second Coming, some commentators went beyond these general platitudes and linked the Exhibition firmly to pacifist issues and the imminent prospect of world peace. For example, in a sermon delivered at the Independent chapel in Brompton, John Morison took as his theme ‘The Unity of the Race’. For Morison, a Congregational minister who edited the Evangelical Magazine, the Great Exhibition connoted ‘that vast and friendly gathering of various tribes and tongues’. The Exhibition was, he asserted, a reminder ‘that the family of man is one,—that it has a community of interests, both for the life that now is, and for that which is to come, and that it is linked together by ties which have their origin in the wise and benignant purposes of the Great Creator’. Although many contemporaries firmly believed in the manifest superiority of 22

The Times, 22 March 1850, 5. Liverpool Peace Society to Prince Albert, 5 April 1850: Albert’s Correspondence, vol. 3, item 12. 24 For example, ‘England’s Peace-Offering’, Punch, 28 December 1850, 265. 25 Burrows, Great Exhibition, 7; Denham, Sermon, 8. 23

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Caucasians, Morison argued strongly that the unity of the races was demonstrated both by science and by Revelation. Like several other preachers he adopted Acts 17:26 as his proof text—‘And hath made of one blood all the nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth’. Rather unusually, however, he also cited James Cowles Prichard’s monogenist Natural History of Man in support of ‘the oneness of the Race’. He further noted that the equality of the races was confirmed by the reports of missionaries who demonstrated that, given the opportunity, members of other races were capable of achieving the same high levels of both educational and spiritual attainment as the Caucasian. Having established that we ‘are of one species and [one] family’ created by God, Morison drew several important conclusions. Viewing the slave trade as utterly immoral, he chastised America and various European nations for continuing to engage in it, but praised Britain for having adopted the moral high ground by rejecting slavery. He also censured the widespread repression and elimination of aborigine peoples and their cultures ‘wherever we trace the footsteps of modern civilization’, but especially in America, Australia, and Africa. However, he congratulated Christian missionaries, who were he claimed committed to the unity of humankind, for striving to protect aborigines from such dangers. Furthermore, his view of the unity of races strongly implied that war is both contrary to reason and sinful.26 While secularists could view the gathering of the nations as a benefit to both world peace and international trade, many religious writers viewed the Exhibition as a divinely ordained event that ushered in a new era. Not only would war be vanquished but a religiously inspired brotherhood would be created. The many contemporary publications that aptly transmitted this message included the ornately decorated Memorial of the Great Industrial Exhibition of All Nations (Figure 11, p. 62). The main text, which was printed on a globe representing the earth, proclaimed that ‘God hath made of one blood all nations of men’—taken from Acts 17:26. In order to proclaim this message to the inhabitants of all nations, the Memorial utilized translations in more than a hundred languages. Two other texts dominated the centre of this Memorial: ‘HAVE WE NOT ALL ONE FATHER’ (Mal. 2:10), and ‘Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in Unity!’ (Ps. 133:1) Other biblical quotations, including the frequently cited first verse of Psalm 24, were also printed on the Memorial, together with two engravings of the Exhibition.27 Soon after the grand opening ceremony the politically liberal dissenting British Banner expressed the new sense of brotherhood evoked by the Exhibition:

26 27

Morison, Unity of the Race, passim. Anon., Memorial.

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The Crystal Palace knows no difference between Jew and Greek, Frank and Saxon. In that arena, for the first time in the annals of mankind, the Negro and the Malay, the Sclave and the American, will stand together on equal terms; and merit of its kind will carry away honours of genius, and industry without reference to questions of blood, type or colour. This is a starting point for a true theory of the equality of the nations,— a new era in the history of progress.28

The Nonconformist likewise noted the amiable social mixing inside the Crystal Palace, the Catholic priest and the Anglican clergyman rubbing shoulders with ‘the white cravatted Dissenting minister’; the Quaker with the non-commissioned soldier.29 This view of the Exhibition reflects Timothy Larsen’s contention that during the middle decades of the century Dissenters—especially those of more radical leanings—advanced a principle of religious equality. A theologically grounded commitment to equality underpinned their own claims for fair treatment in such areas as politics and education. They also campaigned for the principle of equality to be extended to people of other religions. For example, while evangelical Dissenters condemned Roman Catholicism as a corrupt religion, many of them nevertheless argued that Catholics should not suffer discrimination in the social and political spheres. Likewise Dissenters sometimes strongly supported the removal of disabilities suffered by Jews and supported the campaign to admit Jews to parliament.30 As the above quotations from the British Banner and the Nonconformist indicate, the Great Exhibition was portrayed as a paradigm example of an institution that accepted equality between peoples; indeed, for these writers, there was the implicit contrast with the many other contexts in which equality was denied. As in Morison’s sermon, the international character of the Exhibition raised the issue of slavery, provocative in both the political and religious arenas. Shortly before the Exhibition opened, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, which published the Anti-Slavery Reporter, addressed an open letter to a number of religious organizations urging them to bar from their pulpits and from fellowship with their churches any visiting Americans who supported slavery. The letter stressed the inhuman treatment meted out to slaves in America who were usually forbidden access to the Bible and to the ministrations of missionaries. Such treatment, it asserted, was ‘surely incompatible with an enlightened view of Divine truth, and [with] the exercise of the benign spirit of the Gospel’. It also estimated that of the three million slaves in America, 660,000 were owned by ministers or members of Protestant churches, including large numbers of slaves owned both by Methodists and by Baptists. While the Anti-Slavery Society sought to exert pressure on 28 29 30

British Banner, 14 May 1851, 329. Nonconformist, 28 May 1851, 424. Larsen, Friends of Religious Equality, 6 and 110–32.

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Figure 33 The controversial statue of a Greek Slave in chains, exhibited in the United States section. The sculptor was Hiram Powers: Illustrated London News, 9 August 1851, 185.

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pro-slavery American visitors, they recommended that those who opposed slavery should be welcomed and given every encouragement. This strong stand against the continuation of slavery in America was soon supported by a number of religious bodies including the Society of Friends, the Baptist Union, the Congregational Union of England and Wales, and the Evangelical Alliance.31 At a soirée held in mid-May 1851 by the Anti-Slavery Society a Congregational minister, William Owen, related that on a recent visit to the American section of the Exhibition he had noticed the absence of whips, chains, or any other repressive artefacts connected with the slave trade. He therefore consulted an American, who replied, ‘The truth is, we should be ashamed to show them.’ Owen also noted that the most prominent exhibit in the American section was a statue of a beautiful Greek slave in chains by the sculptor Hiram Powers (Figure 33). Why, he asked, had the United States selected that sculpture for display in the Exhibition? ‘Was it because it was so emblematical of the state of things in that country?’ Whatever the reason, he hoped that by reminding visitors of the inhumane treatment of slaves in America the presence of Powers’ statue would thereby hasten the end of that brutal system.32 Ironically, while Owen drew a humanitarian lesson from the statue of the Greek slave, others considered its depiction of the naked female form an affront to public decency, as noted above, p. 114. Another abolitionist related his experience in the September 1851 number of the Friend. Having visited the West African section of the Exhibition, the Quaker James Bell argued that the artefacts produced by ‘aborigines’ of that region showed that they possessed a high degree of skill in weaving, embroidery, pottery, dyeing, and many other manual activities. This evidence, he claimed, undermined the assertion by slave-owners that ‘aborigines’ were devoid of intelligence, depraved, and barbaric. He also recognized that as the West Africans clearly possessed the ability to learn, the colonial British should educate them and introduce them to Christianity, rather than cruelly exploit them.33 For Bell and other anti-slavery activists the Exhibition brought the issue of abolition into the very heart of London. While the abolitionists sought to use the Exhibition to support their cause, pacifists were deeply concerned that the organizers would permit the display of weapons of war. One of the earliest calls for the exclusion of weaponry formed part of the Chevalier Bunsen’s speech at the Westminster meeting on 31

160.

Anti-Slavery Reporter n.s. 6 (1851), 69–70, 76–7, 94–5, and 105–6; British Banner 4 (1851),

32 Anti-Slavery Reporter n.s. 6 (1851), 89. See also Monthly Christian Spectator 1 (1851), 315; S. B., ‘The Great Exhibition’, Visitor 16 (1851), 271–4, on 274. 33 James Bell, ‘The Great Exhibition: The Products of the Industry of the Aborigines of the West Coast of Africa’, Friend 9 (1851), 158–60. The address given is that of Jacob Bell, the pharmacist and politician.

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Figure 34 Despite the attempts by Joseph Sturge and others to ban the exhibition of weapons, they were much in evidence, especially in the French section, which included this display of guns: Illustrated London News, 20 September 1851, 369.

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21 February 1850 in which he strongly supported the Exhibition as a means of achieving world peace. Three months later, at its annual meeting the London Peace Society, which was supported mainly by Quakers and other evangelical Dissenters, passed a motion calling on Albert to exert pressure on the Commissioners to ban all instruments of war from the Exhibition, since weapons were ‘utterly at variance with the whole spirit and tendency of the enterprise’. The Peace Society understood Albert to have embraced pacifist ideals in his Mansion House speech of 21 March 1850 and to have portrayed the Exhibition ‘as being, in effect, a World’s Peace Convention under another name’. Likewise, a Quaker writing in the June 1850 number of the Art-Journal quoted Albert’s speech approvingly and proposed that ‘no weapon of international warfare shall be admitted into the coming Exhibition’. By banning such weapons, ‘nations professing Christianity may, in the exercise of “peace, love, and ready assistance to each other,” give evidence of faith by their works’.34 A further example is provided by a letter in the Nonconformist from an operative from Norfolk forthrightly arguing that, in the light of pacifist views expressed by Albert, the admission of armaments to the Exhibition ‘may justly be designated a gigantic inconsistency’. To exclude ‘mechanical life-destroyers from the Industrial Exhibition would’, he asserted, show ‘a desire for peace on the part of England, which could not fail to have a beneficial effect’ on the rest of the world. Moreover, the exclusion of weapons ‘will fulfil the prophecy of the sacred volume, and hasten the period “when men shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks”’. Such sentiments were warmly endorsed by religious periodicals like the Nonconformist and the British Friend.35 In keeping with these sentiments one Congregational minister pointed out that the real heroes of the Exhibition were the inventors, the manufacturers, and the artisans, not the military men who were usually feted at such public events.36 While Dissenters were prominent in supporting the pacifist cause, Anglicans rarely voiced concern about the display of guns and other armaments, perhaps because the 37th Article of Faith permitted members of the Church ‘at the commandment of a Magistrate to wear weapons and serve in the wars’.37 Following the Peace Society’s motion to press ‘the commissioners to exclude [from the Exhibition] such weapons as were constructed only for the destruction of human life’, the Quaker MP Joseph Sturge wrote to Albert urging him 34 ‘Industrial Exhibition of 1851’, The Times, 22 February 1850, 8; ‘The Exhibition of All Nations’, The Times, 22 March 1850, 5; Art-Journal 12 (1850), 192. 35 Missionary Register 38 (1850), 268–9; ‘Exclusion of Weapons of War from the Great Exhibition of 1851’, British Friend 8 (1850) 170; Nonconformist, 19 June 1850, 494; 17 July 1851, 571. 36 Martin, Useful Arts, 13. 37 One of the few Anglicans explicitly to object to the inclusion of weaponry in the Exhibition was the Broad Churchman Joshua Denham. See Denham, Sermon, 6.

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to persuade them to impose a ban. However, this attempt to influence the Commissioners was rendered ineffective as Sturge’s letter was not forwarded to the full Commission but only to one of its members, the fellow radical MP Richard Cobden, who sympathized with Sturge’s views. Accompanying Sturge’s letter to Cobden was a note from Charles Grey, Albert’s private secretary, to Colonel William Reid, who chaired the Executive Committee, instructing Cobden to respond on behalf of the Commissioners, but also insisting that ‘the way to preserve peace was to perfect instruments of human destruction!’—a view that Cobden could not countenance. Placed in a difficult position, he avoided commenting on the issue by pleading that if he endorsed this argument he would ‘be beaten by the Quakers’. In responding to Reid he also insisted that although members of Peace societies were conscience bound to try to ban the display of weapons, they ‘are much in love with the Exhibition & will not fail to give it all the help in their power’. Yet it is clear that Cobden was not willing to exert much pressure on his fellow Commissioners since, as he told Sturge, ‘I feel so much for the Prince’s difficulties [in trying to organize the Exhibition in the face of stiff opposition], & am so much in love with the project as a whole’. But Cobden was even less active in seeking to ban weapons than his letter to Sturge would suggest, since he did not inform Sturge that in replying to Reid he had advised the Prince’s secretary merely to ‘acknowledge the receipt [of Sturge’s letter], & there let it rest’. It would appear that, owing to Albert’s firm intention to include weapons in the Exhibition and Cobden’s own diffidence, the Peace Society’s proposal was never considered by the Commissioners.38 Although the Commissioners were able to ignore the call to ban weapons of war from the Exhibition, the issue subsequently surfaced sporadically in the press. Lobbying by pacifists had no impact on the Exhibition itself, which included a whole class—Class VIII, ‘Naval Architecture, Military Engineering, Guns, Weapons, etc.’—that included numerous swords, sabres, rifles, pistols, double-barrelled guns, air rifles, and even a waterproof gun (Figure 34). Many weapons were also exhibited on the foreign stands, including matchlocks, battle axes, swords, and spears on the East Indies display and Samuel Colt’s technically advanced firearms in the United States section.39 For all their approval of the pacifist rhetoric generated by the Exhibition, pacifists could not fully reconcile themselves to a Crystal Palace that resembled a well-stocked armoury.

38 ‘Peace Society’, The Times, 22 May 1850, 7; Richard Cobden to William Reid, 8 June 1850: Albert’s Correspondence, vol. 3, item 127; Richard Cobden to Joseph Sturge, [25 June 1850?]: Joseph Sturge Correspondence, ff. 186–7. See also Auerbach, Great Exhibition, 161–5; Nicholls, ‘Richard Cobden’; Tyrell, ‘Making the Millennium’. 39 Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue, 1: 333–63; 2: 911; 3: 1454.

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Figure 35 David Brewster reading his presidential address before the Peace Congress in Exeter Hall: Illustrated London News, 2 August 1851, 144.

THE 1851 PEACE CONGRESS The main point of contact between the Exhibition and the peace activists was the 1851 Peace Congress. Although there had been earlier attempts to form peace movements in Britain, the first long-lasting organization in this area was the Peace Society, which was founded in 1816 principally in response to the war with France. Its activities expanded significantly in the 1840s with a series of international peace congresses, the first of which was held in England in the summer of 1843. This was followed by congresses in Brussels (1848), Paris (1849), and Frankfurt.40 Some British pacifists were dissatisfied by the choice of Frankfurt in 1850. Thus Cobden informed Joseph Sturge that he was not surprised to hear that the congress had been ‘muzzled’: ‘We were wrong to decide to go to a place where there is a practical violation of all our peace principles—where three foreign armies hold possession of the town.’41 Cobden and other British pacifists pressed for the following year’s congress to be held in London, which they considered to be a venue more conducive to advancing the cause of international peace. As one of the Royal 40

For the history of Peace Congresses and especially the 1851 London Congress, see Ceadel, Origins of War Prevention, esp. 415–69, which focuses on Cobden’s role. 41 Richard Cobden to Joseph Sturge, [15 July 1850?]: Joseph Sturge Correspondence, ff. 191–2; See also Nicholls, ‘Richard Cobden’.

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Commissioners for the 1851 Exhibition Cobden was particularly conscious of the potential offered by the Exhibition for extending both Free Trade and peace. As he noted in the summer of 1850, ‘the Peace Party . . . [are] the best friends of the Exhibition’.42 Likewise, at its anniversary meeting in May 1850, the Peace Society expressed its satisfaction at the prospect of the Exhibition being held in London in the following year.43 Another contemporary peace group was the League of Universal Brotherhood, which had been founded in 1846 by the American Elihu Burritt. He had earlier been a Congregationalist, but while continuing to maintain a moderate evangelicalism he was increasingly adopting an ecumenical humanist position. Although not a Quaker, he was greatly influenced by Quaker ideals and worked closely with a number of Friends on pacifist issues.44 From the autumn of 1850 Burritt’s Bond of Brotherhood, the League’s monthly publication, carried enthusiastic predictions about the Exhibition’s significance for world peace. Thus the October 1850 issue trumpeted the ‘great Exposition’ as ‘the great practical Peace Demonstration’. The next issue portrayed the Exhibition as encouraging ‘the voice of true and heartfelt brotherhood that calls to foreigners of all countries, and invites them to meet at the great treasurehouse of science and art in Hyde Park’.45 Quakers were prominent in both organizations. Although the British Quaker press had been rather slow in commenting on the implications of the Exhibition for pacifism, an editorial in the Friend for the fifth month (May) 1851 welcomed the Exhibition, which it heralded as ‘a coming time when ideas of friendship and useful industry shall replace the bitterness of jealousy and the curse of war among civilized nations’.46 A report of the opening ceremony published in the following month’s Friend emphasized the same theme, the writer recounting that a young child had run out among the honoured guests, transfixed by them and by the opulent surroundings; the image of childhood innocence here symbolized the love, unity, and pacifism that characterized the Exhibition. Representatives of many nations, willingly gathered together at the Exhibition, were thus prepared to abandon their traditional antagonisms and work together in harmony. The ‘great characteristic of this Congress of Nations’, claimed this author, is ‘Peace’.47 Sturge likewise reflected in a contemporary letter that it is ‘highly encouraging

42

Cobden to Sturge, [25 June 1850?]: Joseph Sturge Correspondence, ff. 186–7. The Times, 22 May 1850, 7. 44 Ceadel, Origins of War Prevention, 356–413, esp. 370–1. 45 ‘The Bazaar of 1851’, Elihu Burritt’s Bond of Brotherhood n.s., 3 (October 1850), 35; ‘Work for the Winter’, ibid. 4 (November 1850), 47–8. 46 Friend 9 (1851), 89. 47 ‘The Opening of the Great Exhibition’, Friend 9 (1851), 99–100. 43

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to see that the newspapers of all parties seem to treat the Great Exhibition as a great step on the side of Permanent & Universal Peace’.48 The Fifth Peace Congress was held at Exeter Hall, some two miles distant from the Crystal Palace, in late July 1851. In excess of a thousand British delegates, as well as representatives from several other countries, including more than sixty from America, converged on Exeter Hall. The report subsequently published by the Peace Society stressed that the participants included many who were notable ‘for their scientific, literary, and theological attainments’. Among the participants were more than 200 ministers drawn from various denominations.49 The Crystal Palace exerted a magnetic attraction over the whole of London and shaped the rhetoric deployed by the peace delegates at Exeter Hall. For many of them the Peace Congress and Albert’s ‘Temple of Peace’ merged into a unified vision. Even in his opening remarks the physicist and Scottish Free Churchman David Brewster, who occupied the presidential chair, conceived the Exhibition as a harbinger of the epoch of peace and harmony, which, he claimed, ‘we are doubtless rapidly nearing’ (Figure 35). He proceeded to describe the Exhibition as ‘the first Temple of Peace that modern hands have reared’. Brewster considered that Albert’s motto for the Exhibition— quoted above—should also ‘be our [the Congress’s] motto, and to realize it is to be our work’.50 The confluence in London of these two momentous events provided a recurrent theme. Thus one contributor to the proceedings likened the Crystal Palace to the Tower of Babel, since both gathered together into a single brotherhood speakers from many different languages. At another point in the proceedings a group of fifteen French working men, who had been sent to London by Victor Hugo and other philanthropists, was shepherded towards the dais. Their presence was intended to show that artisans would benefit both from visiting the Exhibition and from the outcome of the Congress. Reporting on the Congress, the editor of the British Friend likewise noted its alignment with Albert’s Exhibition: ‘And once more [following the 1850 Frankfurt Congress] this light [of peace] has been concentrated in a focus, in that city where the gathering of the people of all nations to share in the Industrial Jubilee of 1851 affords the best omen of the approaching realization of the brotherhood of nations.’51 The role of Elihu Burritt deserves particular attention since he not only conceived a clear link between the Exhibition and the Congress, but understood their historical conjunction in prophetic terms. In a journal entry for the 48

Joseph Sturge to Joseph Clark, 17 May 1851, quoted in Tyrell, Joseph Sturge, 199–200. Report of the Proceedings of the Fourth General Peace Congress, 3. Ibid. 11–15; ‘London Peace Congress’, British Friend 9 (1851), 173–92, on 179. 51 Ibid. 173. Reports of the Congress appeared in the Friend 9 (1851), 141–53; British Friend 9 (1851), 173–92. For Robert Charleton’s account of the Congress see Fox, Memoir of Robert Charleton, 41–2. 49 50

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start of 1851—which, he noted, marked the midpoint of the nineteenth century—he speculated about how the forthcoming decades would unfold. The prospect for peace he considered to be highly encouraging since ‘The Great Exhibition, and the Peace Congress in London, are to inaugurate its first year’s progress.’52 On another occasion Burritt drew attention to ‘the happy omen, indicated by the Great Industrial Exhibition, of a brotherhood of nations’.53 Writing in the January issue of the Bond of Brotherhood, his close colleague Edmund Fry (the Quaker Secretary of the League of Brotherhood) likewise predicted: ‘What a year for peace, for brotherhood, will 1851 be; the Peace Congress in the month of July, will give point and purpose to all the floating sentiments of peace that avowedly attach themselves to the great industrial exhibition.’54 During his stay in London Burritt paid several visits to the Exhibition. He was overawed by the splendour and magnificence of Paxton’s Crystal Palace, the ‘stupendous display’ of the exhibits, and the confluence of people of all classes and nations. As he wrote in his journal: ‘It will stand out from ordinary events with illustrious prominence. It has filled my mind with the most pleasing auguries and anticipations of the future. How thankful should I be that I have been permitted to this great year! It will be one to date from in human progress.’55 In similar vein he wrote to a Quaker correspondent on the day of the opening ceremony: What a day this [is] in the history of humanity! My heart palpitates with its anticipations. May the Father of all the Families of the earth smile with the love-light of his countenance on the Gathering of the Nations this day; that it may become the inauguration of the era of universal brotherhood. . . . All our hopes and labours and expectations ought to take new animation and impulse after this, and to expand into full assurance of faith that ‘the good time coming’ is near at hand.56

In his speech at the Congress Burritt likewise noted that ‘the lines of the Great Exhibition, and the annual Peace Congress of Christendom, have already merged into the great highway of peace and harmonious brotherhood. It is not our doing. It is the work of Divine Providence, and it is marvellous in our eyes.’57 He was also present at the closing ceremony on 11 October and left a full and enthusiastic account of this ‘great day in the history of the world’.58

52 Elihu Burritt’s Journal, entry for 1 January 1851. On Burritt see Ceadel, Origins of War Prevention, 356–413; Tolis, Elihu Burritt, 213. 53 British Friend 9 (1851), 195–6. 54 E.F., ‘A New Year’s Greeting’, Elihu Burritt’s Bond of Brotherhood n.s., 6 (January 1851), 72. 55 Elihu Burritt’s Journal, entry for 27 September 1851. 56 Burritt to Anna Mary Southall, 1 May 1851: Elihu Burritt’s Letters to Anna M. Southall 1850–6, ff. 25–8. 57 ‘London Peace Congress’, British Friend 9 (1851), 191–2. 58 Elihu Burritt’s Journal, entry for 11 October 1851.

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Like a number of other pacifists Burritt considered that the Exhibition marked the start of a new era in world history, when the aura of peace and international cooperation would displace the old world of warring nations. While human willpower had an important role to play in ushering in this new age, Burritt’s vision was deeply religious. The gathering of the nations in London was part of a divinely ordained plan and the fulfilment of prophecy. A new age was just beginning.

8 The Exhibition: Close and Retrospect THE CLOSING CEREMONIES Saturday 11 October 1851 was a beautiful day. It was warm, the sun shone, and a large high-spirited crowd descended on the Crystal Palace. According to the official figures, 53,016 were admitted on that day. As 5pm approached there was a heightened sense of excitement as people crowded into the nave, transept, and central galleries. The crowd grew silent as they waited for ‘the last act of a great event, immortal in the annals of the 19th century’. Shortly before the appointed hour, Osler’s great crystal fountain that dominated the nave was turned off and the rush of water silenced. Exactly on the hour, a red flag was waved and organ music, accompanied by tens of thousands of voices, burst forth with the National Anthem. Men threw their hats into the air, women their bonnets. Following what The Times described as ‘a very discordant demonstration of loyalty’, the assembled crowd uttered a sustained cheer lasting several minutes. A great peal of bells then shook the building and the crowd joined in with singing, shouting, and general merriment. Buoyed by the euphoria, a noisy good-natured crowd lingered in the Palace of Crystal that they had come to love during the previous five and a half months.1 Slowly, however, they trickled out to wend their way home. One of those present, the American pacifist Elihu Burritt, enthusiastically recorded in his diary: ‘It was a beautiful autumnal evening as I crossed Hyde park, I turned around frequently to look at the great Crystal Palace which arose sublime in the still golden twilight, and seemed glorious in its transfiguration, as if heaven embosomed it with the halo of its smile, as the Temple of Universal Brotherhood.’2 For him the whole Exhibition, but especially this closing event, was a good omen for the progressive extension of peace throughout the world.

1

The Times, 13 October 1851, 5. Elihu Burritt’s Journal, 11 October 1851. Burritt provides a rather different order of events from that given in The Times of 13 October 1851. However, H.S., writing in the Friend (9 (1851), 203), was less impressed by the closing ceremony. 2

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Four days later the weather was foul. It rained heavily all day. Yet Wednesday 15 October had been chosen by the Commissioners as the day for the official closing ceremony. Some 25,000 rain-soaked people sat in the now lifeless and partly emptied building. These were not the revellers who had packed the building the previous Saturday but mainly those with a formal connection to the Exhibition, such as exhibitors, members of the numerous local committees, and of the various juries. At noon a procession led by Prince Albert and other Royal Commissioners entered to the singing of the National Anthem by the Sacred Harmonic Society. Viscount Canning opened the proceedings with a long speech summarizing the many achievements of the Exhibition. The reports of juries were received and long lists of medal winners were read, to the accompaniment of occasional disapproving murmurs, especially from foreign dignitaries. Then it was Albert’s turn to thank everyone who had contributed to the Exhibition’s success. When he returned to his seat the second verse of the National Anthem was sung. The Bishop of London, Charles Blomfield, then rose to offer a prayer of thanksgiving and the lengthy proceedings concluded with the Hallelujah Chorus, before the guests trooped out into the pouring rain.3 Although there had been no explicit religious content to the public celebrations on the Saturday, the formal closing ceremony was rounded off by the Bishop Blomfield’s prayer, thus creating symmetry with the benediction offered by the Archbishop of Canterbury at the opening on 1 May. Some ten days before the closing ceremony, Albert had broached the matter with the Bishop: ‘A very general wish has been expressed,’ he wrote, ‘that the formal closing of the Exhibition . . . sh[oul]d not pass without a proper acknowledgement being made to Almighty God of the signal manner in which he has blessed the undertaking: and I know of no more suitable mode, than asking you to offer a Prayer of thanks at the close of our proceedings on that day.’4 In his reply Blomfield concurred with Albert’s proposal for including a thanksgiving prayer, adding that it was ‘with a deep feeling on my own part of the propriety of such an acknowledgment of the Divine goodness in having so signally prospered an undertaking’.5 The referent of the last phrase is unclear but seems to imply that God had bestowed His favour on England and on the Exhibition and that He was responsible for its manifest success. This was certainly the widely held view among evangelicals, one of whom stated that ‘we are bound to lift up our hearts in gratitude to the Almighty for graciously accepting’ the Archbishop’s prayer at the opening ceremony and ‘in the unprecedented prosperity He has vouchsafed for our Christian efforts. Such

3 4 5

The Times, 16 October 1851, 2. Albert to Bishop of London, 5 October 1851: Albert’s Correspondence, vol. 8, item 71. Bishop of London to Albert, 7 October 1851: ibid. item 79.

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a devotional and public acknowledgement [in the closing ceremony] of His goodness to us, would tend to sanctify the Great Exhibition’.6 Towards the end of his speech at the closing ceremony Albert, too, expressed his deep gratitude to God for ‘the blessing He has vouchsafed to our labours’ and asked His assistance in further enhancing unity among the nations and in spreading peace and goodwill among all men. The theme of peace likewise featured prominently in the Bishop’s prayer of thanksgiving. We should, argued Blomfield, show our appreciation to God for having ‘graciously prospered the councils of him [Albert] who conceived, and those who carried out, that great design’. Under God’s care the Exhibition had been a great success; it had been ‘an undertaking designed to exhibit the glories of Thy creation, [and] to promote the useful exercise of those faculties Thou hast implanted in the sons of men’. God was likewise thanked for having protected those who had attended the Exhibition—the Bishop was presumably keen to counter earlier predictions that a terrible disaster would occur. Having offered prayers for the Royal family and wished the visitors a safe passage home under God’s protection, the Bishop concluded by reciting the Lord’s Prayer.7 The service held at Exeter Hall on 6 November 1851 under the chairmanship of Samuel Morley, the eminent businessman and Congregationalist, provided a further occasion for Christians—in this case principally moderate evangelicals—‘gratefully to recognize the Divine hand in the various circumstances which led to the Great Exhibition; in the auspicious manner in which it terminated; and in the success of the Sabbath Services held’ in Exeter Hall during the time of the Exhibition.8 That a thanksgiving service should have been held at all—and was ‘very numerously attended’—indicates the importance that these evangelicals attached to the Exhibition. The speakers particularly expressed appreciation of God’s aid in the design and execution of the Exhibition. They were also delighted that none of the dire predictions made prior to the opening had occurred. There had been no riots—it was even noted that Londoners had been more congenial than usual—the Queen had not been attacked, no balloons had crashed into the Crystal Palace,9 London had not been overwhelmed by foreigners, and no terrible diseases had been imported and spread throughout the land. In the light of these many possible calamities, the organizers now thanked God for maintaining His watchful care over the Exhibition and for preventing disasters. Moreover, because of Albert’s religious sensibility and especially his invitation to the Archbishop of Canterbury 6

Letter from Henry Tudor, Record, 9 October 1851, 4. See also letter from Clericus Cantabrigiensis, Record, 13 October 1851, 4. 7 The Times, 16 October 1851, 2. 8 ‘The Great Exhibition: A Thanksgiving Service at Exeter Hall’, in Forty-Four Sermons, 549. 9 However, a balloon, piloted by the ‘celebrated aëronaut’ Mrs Graham, nearly collided with the Crystal Palace on 16 June. Instead it crashed into a house on Arlington Street, Piccadilly: The Times, 17 June 1851, 5.

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to offer a benediction at the opening ceremony, the Exhibition had been a thoroughly Christian event and one that had clearly been pleasing to God. Yet not only was the Exhibition interpreted as part of God’s plan but the services held at Exeter Hall throughout the period were also seen as divinely inspired. Many souls had been rescued from perdition and aided on their path to salvation. As Morley noted in his introductory speech, ‘we cannot but believe that, accompanied by the blessing of Almighty God, much lasting good was effected’ by the services and preaching at Exeter Hall. Other speakers referred to the ‘blessed results’ and to the increase in morality and religiosity that the services had engendered.10 While much of the religious press joined with the organizers and the speakers at Exeter Hall in celebrating the successful conclusion of the Exhibition and thanking God for supporting a project that appeared to enhance both Britain’s prosperity and its commitment to Christianity, a few periodicals rejected this consensus. For example, the editor of the Tablet focused his criticism on what he scathingly called the ‘ “appropriate prayer” by the Superintendent of London’ at the closing ceremony. The editor, Frederick Lucas, also argued that, being worldly men who lacked any real commitment to religion, the Commissioners were not keen to introduce religion into the ceremony. Yet they had felt it expedient to accept the demands of the English establishment, ‘many of whom are never seen in “a place of worship”, and whose notions of religion would puzzle the most acute analysis of mental hallucinations’. The Commissioners therefore ‘consented to a small portion of religion—the very smallest possible, and which, if it were omitted, would not be missed’. According to the Tablet, the Bishop’s recitation of a short and spiritually vacuous prayer merely emphasized the hypocrisy of introducing religion into a manifestly secular event and showed ‘how very slight is the value they put on the religious ministrations of the men whom they make and call their Bishops’. Nor could Lucas adduce any reason for celebration, since the Exhibition had left a trail of misery in its path. For many the Exhibition had been a curse, not a blessing. For example, the well-established stall holders in Hyde Park had been forced to move and, as the widely reported case of Ann Hicks had shown, some had been reduced to poverty. There were also many exhibitors who had failed to gain the orders they expected and had witnessed the awarding of medals to rivals with vastly inferior products. Even the great chorus of international unity and fraternity seemed fragile. ‘The great tragedies of the world have been preceded by great comedies’, noted the Tablet. Lucas concluded by speculating whether countries that had extended the hand of friendship in 1851 would still be allies of Britain in 1852.11 10 11

‘The Great Exhibition: A Thanksgiving Service at Exeter Hall’, in Forty-Four Sermons, 550–64. Tablet, 18 October 1851, 666. See also Tablet, 26 July 1851, 469; 2 August 1851, 490.

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Another periodical that refused to condone the public euphoria on the final evening was the ultra-evangelical Record. Although the editor acknowledged that the Exhibition had resulted in various moral benefits, such as raising the dignity of labour and reducing the barriers between social classes, he urged that ‘the hour of prosperity calls eminently for watchfulness and prayer’ as the British people had now to confront many serious problems, such as the further and rapid encroachment of Catholicism, the moral weakness of the Whig administration, and the need to bring Christianity to the many millions of heathens throughout the world. In the editor’s opinion the Exhibition had been a distraction from these pressing issues. While most of the population was lulled into a false sense of security, Britain was being ‘weighed in the balances of heaven. Shall we be found wanting?’ he asked rhetorically.12 A few weeks later, in his final editorial of 1851, the editor of the Record focused attention on a recent development that posed a deadly challenge to the vision of Christian brotherhood: The year 1851 closes with a fact perhaps even more instructive than the Great Exhibition. A nation which boasts to be at the head of human progress, with a Constitution professedly based on the abstract rights of man, with civil liberty, religious equality, the ballot, and universal suffrage, by a majority of votes, nearly as ten to one, reigns all its powers unconditionally into the hand of a military usurpation, as the only refuge from utter anarchy and social ruin. Such is the last result, in France, of sixty years’ progress without the Bible.13

Napoleon III had recently staged a coup d’état, predicated on the many internal divisions within France and a significant contribution to international tensions. The promise of peace and improved understanding between the nations, that the proponents of the Exhibition had so enthusiastically promoted, seemed rapidly to have dissipated. A contributor to the December 1851 issue of the more moderate Evangelical Magazine perceived the state of the world very differently. In an article entitled ‘Reflections on the Close of the Year 1851’ he identified two events that had dominated the closing year. One was the spread of Catholicism, which Protestants were urged to meet head-on. The other was the Exhibition, which he claimed was responsible for spreading ‘the priceless benefits of Christianity’ throughout the world. Countless visitors to London had been exposed to the beneficial influence of the Gospels. Christian missions abroad would appreciate the long-term effects as foreign visitors returned home and reported to their compatriots the impressive effects of the Christian religion as practised in England: ‘They went out morally and religiously blind, they returned seeing. They came to England the enemies of God and of the Redeemer, but they 12 13

Record, 13 October 1851, 4. Ibid. 29 December 1851, 4.

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departed . . . the true friends of Him who died on Calvary.’ For this optimistic evangelical the Exhibition represented a catalyst in spreading Christ’s message and a major step in the evangelization of the whole world.14 This writer reflected a view of the Exhibition shared by many contemporary evangelicals. Beyond its function as a World Fair displaying the most impressive examples of arts and manufactures, the Exhibition was the centrepiece of ‘the year of our redemption, One thousand eighteen hundred and fifty-one’—to quote an earlier contributor to the Evangelical Magazine.15 What contrasting perceptions! Even after the close of the Exhibition the various religious denominations viewed its significance so differently. But it should also be remembered that a little over two years later, Britain, France, and Russia were embroiled in one of the most bloody and costly wars of the nineteenth century—the Crimean War (1854–6). Then, in 1857, the Indian Uprising resulted in Muslims and Hindus butchering their British rulers, who in turn slaughtered vast numbers of Muslims and Hindus. In the process the Mughal empire was destroyed. In Delhi in particular the antipathy towards the British was intensified by the presence of evangelicals who were determined to convert these ‘heathens’ to Christianity, while Muslim jihadis proclaimed holy war on the infidel Christian invader.16 By then the pious vision of world peace promoted by Albert, the Exhibition, and the 1851 Peace Congress had largely evaporated. *** The Exhibition left many legacies, although world peace was not among them. There were, for example, a small number of educational books produced by the religious publishing societies. These books had a much longer shelf life than the numerous tracts and other publications produced specifically for visitors to the Exhibition. Instead they were intended for the use of teachers, students, and artisans, some of whom would have attended the Exhibition. For example, soon after the Exhibition closed, the SPCK’s General Literature and Education Committee published Notes and Sketches of Lessons on Subjects Connected with the Great Exhibition, which supplied teachers with classroom topics based on exhibits that both teachers and pupils might have seen at the Crystal Palace. Thus the Canadian, Italian, and Russian sections of the Exhibition provided teachers with reflections on the geography, agriculture, and industry of those countries, while the exhibits of peat, stuffed lions, and the

T.W., ‘Reflections on the Close of the Year 1851’, Evangelical Magazine n.s. 29 (1851), 759–65, on 761 and 762. 15 J.K.F., ‘The Duty of British Christians at the Present Season, to Implore the Spiritual Advantage of the Foreigners who may Visit the Metropolis’, Evangelical Magazine n.s. 29 (1851), 404–8, on 408. 16 ‘Paris Exhibition’, United Presbyterian Magazine n.s. 11 (1867), 95; Dalrymple, Last Mughal. 14

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Indian elephant could form the basis of natural history lessons laced with strong doses of natural theology. The lesson on ‘The Gathering of the Nations’ assumed that the teacher and pupils were standing inside the Crystal Palace observing the perambulations of visiting foreigners. It raised for discussion the long-term influence of the Exhibition, suggesting that visitors would not only have gained knowledge of secular topics but also have become more tolerant of people from other nations. According to the author, visitors could not fail to have been impressed by the English Sabbath and by the beneficial effects of religion on the British population.17 The SPCK also published the 400-page volume The Industry of Nations, as Exemplified in the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was intended to uphold the dignity of trades and manufacture. The opening chapters provided a history of the Exhibition and discussed the construction of the Crystal Palace in considerable detail. The text then surveyed some of the exhibits, ranging from the model of an ‘Indian hut’ from Trinidad, ‘with its primitive and simple furniture’, to the ‘extremely interesting and remarkable’ pottery jar from Portugal, and Osler’s great crystal fountain that had formed the centrepiece within the Palace. Although several of the chapters made no mention of religion, in others the Exhibition was clearly portrayed as having been subject to God’s beneficent care. The progress of science and technology was likewise given a religious dimension, being portrayed as part of God’s beneficent plan—a plan in which Protestant England was accorded the leading role. These two books, which were published after the Exhibition closed, demonstrate that the SPCK valued the Crystal Palace as an enduring source for the technological and moral education of artisans.18 Similarly, in order to ‘render the Exhibition interesting and useful, especially to young men’, the YMCA published The Useful Arts under the editorship of Samuel Martin, a Congregational minister. In the opening chapter Martin stressed that the Exhibition’s aim was improvement: ‘to stimulate industrial progress, to elevate the position and to increase the perfection of the useful arts’. With five chapters on the history of technology, this volume was a concerted effort by several writers, from both the Established Church and Dissent, to celebrate the value of labour and to locate scientific and technological progress within a Christian framework.19 Such examples indicate that organizations like the RTS and the YMCA were enthusiastic promulgators of popular science and technology, aimed especially at artisans. Their involvement in this area was in part a reaction against the success of secular educational publishers, like the Society for the Diffusion of 17

SPCK, Notes and Sketches. SPCK, Industry of Nations, esp. 1, 158–63, 209, 233–4, and 266–8. See also [Newcombe], Fireside Facts. 19 Martin, Useful Arts, x and 34. 18

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Useful Knowledge and the stridently secular press, that were becoming very successful in attracting the working classes. In part, too, it represents a noticeable intellectual shift among evangelicals who were becoming less suspicious of science and technology by the mid-century. In the three works discussed above, science and technology were rendered safe and acceptable by being subsumed within a religious framework.20 *** Long before the Exhibition closed there had been widespread discussion about the future of the building, which had become a much-loved landmark. It was subsequently decided that although the Crystal Palace would continue to exist as a public venue it would be sold to a private company and moved to another location. Many religious commentators were concerned lest appropriated for ungodly purposes it would add further to the moral decay of London. The main religious apprehension was whether the Crystal Palace would be open on the Sabbath. Galvanized by the Commissioners’ earlier decision to close the Exhibition on Sundays, a volley of religiously motivated pamphlets and articles in the religious press entered the fray. The vast majority of religious publications supported the Sabbatarian position and argued that if the Crystal Palace were to open its doors on Sundays, religion would further lose its influence, especially among the working classes. To assist this vocal lobby the Baptist Magazine even reprinted a widely circulated petition addressed to the Prime Minister, the Earl of Derby, insisting that a clause be inserted into the contract with the Crystal Palace Company prohibiting admission on Sundays. Although the Earl of Shaftsbury had earlier expressed severe reservations about the purposes to which the Crystal Palace might be put, he chaired a well-attended meeting at Exeter Hall on 27 April 1852 at which he supported the plan to place the building under the control of a responsible board of trustees. The working classes, he insisted, would benefit from the Palace being used for educational and appropriate recreational purposes, and he urged employers to give their workers a ‘half-holiday’ on the Saturday so that they could avail themselves of these facilities. Sundays, however, were strictly for religious activities.21 However, a minority of religious writers saw some virtue in opening the Palace on Sundays. For example, the Unitarian Christian Reformer argued that Sabbath activity was a matter of personal choice and should not be dictated by governmental fiat. It also sided with a pamphleteer who considered that it would be better for weary labourers, who were not regular churchgoers, to 20 See Fyfe, Science and Salvation; Topham, ‘Science and Popular Education’; Topham, ‘Science, Natural Theology’; Topham, ‘The Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine’. 21 For example, Anon., Removal of the Crystal Palace; Cumming, Sunday; Baptist Magazine 44 (1852), 700; ‘The Crystal Palace’, The Times, 28 April 1852, 8. See also Larsen, Friends of Religious Equality, 195–6.

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spend their day of rest at the Crystal Palace with their families, rather than dissipating themselves in the alehouse.22 The large number of publications devoted to this issue deserves a separate study. Early in 1852 the building was sold, demolished, and then re-erected at Sydenham in south London. Reopened by the Queen in June 1854 it was dedicated to moral and intellectual education. Some permanent displays were constructed, most famously Waterhouse Hawkins’s models of dinosaurs, and the building was also used for large-scale events, especially for the very popular festivals of Handel’s music. Those who in early 1851 had predicted the destruction of the building had to wait until 1866, when the north transept burnt down. Yet the Crystal Palace continued to exist until 1936, when the whole building was destroyed by fire.23 By then, however, the Crystal Palace had lost its sparkle and its former glory and become something of a white elephant.

R E L I G I O U S D I V E RS I T Y At the outset we posed the question: How did the religious world respond to the Exhibition? It is clear that there was no single unified view of the Exhibition from across the religious spectrum; instead, religious commentators were among the Exhibition’s strongest advocates and also its most determined detractors. In this concluding section the dominant position of some of the main parties and denominations will be reviewed. As noted in the introductory chapter the religious positions of individual authors are sometimes not ascertainable; therefore, most of the evidence presented below will be taken from periodical publications that were aligned with identifiable religious groups. The Anglican Church displayed a wide range of responses to the Exhibition. Although initially fearful that the Exhibition would attract foreign radicals and ferment working-class discontent, many High Anglicans came to approve of the Exhibition as a national success from which all classes could derive benefit. Thus the editor of the Guardian, who had earlier been critical of some of the Commission’s proposals, deemed the Exhibition a great success, both materially and morally, and even recommended clergy to bring their congregations, since ‘few expedients could be suggested more suitable for improving, and, in the best sense, educating their poorer parishioners’.24 By contrast, John Bull, which reflected the views of a more reactionary section within High 22 23 24

E.H.H., ‘Sunday Blessings to Body and Soul’, Christian Reformer 97 (1853), 1–28. Auerbach, Great Exhibition, 193–231; Beaver, Crystal Palace; Hobhouse, Crystal Palace. ‘The Treasures of the Exhibition’, Guardian, 14 May 1851, 344.

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Anglicanism, managed to muster a few words of faint praise for the Exhibition, but generally found the whole enterprise distasteful: it objected to the Hyde Park site, to Paxton’s design, to the Archbishop’s prayer at the opening ceremony, to visiting foreigners who posed a danger to religion, to the Exhibition’s championing of Free Trade, and much else. Taken together, the Guardian and John Bull probably encompass the range of High Church attitudes to the Exhibition. It is noticeable that neither endorsed the view that the gathering of nations would enhance world peace and brotherhood, nor did these periodicals attribute prophetic meaning to the Exhibition as a prolegomena either to the Apocalypse or to the Second Coming. By contrast, the evangelical wing of the Church of England was responsive to the wider religious significance of the Exhibition. Evangelicals, however, were divided over precisely what it connoted. For some, especially the more radical pre-millennialist evangelicals, a clear link existed between the impiety of Babylon that resulted in its downfall and the increasing ungodliness and material affluence of their own time. The Exhibition was therefore a sign of the approaching Apocalypse—a view shared by some of the anonymous pamphleteers, including J. G. Bellett from the ultra-evangelical Plymouth Brethren. For more moderate Anglican evangelicals it promised greater peace, brotherhood, and the prospect of spreading the Gospel message to heathens, thus bringing closer Christ’s Second Coming. Such evangelicals were generally enthusiastic about the Exhibition, although they also repeatedly insisted that it was merely an event in the mundane world and lacked profound significance, especially when compared with the importance of gaining salvation and living a devout Christian life, including obedience to the law of Sabbath rest. Even the Record, which often reflected the more extreme positions within Anglican evangelicalism, supported the Exhibition and carried extensive reports on its progress and contents. It was, however, highly critical of the Commissioners for allowing nude statues to be displayed and also feared that ungodly radicals would use the Exhibition for disruptive purposes. The range of evangelical responses to the Exhibition is reflected in two entries in Lord Ashley’s diary. Ashley, who had been one of the speakers who supported Prince Albert’s proposals at the Westminster meeting on 21 February 1850, first visited the Exhibition on 17 May 1851. As noted in Chapter 5 his diary entry for that day expressed contempt for the Exhibition, which he condemned for focusing exclusively on scientific, technological, and material progress and for eschewing the progress of the spirit.25 However, following a later visit he (now the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury) recorded in his diary for 27 September reflections on the Exhibition that were far more nuanced but decidedly ambivalent.

25

Shaftesbury’s Diaries: MS62/SHA/PD/6, ff. 55r–v. See above, p. 138.

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To the Exhibition—wonderful—one passes from one frame of mind into another—at one moment I regard it as a triumph of Materialism, the Deification of Sensuality; at the next, as a type of the Millennium, when ‘all kindreds, and tongues, and nations’ shall flow together to the Holy City, in peace and worship, to hear and to see the wonderful works of God.—Listen to the prayer of the good Dr Doddridge ‘Lord, in my life let both united be; We live in pleasure while we live in Thee.’26

Like almost every other visitor he declared the Exhibition ‘wonderful’ and was clearly impressed by the Crystal Palace itself and its cornucopia of international exhibits. Yet the evangelical Earl was also pulled between two opposing ‘frame[s] of mind’. In line with the comment made on his earlier visit, he condemned the Exhibition as a celebration of material objects and for ignoring the spiritual dimension. But he also recognized a prophetic meaning and compared the Exhibition to the Millennium, with its promise of the Second Coming and its inauguration of a new world of peace. Furthermore he evoked the image of visitors’ aural and visual appreciation of ‘the wonderful works of God’. This seems to refer to the visitors hearing God, perhaps by reading the Bible, and also acknowledging God as the Creator of the artefacts on display. Finally, Shaftesbury cited part of a well-known epigram by Philip Doddridge, the eighteenth-century Nonconformist, that directed attention to the unification of all experience within a religious framework. Although the Doddridge quotation does not bear directly on the Exhibition, Shaftesbury deployed it to transcend the experience of the mundane world by uniting the material and the spiritual.27 It seems likely that other evangelicals shared Shaftesbury’s deeply felt ambivalence to the Exhibition, albeit to varying degrees. This later reaction, unlike his earlier one, suggests that Shaftesbury now sought to engage with the Exhibition and to appreciate its significance for the midVictorian world. The attitudes of the Broad Church faction to the Exhibition are more difficult to determine as they did not control a periodical in which their views could be propagated. However, an Exhibition sermon given by one clergyman—Joshua Frederick Denham, the Cambridge-educated rector of St Mary-le-Strand, who was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of London— probably reflects the general Broad Church position. In this sermon Denham urged toleration in religion and expressed his disapproval of militarism, which, in his opinion, was too highly regarded by the British. By contrast, the Exhibition evoked the constructive aspects of humankind and emphasized

Shaftesbury’s Diaries: MS62/SHA/PD/6, ff. 71v–72r. The phrase ‘all kindreds, and tongues, and nations’ is from Rev. 11:9 and 13:7. 27 Doddridge’s epigram was published in many earlier works including Johnson, Beauties, 34, where the second line is rendered ‘I live in pleasure, when I live in thee’. 26

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the prospect of great improvements in both technology and morality. Although he conceived man-made artefacts as vastly inferior to the works of God, he saw much virtue in the Exhibition and its contents. He particularly praised it for its moral connotations; it was devoted to peaceful aims, to social improvement, and to encouraging better understanding between nations. Although he considered that many people did not possess the intellectual ability or the moral awareness to appreciate the Exhibition, those visitors who were receptive to the numerous excellent artefacts on display would, he believed, benefit both intellectually and morally. They could thereby prepare themselves for ‘a future state’ in which ‘every man’s happiness will depend on the moral taste which he acquires in the present life’. Denham articulated a highly optimistic view of the future and deemed the Exhibition a significant innovation by offering a vision of human potential in science, technology, and manufacturing. Taking his cue from Bernard de Mandeville he envisaged the pursuit of self-interest by many individuals coalescing to create a better society. In particular, by harnessing science Denham envisaged humankind restoring itself ‘somewhat near to its original perfection and its promised glory’.28 Broad Anglicans generally viewed education in a similar positive light. Thus in his 1853 article in the Edinburgh Review, William John Conybeare had noted that Broad Churchmen were particularly active in advancing ‘the moral progress of their flock’ and in spreading secular instruction among the poor.29 Such latitudinarians could therefore strongly support the Great Exhibition as an exemplar of moral and intellectual progress. It would thus appear that the relatively small body of Broad Churchmen and their lay followers were among the most positive and least ambivalent Anglican supporters of the Exhibition. The dissenting denominations and the Jewish community were generally supportive of the Exhibition and, as we have seen, some indeed were among its most strenuous advocates. One attraction of the Exhibition was the high regard felt for science, technology, and manufacturing by such groups as the Unitarians, Quakers, and Congregationalists. These denominations included among their members a significant proportion of manufacturers, skilled artisans, and contributors to scientific knowledge. In some cases these adherents reflected the strength of certain denominations in geographical areas of industrialization, such as Unitarians in Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool.30 Industrialists from among their number conceived the Exhibition as an opportunity to display their wares, while the Anglo-Jewish community also

28 Denham, Sermon, esp. 6, 11–12 and 14. Rather surprisingly his Royal Society certificate (EC/1841/22) states that he was ‘Distinguished for his acquaintance with the science of Theology’. See also Kingsley, ‘Fount of Science’. 29 [Conybeare], ‘Church Parties’, 332. 30 Snell and Ell, Rival Jerusalems, 114–17 and 126.

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saw success at the Exhibition as reflecting well on Jewry and refuting the widespread view that Jews were inferior. Many of the religious publications that were most enthusiastic about the Exhibition were written by either Anglican or dissenting clergy in the London area. As Nick Fisher has noted, among Dissenters, Congregationalists wrote a high proportion of the published sermons and tracts in support of the Exhibition.31 Congregational periodicals were also uniformly enthusiastic about the Exhibition and its broader religious significance. For example, the Congregationalist Year Book for 1852 proclaimed the Exhibition to have been the ‘most memorable event of the [previous] year’ and described the royal opening ceremony as ‘one of the most gorgeous and splendid sights of the kind ever beheld’.32 Given the prominence of Congregational support for the Exhibition, some of the factors that influenced Congregationalists should be considered. One relevant factor is that Congregationalists were well represented among manufacturing classes, for example, the textile manufacturer and philanthropist Titus Salt, members of the Wills family (tobacco manufacturers of Bristol), and Apsley Pellatt and Richard Pilkington, both glass manufacturers. However, in contrast to many other manufacturers, Congregationalists despised protectionism and strongly supported Free Trade. As one historian of Congregationalism has argued, they acknowledged the importance of worldly success, ‘adopted laissez-faire as a political and economic philosophy and some of them [even] thought of competition as the law of heaven’.33 Commercial success was not viewed as the prerogative of a lucky few (and to the detriment of the majority) but as a way of improving all sections of society. Everyone possessed the potential to improve themselves, and the success or otherwise of each individual depended ultimately on divine providence; an argument that also undermined protectionism. Yet the freedom of individuals to better themselves would be compromised if the government interfered with the market. Thus their support of Free Trade was firmly based on religious conceptions of individual freedom and divinely ordained destiny. The Exhibition was an impressive exemplar of the Congregational Free Trade ethic and the Evangelical Magazine hailed it as ‘a gratifying sign of the times—and an omen both of progress and happiness’, while another Congregationalist expressed his ‘deep conviction that the numerous and diversified means and

31 Fisher, ‘Who Really Needed the Idea of Progress?’ Congregational writers who strongly supported the Exhibition included Thomas Aveling (Great Sights), Thomas Binney (Royal Exchange), George Clayton (Great Exhibition), Theophilus Flower (Great Exhibition), William Foster (Closing of the Great Exhibition), John Kennedy (Bible), William Leask (Great Exhibition), John Morison (Unity of the Race), Alexander Pearce (Our Age and Our Country), and John Stoughton (To a Stranger and Palace of Glass). 32 Congregational Year Book for 1852, 292. 33 Jones, Congregationalism, 288.

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contrivances of human industry and skill [as displayed at the Exhibition] are so many heralds and harbingers of the approaching millennium’.34 The Exhibition also represented another form of progress for Congregationalists. As noted in Chapter 7 the notion of human equality was prominent among Dissenters and was particularly prevalent in Congregational commentaries on the Exhibition. This desideratum of equality applied not only to the equal opportunities that Dissenters sought in such areas as commerce and education, but also to the improvement of society and the encouragement of peace and brotherhood between peoples. As Edward Miall, the editor of the Nonconformist, argued ‘the main object [of the Exhibition] is one in which the purest hearts may take the deepest interest—the general tendency of the Exhibition favours the development of the better feelings of humanity’. He then proceeded to portray the Exhibition as helping to increase the sense of brotherhood between nations and asked God’s blessing on ‘this singular enterprise, by making it promote the unity, elevation, and advancement, of all mankind’. Likewise in his Palace of Glass and the Gathering of the People, John Stoughton asserted that ‘the social effects of the great gathering are most important’. He considered that through the Exhibition people were brought together for peaceful purposes by their common humanity, an endeavour that he hoped would result in fewer wars. Moreover, he envisaged that contact with foreigners would lead to better understanding between people of different nations. But Stoughton, like Miall, also hoped that the Exhibition would encourage the practice of Christianity at home and abroad.35 The gathering of nations was a powerful image which, as discussed in Chapter 7, both endowed the Exhibition with social meaning and aligned it with the biblical prophecy of the New Jerusalem. This image appealed to many evangelicals, both Anglican and Nonconformist, but especially to Congregationalists whose social philosophy and prophetic tradition readily embraced the convergence of peoples at the Exhibition. Another prominent feature of mid-century Dissent was the doctrine of voluntaryism: the principle that religion should be freed from interference by the Established Church. Not only did Dissenters insist on religious freedom but many of them accepted that voluntaryism in the religious context implied similar freedoms in other areas, such as education and international trade. For example, the Voluntary School Association sought to provide schooling that was not controlled by the state and was thus free from Anglican interference. In mobilizing their opposition to Church controls Dissenters formed the AntiState Church Association in 1844, which sought the disestablishment of the Church, while the leading dissenting periodicals, such as the Nonconformist 34 ‘The Opening of the Great Exhibition’, Evangelical Magazine n.s. 29 (1851), 330–2, on 331; Pearce, Our Age and Our Country, 48. 35 Nonconformist, 23 April 1851, 326; [Stoughton], Palace of Glass, 124–7 and 147–62.

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and the Patriot, strongly supported voluntaryism and repeatedly opposed all forms of state control. Having recently lost a significant battle to wrest education from Church control, Dissenters at the mid-century tried to exert greater political pressure by substantially increasing their representation in Parliament. In adopting this more aggressive position Dissenters welcomed the Great Exhibition as a highly visible justification of the doctrine of voluntaryism.36 Shortly before the Exhibition opened the Nonconformist praised Albert’s internationalist vision and the rapidity with which the Crystal Palace had been constructed. But the Congregational editor also portrayed the Exhibition as a public affirmation of the power of voluntaryism: To our minds the Exhibition is one of the most striking exemplifications on record of the extraordinary power of voluntary combination. We earnestly hope that it may make a lasting impression on the minds of all those who visit it, British as well as foreign, that great enterprises can be achieved without the imposition of law.37

Shortly afterwards, at the annual meeting of the Anti-State Church Association, a leading Congregational minister, John Burnet, expressed the wish that he could have spoken at the opening ceremony in order to ask the Archbishop of Canterbury, who built the Crystal Palace? He would also have asked ‘the Queen, who doubts the Voluntary principle now’? And he would have asked ‘Prince Albert, who carried out this fine thought but the Voluntaries’?38 Following Burnet’s much-publicized intervention, the Crystal Palace was sometimes referred to in dissenting circles as the ‘Palace of Voluntaryism’. Not only did the Baptist Magazine employ this term but it declared the month of May to be ‘the month of the development and invigoration of the voluntary principle’, to reflect the success of voluntaryism as manifested in the Exhibition.39 The Congregationalist Samuel Martin likewise applauded the decision not to fund the Exhibition from the public purse since it enabled every man to identify with the Exhibition and to call it his own. ‘Had the funds been supplied from the public revenue’, he argued, then ‘we should in this arrangement have seen merely the submission of all classes of the people to a political impost’.40 Despite their enthusiasm for the Exhibition, Congregational ministers warned their congregations against surrendering to the sins of arrogance and pride when visiting the Exhibition; instead they should remain humble and not lose sight of the heavenly realm. ‘We are entering upon a new

36 37 38 39 40

Larsen, Friends of Religious Equality, 110–36; Jones, Congregationalism, 213–16 and 288. Nonconformist, 30 April 1851, 346; see also Nonconformist, 23 January 1850, 76. British Banner, 14 May 1851, 326. Nonconformist, 7 May 1851, 366; Baptist Magazine 43 (1851) 377. Martin, Useful Arts, 24 and 38.

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era’, announced the Nonconformist soon after the Exhibition opened, ‘let us guard against an over-estimate of its glory!’41 The foregoing discussion draws attention to several aspects of the Exhibition that appealed particularly to Congregationalists. Although the focus has been on Congregationalists, many of these issues also apply to certain other dissenting churches, especially to Unitarians and Quakers. The prophetic importance of the gathering of nations in the Crystal Palace was not confined to Dissenters but was also a familiar theme among evangelicals in the Church of England. Pacifism was another prominent issue that cut across denominational divisions, especially among evangelicals; it was, however, particularly emphasized by Quakers. By contrast, although Baptist and Methodist periodicals did not censure the Exhibition they nonetheless downplayed its importance when compared with the need for salvation. For example, the Baptist Magazine carried a six-page article by a Baptist minister, whose enthusiastic and informed description of the Exhibition occupied less than two pages. The remainder of the article explored the religious significance of the building and the potential opportunity to convert the heathen. An article on ‘The Exhibition’ in the Baptist Gospel Herald likewise mentioned the Exhibition in Hyde Park but moved adroitly to articulate the vision of the far greater ‘exhibition’ revealed through the Gospels. Similarly, the Wesleyan Methodist Association Magazine carried a twenty-four-page article that paid little attention to the Exhibition or its exhibits but instead contained a wide range of spiritual reflections on the Crystal Palace, drawing on the text ‘And the city was pure gold, like unto clear glass’ (Rev. 21:18). The Wesleyan Methodist Magazine included not a single article on the Exhibition, although it cited several Exhibition-related publications and the missionary activities of the London City Mission.42 These Baptist and Methodist periodicals were reluctant to engage with the Exhibition and mentioned it principally to generate pious reflections about other-worldly issues. One unexpected result of this study has been to discover the prevalence of anti-Catholic rhetoric among Protestant responses to the Exhibition. AntiPapist feelings, festering for many years and subsequently augmented by the recent ‘papal aggression’, led many Protestant commentators to perceive Catholic influence on numerous exhibits, especially the ritual objects displayed in the Medieval Court. The more zealous viewed the Exhibition itself as a papist plot to overthrow both Church and State. Such anti-Catholicism was rife among the anonymous pamphleteers and among both the High Anglican

41

Nonconformist, 7 May 1851, 367. Standen Pearce, ‘The Crystal Palace’, Baptist Magazine 43 (1851), 545–51; W.P.B., ‘The Exhibition’, Gospel Herald 19 (1851), 180–3; J.S., ‘The Crystal Palace’, Wesleyan Methodist Association Magazine 14 (1851) 503–13 and 551–65; ‘Chaucer and the “Great Exhibition”’, Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine 74 (1851), 1116. 42

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periodical press, such as John Bull and the English Churchman, and also the evangelical publications like the Record. Catholic periodicals likewise saw the Exhibition traduced by religious and political meaning, but from their perspective it appeared as an establishment plot intended to glorify Protestant England at the expense of Catholicism and Ireland. It is perhaps ironic that the most virulent religious opposition to the Exhibition was voiced by the Catholic Tablet and the staunchly anti-Catholic John Bull. Although religious responses to the Exhibition should be understood primarily in denominational terms, one individual played a crucial role in forging its religious ethos. In contrast to those organizers who portrayed the Exhibition as a purely secular event, especially Henry Cole and other members of the Executive Committee, Prince Albert not only stressed the importance of advancing industry and commerce through the Exhibition but also set this notion of material progress firmly within a religious frame. He envisaged the Exhibition as a divinely ordained event that would display God’s creation, advance Christianity, and engender both moral improvement and international peace. His support for the BFBS, to which he donated £50 and of which he was a Patron and Life Governor, probably identifies him as a committed Christian whose religious beliefs underpinned his personal vision for the Great Exhibition—a view forcibly expressed in his Mansion House speech and on other occasions. Without Albert’s explicit vision of the Exhibition’s religious significance the wider religious response would doubtless have been far less sympathetic. In their discussion of the Great Exhibition historians have generally ignored religion and instead emphasized its secularity and modernity. By contrast, this study has analysed a considerable range of religious commentary on the Exhibition and demonstrated that religious communities adopted a variety of stances to several controversial aspects of the Exhibition. The issues discussed here are complex and overlap with such contemporary themes as biblical prophecy, design arguments, salvationist and missionary activities, reactions to the recent ‘papal aggression’, and the arguments over Free Trade. The picture is certainly highly nuanced, but religion was undoubtedly a crucial issue in contemporary assessments of the Exhibition and was widely aired in sermons, tracts, newspapers and the religious periodical press. This study has shown that many different aspects of religion entered the frame and that the Great Exhibition of 1851 cannot simply be portrayed as a secular event but also heralded an important moment in the religious world of early Victorian England. As one contemporary stated, the Crystal Palace was ‘a Monument of Christianity’.43 From this perspective the significance of the Great Exhibition lay in its profound yet multiple religious meanings. 43

John Stoughton, ‘Great Gatherings’, in Forty-Four Sermons, 109–20, on 117.

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Story, J. L. Early Reminiscences (Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons, 1911). Stoughton, John. Recollections of a Long Life, 2nd edn (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1894). Tolis, Peter. Elihu Burritt: Crusader for Brotherhood (Hamden, CT: Archeon Books, 1968). Topham, Jonathan R. ‘Science and Popular Education in the 1830s: The Role of the Bridgewater Treatises’, British Journal for the History of Science 25 (1992), 397–430. ——. ‘Science, Natural Theology, and the Practice of Christian Piety in Early-NineteenthCentury Religious Magazines’, in Geoffrey Cantor and Sally Shuttleworth (eds), Science Serialized: Representations of the Sciences in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), 37–66. ——. ‘The Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine and Religious Monthlies in Early NineteenthCentury Britain’, in Geoffrey Cantor, Gowan Dawson, Graeme Gooday, Richard Noakes, Sally Shuttleworth, and Jonathan R. Topham (eds), Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical: Reading the Magazine of Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 67–90. Turner, Frank M. John Henry Newman: The Challenge to Evangelical Religion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002). Tyrell, Alexander. ‘Making the Millennium: The Mid-Nineteenth Century Peace Movement’, Historical Journal 20 (1978), 75–95. ——. Joseph Sturge and the Moral Radical Party in Early Victorian Britain (London: Helm, 1987). Ward, Mrs. E. M. Memories of Ninety Years, Isobel G. McAllister (ed) (London: Hutchinson, 1924). Weylland, John Matthias. A Thought for the World; or, The Narrative of Christian Effort in Great Britain (London: Partridge, [1877]). White, Lynn Jnr. ‘The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis’, Science 155 (1967), 1203–7. Williams, S. C. Religious Belief and Popular Culture in Southwark c.1880–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Young, Paul. ‘“Carbon, mere Carbon”: The Kohinoor, the Crystal Palace, and the Mission to Make Sense of British India’, Nineteenth-Century Contexts 29 (2007), 343–58. ——. ‘Mission Impossible: Globalization and the Great Exhibition’, in Jeffrey A. Auerbach and Peter H. Hoffenberg (eds), Britain, the Empire and the World at the Great Exhibition of 1851 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 3–26. ——. Globalization and the Great Exhibition: The Victorian New World Order (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999).

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Index Bold numbers refer to illustrations by page number. Aborigines Protection Society 122 Albert, Prince Consort 2, 9, 19, 27, 41, 48, 54, 156, 167–8, 174–5, 181–2, 204 and the BFBS 95, 98, 100, 138, 204 at closing ceremony 189–190 at opening ceremony 63–6, 133 evocation of Ps. 24:1 70, 130–3 Mansion House speech 42–4, 70, 175, 181 religious vision of Exhibition 3, 42–4, 70–1, 130–3, 138, 204 visits Exhibition 63–6, 104, 114, 164 Albert’s model dwellings 110, 119, 120 Allies, Thomas William 148–9 Anglican Church 12–14, 76, 87, 196–9 Broad Church 12, 13–14, 198–9 Church-State relations 10–11, 23, 147–9 High Church 8, 12–13, 14, 24–6, 45, 46, 140 Low Church 12, 13, 14, 16, 197–8 support of Great Exhibition 43–8 threats to 19–26 Anti-State Church Association 201, 202 Anti-Slavery Reporter 177–8 Apocalypse 16, 32–3, 35, 38, 197 Armstrong, Isobel 6, 106 Victorian Glassworlds 106 Art-Journal 181 Ashley, Lord, see Shaftesbury, Seventh Earl of artisans 11, 36, 47–8, 135–6, 194 exploitation of 156–7 Athenaeum 145 Auerbach, Jeffrey 1–2, 124 The Great Exhibition of 1851 1 Babel, Tower of 7, 27, 30–9, 69, 140, 150, 167–8, 172, 185 Band of Hope Review 104, 107, 117 Baptist Magazine 5, 202, 203 Baptist Reporter 27 Baptist Union 179 Baptists 14, 15, 45, 68, 76, 79, 87, 105, 126, 177, 203 Barclay, Arthur Kett 45 Baring, Thomas 45 Barlow, John 49 Barrett, Joseph 26, 130 Barry, Charles 108, 111 Bazley, Thomas 45

Bebbington, David 7, 15, 18, 73 Bell, James 179 Bellett, John Clifford 34–5, 197 Belshazzar’s Feast 20, 30–9, 32, 151, 169 Bensted, Thomas 138–40 Biber, George Edward 24–5 Bible 24, 81, 73, 96, 127, 138, 172–3; see also prophecy Catholics’ rejection of 88–9, 118–19, 146–7 displayed in the Exhibition 74, 87–8, 90–100, 101, 116–19, 138, 146–7 evangelicals’ commitment to 15, 81, 98, 116–17, 137–8 for distribution 73–5, 77, 80, 81, 87, 88 in translation 55, 88, 92, 99, 138, 146 Bible, the Greatest Wonder in the Exhibition 116 biblical chronology 33–7 Binney, Thomas 79, 84, 86, 133, 136, 171–2 Royal Exchange 84, 86, 133, 136, 171–2 Birch, Henry 141–2 Great Exhibition Spiritualized 141–2 Bishop of London’s 1851 Committee 55, 74–5, 77 Blomfield, Charles James, Bishop of London 25, 40, 46, 49, 66, 72–3, 74–5, 101, 146–7, 189–90 Board of Trade 45 Bohn, Henry G. 92 Bonar, Horatius 33, 36–7 Bond of Brotherhood 184, 186 Book of Common Prayer 12, 73, 74, 130 in translation 81, 147 Bowen, William Allen 99–100, 101, 117 Bowring, Edward 63–4, 68 Bradley, Thomas Earnshaw 149–50 Breslau, Marcus 161–2 Brethren, see Plymouth Brethren Brewster, David 49, 118, 185 British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society 177–8 British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) 3, 15, 18, 73, 87–8, 89–101, 119, 138 publications 87–8, 91–2, 95–6, 99–100 stand at the Exhibition 73, 90–100, 116–19 British Banner 176–7 British Friend 181, 185

220

Index

British Quarterly Review 27 British Reformation Society 126 British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews 18, 55–6, 72 n. 3, 76 brotherhood 23, 34, 44, 60, 102, 127, 153–7, 167–8, 169–75, 188, 197, 201 Brough, William 22 Brougham, Henry 46 Browne, George 99 Buckingham, James Silk 52 Earnest Plea 52 Bunsen, Christian 46, 179–80 Burnet, John 202 Burris, John P. 2 n.2 Burritt, Elihu 184, 185–7, 188 Burrows, Henry William 140–1 Busk, Ellen 151–2 Busk, George 151 Cambridge Camden Society 108 Campbell, John 173 Canning, Charles John, Viscount 189 Canterbury, Archbishop of, see Sumner, John Bird Capes, John Moore 148 Carlisle, Earl of 46 Cassell, John 57 Catholic exhibits 93, 111–13, 114–16, 118, 146, 150, 162 periodical press 10,69,114–15,144–51,204 responses to Exhibition 69, 144–61, 165, 191, 204 Catholic Church 36 antagonism towards 10, 13, 27–30, 34, 77, 83, 88–9, 93, 111–14, 118–19, 126, 144, 145, 177, 192, 203–4 coverts to 13, 17, 30, 88, 119 hierarchy of 10, 28–9, 50, 83, 145 Catholics 7, 73, 101, 107 Cattley, Stephen Reed 49 Caughnawaga Indians 123 Chalmers, Thomas 170 Chartists 25, 48, 152, 154 Chatterton, John Balsir 60–1 Christian Guardian 25, 64, 113 Christian Instruction Society 72 n. 3 Christian Reformer 195–6 Christian Visitor 83 Christian Visitor’s Hand-Book 58, 59, 59, 73 Christian Witness 173 Church of England Magazine 72, 104 Church of England Sunday School Institute 50 Church Pastoral Aid Society 18 Church Sunday School Magazine 129

Clapham Sect 16 Clarke, George Rochfort 114 Clarke, Henry Green 57–8 London in All Its Glory 57 London as It Is To-Day 58 Clayton, George 134, 174 Cobden, Richard 27, 44, 182, 183–4 Cole, Henry 9, 41, 43, 44, 48, 70, 174, 204 Colonial Intelligencer 122–3 confusion of tongues 21, 32, 167, 168, 172; see also Babel, Tower of Congregational ministers 44, 49, 84, 104, 140, 169, 170–1, 171–3, 174, 175, 179, 194 Congregational Union of England and Wales 179 Congregationalists, 14, 15, 67–8, 76, 79, 116, 137, 166, 170–4, 184, 190, 199–203 responses to Exhibition 67–8, 84, 104, 110–11, 125–6, 136, 140, 169, 170–4, 175–6, 179, 199–203 Congregationalist Year Book 200 conversion to Catholicism 13, 29 to Protestantism 15, 30, 76, 119, 172–4, 192–3 Conway, William 26 Conybeare, William Daniel 5 n. 4, 12–13, 199 Cook, John Douglas 68 Cooke, Robert Whall 78–80 Cotton, William 45 Countess of Huntington’s Connexion 79 Crimean War 193 crucifixes 112, 120, 121 crystal fountain, see Osler’s crystal fountain Crystal Palace 1, 102–9, 112, 127, 145, 149, 167, 186, 188, 190, 204 as new Jerusalem 6, 107, 142–3, 170–4 as temple 6, 105–6, 148, 151–2, 157, 175, 185 construction of 5, 102–4, 105, 202 contents 110–24, 145, 149–50 cruciform design 106 design criticised 106–9 dimensions of 104 fragility of 140, 141, 142, 148 light within 106–7, 141, 118 ‘Palace of Voluntaryism’ 202 subsequent history 195–6 ‘Temple of Peace’ 175, 185 Crystal Palace Company 195 Cullen, Paul 29 Cumming, John 23, 38, 48, 60 custodia 114–15, 116, 150 Darwin, Charles 133 Origin of Species 133

Index Dawson, George 48 de la Rue, Warren 96 Defries, Nathan 159 Denham, Joshua Frederick 198–9 Derby, Earl of 195 design, argument from 129–37, 204 Dickens, Charles 48, 156 Pickwick Papers 156 Dissent, see Religious Dissent Doddridge, Philip 198 Dublin Review 148–9 Dublin Society 145 Duty for the Crisis of 1851 29 Eardley, Culling 77 East India Company 44 Ecclesiastical Titles Bill 28, 35 Ecclesiological Society 108 Ecclesiologist 108–9, 111 Eclectic Review 44 Edinburgh Review 12, 199 electro-plating 111, 145, 149 Elliott, Edward 33 Horæ Apocalypticæ 33 Emerton, James 53–7 Moral and Religious Guide 55–7, 56, 58 English Churchman 39, 63 English Republic 156, 157 Evangelical Alliance 15, 18, 76–8, 101, 179 Foreign Conference and Evangelisation Committee 77–8, 80, 83, 101 Evangelical Christendom 76 Evangelical Magazine 67–8, 72, 175, 192–3, 200–1 evangelicalism 3, 15–17, 73, 107 moderate evangelicals 17, 137, 197 otherworldliness 137–43, 202–3 ultra-evangelicals 16–17, 137, 138, 197–8 evolution, Darwin’s theory of 46 Exeter Hall 18, 40, 78–80, 79, 93, 183, 185 services 58, 78–80, 101, 190–1 Female Aid Society 18 Festival of Britain (1951) 1 Finsbury Hall of Science 156 Fisher, Nick 200 Flanders, Judith 8 Consuming Passions 8 Flower, Theophilus 140 foreign language services 25, 73, 75, 80, 147 foreign visitors 2, 7, 21–7, 39, 55, 81, 126–7, 146, 184, 190, 201 conversion of 72, 74–8, 87, 124, 126, 147 facilities for 55, 74, 81, 87 fear of 19, 21–7, 53, 83, 197 influence over 68–9, 124–7, 201

221

Forster, William 126, 170–1 Fraser’s Magazine 149 Free Church Magazine 5–6, 19, 38, 128 Free Church of Scotland 33, 185 Free Trade 8, 204 opposed 23, 25, 44, 53, 69, 197 supported 169, 171, 174, 184, 200 freethinkers 144, 151–7 French Republicans 35 French Revolution 33, 36 Friend 26, 130, 179, 184 Friendly Visitor 118 Fry, Edmund 186 Fyfe, Aileen 83, 110 gathering of peoples 32–3, 34, 37, 86, 138, 142, 167–72, 187, 194 Galloway, Archibald 45 Gavazzi, Alessandro 30, 31 Geological Society 44, 47 Gibb, Charles 99 Gibbs, J. A. 120 Gibson, Thomas 44 Gilbert, James 57 Visitor’s Guide to London 57 Gladstone 15, 17, 43, 44, 45 Gleadall, John William 169–70 Goldsmid, Baron Isaac Lyon 158–9 Gospel Herald 203 Gosse, Edmund 114 n.32 Gosse, Philip 17 Omphalos 17 Gothic revival 107–9 Gott, John 44 Great Exhibition, and modernity 8–9, 204 as contested space 124–7 building, see Crystal Palace described in religious language 5–6, 104–6 fragility of 140, 141, 142 religious objections to 6–7, 19–20, 23–7, 27–38, 39, 68–9, 106, 107–9, 112–13, 146–50, 196–8 religious support for 7, 41–4, 46–8, 53–7, 63–8, 104–6, 130–7, 158–62, 166–9, 199–203 secular interpretation of 2–3, 8, 20, 144, 151, 165, 204 spiritual significance of 7, 129, 137–43 Great Exhibition, classes and sections Class VIII: Naval Architecture, etc 182 Class X: Philosophical Instruments 120 Class XVII: Paper, Printing and Bookbinding 90, 96, 116, 120 Class XXX: Fine Arts 112 East Indies 182

222

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Great Exhibition, classes and sections (cont.) Fine Art Court 110, 116 France and Algeria 121 India 110, 123 Medieval Court 10, 93, 111–16, 113, 146, 150 Raw Materials (Classes I–IV) 133 United States 179, 182 West Africa 179 Zollverein 110 Great Exhibition, exhibits 50, 89–100, 100–24, 145–6, 149–50, 162–5; see also Bible, Catholic exhibits Great Exhibition, organisation admission charges 50, 145, 159 Central Working Classes Committee 48–9 City of London Committee 49, 158 closing ceremony 149, 186, 188–92 Council of Chairman 89–90 Executive Committee 9, 44–5, 48, 70, 86, 89, 92–6, 98, 182, 204 Metropolitan Committee 89–95 opening ceremony 2, 3, 20, 63–70, 147, 150, 156, 169, 189, 190–1 prizes 41, 141, 162, 164; see also Whish, John Charles, Great Exhibition Prize Essay Royal Commission 48, 53, 63–5, 70, 112, 118, 145, 159–60, 189 treasurers 45, 158, 160 ‘heathens’ 7, 73, 124 Greek Slave (statue) 178, 179 Grey, Charles 182 Grosvenor, Lord Robert 42 Guardian 68, 128, 196–7 Haldane, Alexander 17 Hamilton, James 135 handbills 3, 4 Hearthorn, Henrietta 151–2 Her Majesty’s Chapels Royal 66 Herschell, Ridley 76–7 Hicks, Ann 191 Hill, Edwin 96 Hilton, Boyd 7, 15, 16, 137 Hindus 123, 147, 193 Historia (author) 37 Holyoake, George Jacob 11, 153, 155–6, 157 Household Words 23 Howarth, Henry 133–4 Howitt, Mary 102–3 Howsam, Leslie 87 Hugo, Victor 185 Huguenots 21 Huxley, Thomas Henry 46, 151–2, 157

Huxley-Wilberforce debate 47 Hyde Park 7, 52, 69, 73, 102, 107, 109, 124, 141, 145, 191, 197, 203 Illustrated Exhibitor 57 Illustrated Exhibitor and Magazine of Art 57 Illustrated London News 50 Independents, see Congregationalists internationalism 159, 166, 169–74, 168, 170–4, 174–7, 202; see also brotherhood Ireland 144–7, 150 Irons, Joseph 27 Irving, Edward 33 Babylon and Infidelity Doomed by God 33 Jesuits 20, 27, 29 Jewish Chronicle 158–64 Jews 21, 23, 26, 45, 68, 123, 144, 147, 150, 151–2, 157–65, 199–200 conversion of 73, 76; see also British Society for the Propagation of the Gospel among the Jews political emancipation of 10, 158, 160–1, 177 responses to Exhibition 144, 157–65 Jews and General Literary and Scientific Institution 159–60 John Bull 24–5, 24, 26, 33, 44, 69, 104, 106, 147, 150, 196–7, 204 Jones, William 83, 85, 89, 90 Keble, John 13 Kinsley, Charles 7, 102 Koh-i-noor diamond 104, 111, 116, 117–18, 117, 141 Labouchere, Henry 45 labour, dignity of 47–8, 55 Lamp 114–15, 149–50 Layard, Austen 32 Leader 156 League of Universal Brotherhood 184 Leask, William 172–3 Linnaean Society 135 Linton, W. J. 156–7 Liverpool Peace Society 175 Lloyd, John 54 London 41, 109, 150, 157, 168, 173, 183, 185 guides to 3, 57–60 London, religious buildings Brompton Chapel 75 Christ Church, St Pancras 140, 175 French Protestant Church 75 Great Synagogue 58 Horton Street Chapel 169

Index King’s Weigh House Congregational Church 171 Mission House 141 National Scotch Church 60 Regent Square Presbyterian Church 135 St George’s, Hanover Square 133 St Margaret’s, Westminster 7 St Martin’s in the Fields 75 St Mary-le-Strand 175, 198 St Paul’s Cathedral 49, 58, 66, 120 St Stephen’s, Walbrooke 58 Temple Church 60 Tower Church 60 Westminster Abbey 7, 58, 66, 106, 109, 128 York St Chapel 134 London City Mission 88, 203 London Missionary Society 18, 72 n. 3 London Peace Society 181, 181, 183 London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews 88 London, Bishop of, see Blomfield, Charles James London, Lord Mayor of 42 Londoners 21–3, 102–3 immorality of 26, 125, 147–8, 150 Lord’s Prayer 146, 190 Lovett, William 48 Lubbock, John 45 Lucas, Frederick 146, 191 Lyell, Charles 45 Lyons, Morris 159 MacFarlane, P. 135 MacPhail’s Edinburgh Ecclesiastical Journal 111, 168 Magazine for the Young 112 Malan, Solomon Cæsar 60 Mandeville, Bernard de 199 Mansion House 41–4, 158 banquet 42–4, 42, 175, 181, 204 Marshall, Thomas 171 Martin, Samuel 194, 202 Useful Arts 135–6, 194 materialism, opposed 6–7, 38, 128–37, 138–40 May meetings 18 Maynooth 28, 36 Memorial of the Great Industrial Exhibition 60, 62, 176 Merryweather’s tempest prognosticator 150 Metamorphoses (Ovid) 175 Methodists 14, 15, 79, 87, 177, 203 Miall, Edward 44, 110, 201 Michell, Richard 54 Mill, William Hodge 60 Millennium 166, 169–74, 198, 201

223

Miller, William Haigh 86 Walk through the Crystal Palace 86 Milman, Henry 49 Missionary Register 18 missionaries 15, 53, 73, 88, 141, 126, 176, 177, 192, 204 model dwellings, see Albert’s model dwellings modernity 1, 9–10, 204 Montefiore, Moses 59, 160, 162 testimonial presented to 162, 163 Montefiore, Nathaniel 159 Monthly Christian Spectator 39 Monthly Tract Society 72 n. 3 Monti, Raffaelle 52–3 Morison, John 175–6, 177 Morley, Samuel 190–1 Mormons 23 Morning Chronicle 68–9, 146, 150, 167 Morris, William 102, 138 Moses, E. and Son 165 Mosley, Henry 49 Mozley, Anne 112 Murphy, John 145 Muslims 7, 26, 68, 125, 193 nationalism 46, 81, 86, 125–6, 168, 170–1, 173, 194 nature as God’s creation 43, 129–37 exploitation of 169–70 mastery over 6, 169–70 Nead, Lynda 32 Victorian Babylon 32 Neale, John Mason 108 Nebuchadnezzar 20, 140, 167–8 Newman, John Henry 13, 17, 28 Nimrod 168 Noel, Baptist Wriothesley 79 Nonconformist 38–9, 44, 51, 110–11, 112, 177, 181, 201–3 North Wales Chronicle 23 Oath of Abjuration Bill 158, 160 Observer of the Times 35–6, 39 Official Catalogue 132 Official Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue 3, 9, 50, 70, 90, 96, 130–3, 131, 132, 123, 124 Onwhyn, Thomas 22 Mr & Mrs Brown’s Visit 22 Oppenheim, Morris 159–60 Osborne, Sidney Godolphin 49 Osler’s crystal fountain 1, 62, 111, 116, 188, 194 Overstone, Lord 45 Owen, Robert 11, 152–5, 157

224

Index

Owen, Robert (cont.) millenarian rhetoric of 155 Owen, William 179 Owenism 152–4 pacifism 174–87, 198–9, 203 Paley, William 137 Natural Theology 137 ‘papal aggression’ 10, 28–9, 38, 83, 145, 204 Partridge and Oakey (publisher) 58, 62 Patriot 202 Paul, James 80 Paxton, Joseph 102, 106, 107, 109, 197 Payne, Thomas 153 peace between nations 8, 42, 55, 64–6, 142, 166–74, 193, 197, 199 Peace Congress 166, 183, 183–7 Pearce, Alexander 136 Pease, Edward 142 Peel, Robert 28, 44 Pellatt, Aspley 200 Penny Pulpit 80 Perceval, Arthur 19–20 periodicals, see religious periodical press Peto, Samuel Morton 27, 45, 78 philanthropic institutions 18 Pilkington, Richard 200 Pius IX, Pope 28–30 Plymouth Brethren 17, 34–5, 197 Powers, Hiram 178, 179 pre-millennialism 16, 33, 197 pride, sin of 6, 129, 134, 137, 138, 202 Primitive Church Magazine 39 prize essay competition 53–5 progress 9–10, 43, 55, 128, 136–7, 149, 155. 166–74, 194, 199, 200 prophecy 6, 19–20, 33–9, 43, 107, 150–1, 172–4, 185–6, 201, 203, 204 Prophecy Investigation Society 33 Protestant ethic 124–7 Protestants anti-Catholicism of 10, 13, 27–30, 34, 38, 77, 83, 88–9, 93, 111–14, 118–19, 126, 144, 145, 177, 192, 203–4 divisions within 11–17, 196–204 providence 7, 43, 64, 135–6, 137 Pugin, Augustus 10, 111–12 Punch 146, 150 Pusey, Edward 13, 45 Pusey, Philip 45 Quakers 8, 14, 15, 45, 72, 87, 102, 122, 130, 142, 199, 203 and pacifism 179, 180–2, 184–5 Quarterly Journal of Prophecy 33–4, 36–7, 113–14

Queen’s University, Ireland 20 radicals (political) 8, 11, 25, 36, 40, 48, 152–7, 196, 197 Ragged School Union 18 Rambler 30, 148 Rawlinson, Henry 32 Readhouse, Charlotte 145 Reasoner and Theological Examiner 11, 156 Record 17, 18, 44, 67, 110, 114, 192, 197 Redgrave, Alexander 70 Reid, William 48, 89, 94, 97, 182 Religious Census (1851) 11, 14 religious categories 17, 196–203 Religious Dissent 12, 14–15, 45, 51, 76, 137, 199–203; see also Baptists; Congregationalists; Methodists; Quakers; Unitarians; Wesleyan Methodists religious periodical press 5, 18; see also individual titles religious scepticism 151–6 Religious Tract Society (RTS) 3, 18, 58, 68, 73 activities during the Exhibition 83–7, 90, 101 depository in Piccadilly 83–4 publications 84–7, 90, 104, 106, 136 scientific publications 110 stand at the Exhibition 73, 90, 91, 116 Reynolds’s Weekly Newspaper 23 Richards, Thomas 8 Roberts, Henry 90–5, 99, 119 Rosman, Doreen 137 Rothschild, Anthony de 158–9 Rothschild, Baron Lionel de 45, 158, 160 Routledge (publisher) Guide to the Great Exhibition 57 Royal Academy 44 Royal Society of London 44, 47, 49, 167, 198 Royle, Edward 152–3 Ruskin, John 138 Russell, Lord John 28, 44, 158, 160 Ryle, John Charles 126 Sabbatarianism 25, 52–3, 55, 81, 125, 127, 141, 160, 194, 195 Jews and 160 Sacred Harmonic Society 66, 189 St George’s Chapel (Windsor) 66 Sala, George Augustus 22–3 Salomons, David 158–9 Salt, Tutus 200 salvation 58, 80, 84, 99, 119, 138, 140–2, 166, 168, 174, 191, 197, 203 Salvucci, Signor 99 Sampson Low (publisher) 59 Handbook to Places of Public Worship 59, 73

Index Schnitzer, Mordechai 162 science 8, 9–10, 126, 136, 149, 155, 166, 168, 169–72, 174, 176, 194–5, 199 Scottish Presbyterians 16, 79 scriptural passages cited Gen. 32, 33, 36, 37, 166, 169–70 Lev. 152 n. 23 Esther 158–9 Ps. 62, 70, 126, 130–3, 170–1, 176 Eccles. 141 Isa. 41, 44, 134, 118, 169, 171, 173, 181 Jer. 173 Ez. 35 Dan. 6, 32, 33, 34, 167 Joel 35 Zech. 173 Mal. 176 Matt 36, 138, 140, 172 Mark 140 Luke 36 Acts 60, 134, 176 1 Cor. 34 2 Cor. 140 1 Thess 36 James 36, 134 1 John 128, 140 Rev. 6, 33, 107, 109, 174 secular naturalism 155–6 secularists 11, 128, 151–7 responses to Exhibition 144, 151–7, 165 Selous, Henry Courtney 65 Shaftesbury, Seventh Earl of 5, 46, 47, 47 n. 15, 48, 52, 92–3, 95–6, 98, 139, 119, 195 visits Exhibition 138, 197–8 Sheffield, Earl of 5 Sibthorp, Charles de Laet Waldo 26 Sinclair, John 75 slave trade, opposition to 8, 16, 122, 176, 177–9 Smithies, Thomas Bywater 104, 107 Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes 119 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (SPCK) 3, 173 activities during Exhibition 74–5, 80, 81, 101 Address to Foreigners 81, 82 Industry of Nations 194 Notes and Sketches 193–4 Society for Promoting the Due Observance of the Lord’s Day 18 Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 194 Society for the Promotion of Universal and Permanent Peace, see London Peace Society

225

Society of Arts 37, 41, 174 Society of Friends, see Quakers Spencer, George 29 Spiritual Watchman 29 Staffel, Israel Abraham 162–4 statuary 52–3, 134, 120, 179 nude 114, 179, 197 Steane, Edward 76, 77 steam engine 1, 126, 138, 149 Sternberg, Lewis 159 Stoughton, John 84, 86, 169, 172, 201 Palace of Glass 84, 86, 201 Stranger in Hyde Park 86 Sturge, Joseph 181–2, 183 Sumner, Charles Richard 66 Sumner, John Bird, Archbishop of Canterbury 2–3, 23, 43–4, 49 dedicatory prayer by 2–3, 63–70, 133, 147, 156, 189, 190–1, 197 Sun 147 Sunday School Union 50 Tablet 69, 104, 114, 144–8, 151, 162, 191, 204 Taylor, Wilbraham 77–8, 83, 88–9, 101 technology 8, 9–10, 126, 136, 149, 155, 168–71, 174, 194–5, 199 telegraph 111, 126, 149 temperance 16, 52 Times 30, 34, 42, 52, 76, 93, 110, 149, 188 Tractarian movement 12, 13, 19–20, 28, 38, 76, 108, 148 Tracts for the Times 19 Trew, John 93 Tupper, Martin Farquhar 60, 129–30 Hymn for All Nations 60, 61, 129–30 Unitarians 14, 45, 104, 171, 195, 199, 203 United Presbyterian Magazine 30, 107, 113, 118 University of Cambridge 11, 60, 108, 139, 169, 198 University of Oxford 11, 54, 126, 148 Van de Weyer, Silvain 50 Van Halle, Joseph 50, 51 Victoria, Queen 20, 39, 61, 123, 167–8 at opening ceremony 63–6 visits Exhibition 100, 104, 114, 145, 164 Vincent, Henry 48 Visitor 83, 90, 110 voluntarism 8, 158, 201–2 Voluntary School Association 201 Walker, Robert 54 Walter, Francis 120, 122

226 Ward, Henrietta Mary 21 Warren, Samuel 167–8 Lily and the Bee 167–8 Weale, John 57 London Exhibited in 1851 57 weapons of war 179–82 Webb, Benjamin 108 Weber–Merton thesis 126 Weekly Tract Society 72 n. 3 Wesley, Samuel Sebastian 60 Wesleyan Methodist Association 141 Wesleyan Methodist Association Magazine 203 Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine 203 Wesleyan Methodists 76 Westminster Abbey, see London, Westminster Abbey Westminster meeting (21 February 1850) 45–8, 170, 179–80, 197

Index Whish, John Charles 54–5, 166–7 Great Exhibition Prize Essay 54–5, 58, 166–7 White, Lynn Jnr. 170 Wilberforce, Samuel 46–8, 170 On the Dignity of Labour 47–8 Winks, Joseph Foulkes 27 Wiseman, Nicholas 28, 29, 50, 101, 148 Wordsworth, Christopher 7, 106, 128 World Fair (Chicago, 1893) 1 World’s Great Assembly 125 Wright, Walter Melville 173–4 Wyatt, Matthew Digby 89 Yate, William 41, 44 Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) 72 n. 3, 78, 135, 194 Young, Paul 2 n.2, 124 Zoological Society 47