INTD 20 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Suffrage, Huckster, Henry Cole
NOTES ON:
1852 Henry Cole, “On the International Results of the Exhibition of 1851”
Sir Henry Cole (1808–1882), an Englishman, was the chief organizer of the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was
sponsored by Prince Albert and the Royal Society of Arts as a means of fostering international competition—and,
thereby, improved design—in manufactures. The Great Exhibition took place in Hyde Park, London, in the famed
Joseph Paxton-designed iron-and-glass “Crystal Palace.” Cole, both before and after the exhibition, was a passionate
advocate of design education. His collection of objects from the Great Exhibition formed the basis for the collections
of the South Kensington (later the Victoria and Albert) Museum, an institution whose original purpose was to provide
design students and manufacturers with examples of good design and decorative motifs. In these excerpts, taken from
an 1852 lecture, Cole explains the rationale behind the exhibition, as well as some of its effects on manufacturing and
international relations.
Excerpted from Henry Cole, Lecture XII, Second Series, December 1, 1852 (London: D. Bogue, 1852): 521–539.
[ … ]
To come to causes nearer at hand which produced the International Exhibition, and placed in this
country that first of the long series of Exhibitions, which I have no doubt will follow, I think must be
named Free Trade, or, to substitute Latin for Saxon words, “unrestricted competition.” It would have
been a folly to have proposed an International Exhibition before that great statesman, Sir Robert
Peel,1 had loosened the fetters of our commercial tariff, so that it might be [in] the interest of foreigners
to accept the invitation to show us the fruits of their Industry. Had an International Exhibition of
Industry been proposed in the good old times, when our manufacturers of silk, and cotton, and metals,
were protected from the competition of their foreign neighbours, we should have rejected the idea just
as the French manufacturers did, whose developement [sic] is still cramped by protective tariffs. But it
was decidedly [in] the interest of England to adopt the idea, and she did so on that account, and because
she was ripe for it, which France was not, and is not, although she may be certainly advancing to that
point of reason.
You are all well aware that the honour of the first idea of an International Exhibition does not belong to
England. Like many other theories, it came from France, having been proposed by M. Buffet, the
Minister of Commerce after the Revolution of 1848, and was submitted by him to the several
Chambers of Commerce. He said to them:—“It has occurred to me, that it would be interesting to the
country in general to be made acquainted with the degree of advancement towards perfection attained
by our neighbours in those manufactures in which we so often come in competition in foreign markets.
Should we bring together and compare the specimens of skill in agriculture and manufactures now
claiming our notice, whether native or foreign, there would, doubtless, be much useful experience to be
gained; and, above all, a spirit of emulation, which might be greatly advantageous to the country.” He
then requested that the Chambers would “give their opinion on the abstract principle of exhibiting the
productions of other countries, and, if they should consider that the experiment ought to be made, to
enumerate to him officially the articles they thought would most conduce to the French interest when
displayed.”
No doubt it would have been interesting to our neighbours to see the best we were doing; but the
French manufacturers were not prepared to let the French ladies see the printed calicoes we were able
to produce at fourpence and fivepence a-yard, or to allow the French gentlemen to examine the cutlery
of Sheffield, the plated wares of Birmingham, or the pottery of Staffordshire in Paris. So the French
Chambers of Commerce gave no encouragement to the abstract proposition of M. Buffet. They would
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not throw off their armour of protection, and will not do so until the French people themselves become
more imperative in their desire to have a sight and taste of foreign manufactures. [ …]
In France an International Exhibition was a philosophical theory, and must remain a bauble to be talked
about until she alters her commercial tariff. But in England the idea at once became a practical reality,
receiving universal welcome as soon as our Royal President2directed that it should be submitted to our
manufacturers for their consideration. As part of the history of the growth of the International
Exhibition in this country, I would read to you a few opinions which I collected and submitted to Prince
Albert in 1849:—
A committee of Manchester cotton-printers, consisting of Mr. H. Thomson, Mr. Hargreaves, and Mr.
Herz, concurred in thinking that “It is very necessary that all parties should know what the French and
all nations are doing, and should compare their manufactures with our own. The comparison would
show what our manufacturers could do, and by generating increased knowledge and appreciation in our
consumers would induce the production of a much higher class of work.”
Mr. Nelson, of the firm of Nelson, Knowles, and Co., of Manchester, said,— “One great argument for
universality is that manufacturers ought to know all that is doing. Most manufacturers have much too
high an opinion of their own excellence, and it is desirable they should measure it by that of others.”
Messrs. Hoyle and Sons agreed unanimously that the Exhibition ought certainly to be international.
“The Lancashire feeling eminently is,” said Mr. Alderman Neild, “to have a clear stage and no favour.”
Messrs. Kershaw and Co. of Manchester, said, “Open the Exhibition to receive productions of all
nations, certainly.”
[ … ]
And even in those manufactures where our own inferiority would probably be demonstrated in the
Exhibition, manufacturers certainly welcomed the opportunity which would thus be afforded for
comparison. Thus,—
Mr. J. Jobson Smith, of the firm of Messrs. Stuart and Smith of Sheffield, grate-manufacturers, thought
“it most desirable to see the best metal work of all nations; but that England would be behind in
ornamental metal work, particularly where the human figure is involved.”
I do not think the Exhibition itself will have altered these opinions uttered two years before.
As England, beyond any other nation, was prepared, by the cosmopolitan character of its people and by
its commercial policy, to be the first nation to carry out an International Exhibition of Industry—so the
continuous labours of the Society of Arts in promoting National Exhibitions of Industry naturally led to
its being the agent for carrying out such a work. I will not detain you with details of the Exhibitions
which had been held in Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, and other provincial towns, or in Dublin;
or of the eleven successive National Exhibitions which had been held in France, between 1798 and
1849. All of these, doubtless, had an important influence in directing public attention to the subject in
this country.
But we must recollect that, even as early as 1756, nearly a century before, this Society had held
Exhibitions of Manufactures; and for six years immediately preceding 1851 had, year by year, held
Annual Exhibitions of some kind, each one growing in importance.
The idea of a National Exhibition became a common property. [ … ] Mr. S. Carter Hall, Mr. G. Wallis,
Mr. F. Whishaw, Mr. Theophilus Richards, were all avowed public advocates of some kind of National
Exhibition of Manufactures, and perhaps others whose names I do not know, before this Society
pledged itself to hold a National Exhibition in 1851. Public conviction of its importance was of slow
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