High society – the aristocracy and the idle rich – what I called ‘the fashionables’ – never liked my darling. It was partly because his great shyness and reserve gave an impression of hauteur, and people don’t like to be snubbed. But it was mostly because he and they were so very different, and they must have known in their heart of hearts that he was their superior, and resented it. How could he do other than snub those whose roots were deep in Regency profligacy; whose manners were free and easy, and whose morals scandalous; addicted to deep play, hard drinking and sporting prowess; contemptuous of respectability, robust, cynical, sceptical, and tolerant of everything except intolerance? And how could they fail to be annoyed by a virtuous, studious, diligent, patient, painstaking, cultured idealist with a strong sense of duty – particularly when he was German, and had not the least interest in the blood-lines of horses?
As the Fashionables naturally gravitated towards gaming-rooms and race-meetings, Albert found his natural sphere in the learned societies, whose members were – at least in theory – dedicated to the searching out and dissemination of Truth and Enlightenment. In those solid Augustan buildings, with their weighty libraries, dark-panelled lecture-rooms, echoing corridors, marble busts and memorial windows, he found the atmosphere in which his great intellect could flourish. Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, as Goethe says – Genius develops in quiet places!
The most eminent of these learned societies was the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, familiarly known as the Society of Arts. In 1845 it invited Albert to become its President, and he fulfilled its best hopes by procuring for it from me a Royal Charter. Accepting this presidency led him in the end to the means of annoying more Fashionables at one time than we could ever have dreamed possible! It also had a darker consequence, which we could not have guessed at – but if he had known what was to come would he have altered course? I have to doubt it. Albert saw life from a different viewpoint from anyone else – certainly from me. It was as if his lens had a distortion which enabled him to see round corners, but not straight ahead.
The Great Exhibition was Albert’s idea. There are several people – Henry Cole not least nor quietest among them – who have claimed that they thought of it first; but Albert was its ‘only begetter’, and I can state that positively because it was with me that he discussed the ideas which led up to it. It began in 1848, when Europe was in ferment, nationalism was a new and potent force, and we were all only too well aware that European war on a Napoleonic scale could not be ruled out. We were talking about it one evening.
‘It is madness for one nation to pit itself against another,’ Albert said passionately. ‘No one wins. Everyone loses. War makes nothing but widows and poverty.’
‘Lord M. always said that all wars are trade wars, whatever the politicians say,’ I remarked over my needle. ‘I suppose you can’t stop people trying to seize territory from their neighbours.’
He waved a dismissive hand. ‘That was one thing when we were primitive tribes competing for hunting grounds. But now we live in sophisticated societies, trading with one another, depending on one another. You cannot rob your neighbour now without robbing yourself. How can men be so infatuated as to believe permanent gain can come from another country’s loss?’
I put down my work and looked at him. ‘I suppose other men don’t think as clearly as you do,’ I said, taking his question literally.
But he wasn’t listening. He whirled on me, his eyes bright with fervour. ‘Do you know, Victoria, I think there is a chance now before us which never existed before – to unify all Mankind. Until this moment in the world’s history, the problems of time and space were always too great. How could you regard as your brother a man whom it was impossible to reach or communicate with? But now there are railways, and telegraphs, and steamships capable of crossing vast oceans. Distance is being eliminated, people being drawn together as never before! Now, at this moment in this century, the possibility exists of drawing every nation on earth into a common understanding, a brotherhood of civilization!’
‘How?’ I asked. Then I wished I hadn’t. It was my nature that I always wanted the practical points nailed down, but it tended to end his flights with rather a bump, and I loved listening to him when he talked like that.
‘I don’t know,’ he said after a moment’s silence. ‘But I tell you this – it has to do with Free Trade. That’s where it must all start, with the removal of all trade barriers between countries. The prosperity of each is part of the prosperity of all: we have learned that since 1815 – look how every upheaval abroad sends our trade down! England must lead the way. Democracy began here, and industrialisation. England must find the means to show the world that peace and prosperity cannot be separated, and that both depend on free competition and the full exchange of ideas.’
That was the earliest conversation on the subject that I remember, but it was a continuing preoccupation of Albert’s. The nations of the world must be brought together – but how to begin it? Some great event was needed, some congruence, some gathering in one place, not of flawed and corruptible politicians, but of manufacturers and traders. The world must be shown, the point made, the new era started rolling – but by what?
The idea of an exhibition coalesced gradually in the opening months of 1849. The French Government was to hold an exposition of art and manufacture in Paris that summer – one of its quinquennial expositions – and the Society of Arts had long wanted to do something similar in England, but the plan had lacked backing, and nothing had come of it. On the 30th of June Albert called to a meeting at Buckingham Palace four eminent members of the society – Thomas Cubitt, the dynamic Henry Cole, Francis Fuller, who had just come back from the Paris exposition, and the Secretary of the Society, Scott Russell.
To these men Albert proposed that there should be an exhibition of works of art and industry in London in 1851, for the purposes of competition and encouragement. But unlike the French affair, the exhibition in London must embrace foreign products too. It must be a completely international affair – the very first such the world had ever seen – and on a vast scale. Every nation must be invited to contribute to it, sending examples of its raw materials, and the very best of its art and artefacts. Thus we would present to the world a living picture of the point at which mankind had arrived, and of the new starting-point from which all nations could direct their future endeavours.
‘We will open the great treasure-house of the world and take stock,’ he said. ‘And we will show the way forward, turn men’s minds from military aggression to commercial and industrial competition.’
Scott Russell said doubtfully, ‘I don’t know that our manufacturers will like it, sir. They may rather want less competition than more. How will it benefit them?’
‘Competition benefits everyone,’ Albert said firmly. ‘And international competition will benefit all mankind. It will stimulate new effort, raise standards, increase output, open up new markets, give new scope to ingenuity and originality – and so produce a higher standard of living for all of the competing nations.’
‘But will our factory masters understand that?’ said Scott Russell.
Henry Cole answered him cheerfully, ‘Even if they don’t, they will still want to show off their wares. Depend upon it, they have a very good conceit of themselves. They will firmly expect to be superior to any foreign maker, and carry off all the prizes.’
If the exhibition was to be an international one, it would need the backing of the Government, so that foreign governments could be canvassed for their contributions. A fortnight later a second meeting was held by the same group, to which they invited Sir Robert Peel (who would seem to be Albert’s natural ally in the scheme, being himself the son of a factory-master – it was such a puzzle that he ended up in the Tory party, when he ought to have been a Whig) and one or two members of the Cabinet, including Labouchère, who was the President of the Board of Trade.
After the
meeting Albert came to me looking down in the mouth. ‘We seem to have stumbled into a vicious circle,’ he said. ‘The Government doesn’t want to commit itself to supporting the idea until we find out how much interest there is in the country at large. But I can’t see how we are going to persuade the manufacturers of the importance of it, unless we can tell them that the Government is supporting us.’
‘You will need a Royal Commission,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘But Parliament is about to go into recess, and a request for a Royal Commission can’t go before Cabinet now until October at the earliest. And Labouchère hinted that we ought to have some evidence of support – especially financial support – before we even propose it.’
‘Financial support? Do you need very much money, then?’ I asked.
‘A suitable building will have to be constructed. Nothing exists that will do – it will have to be a new thing – and Cubitt estimates we will want £75,000 for that. And then there must be prizes, or no one will exhibit – you know how suspicious these manufacturers are, always thinking their ideas will be stolen. The prizes must be substantial to attract the best – another £20,000, Fuller thinks.’
‘A hundred thousand pounds, then,’ I said soberly. ‘Where will you get it from?’
‘The society has no funds of its own,’ Albert said. ‘We must collect subscriptions; but people will not subscribe unless the whole thing is controlled by a Royal Commission. Without that, there will be no respectability, no guarantee of impartiality – no confidence.’
‘Yes, I see the problem. You need the Royal Commission to obtain public confidence, and you must prove public confidence to obtain the Royal Commission.’ I pondered. ‘Do you really think there is enough interest in the country at large for a scheme of this sort?’
‘I’m sure of it. Once things are moving, it will all be carried forward by its own momentum. There has been nothing like this, on such a scale, and the excitement will transform men’s minds. But how to start it moving – that’s the hard part.’
I could see he was growing despondent. I have found it is often the way with men of great enthusiasms, that they are easily set down by little setbacks which do not bother ordinary, dull people like me. ‘Nothing can be done about the Cabinet until October,’ I said, ‘but I don’t see why you can’t canvass opinion in the meantime. If people know you are behind the scheme, they will know it must be respectable and impartial. Send your Society of Arts friends with letters of introduction to talk to the mill-masters and mayors and chambers of commerce. If they do their part well, by the time Parliament reconvenes, the whole country will be talking about the exhibition, and the Government will not be able to hold back.’
It was enough. Albert lifted my hand and kissed it, looking brighter. ‘My clear-minded little wifey! Yes, I’m sure you are right. That is exactly what we’ll do.’
So Cole and Fuller – the most persuasive and active of the group – went forth on their travels to all the great centres of industry in England, Scotland and Ireland, and by October they had compiled a report which was very gratifying. Interest in the scheme was intense – not only amongst manufacturers but also merchants, traders, bankers, and even members of the public with no direct connection with commerce. And best of all, as far as Albert was concerned, everyone seemed to agree that the international character of the exhibition was of the greatest importance, and to understand the wider significance of what was proposed. The suggestion of prizes had seemed almost irrelevant, Cole and Fuller reported: everyone wanted to show their goods, compare them with those of other nations, and see what improvements could be wrought. ‘Give us a clear stage and no favour,’ one Lancashire group had said; Edinburgh felt that the competition would ‘rub the sharp corners off many nations’; while Manchester said that free competition would benefit all concerned.
Armed with the report, the society held a meeting at the Mansion House to which it invited four hundred great men from the City, and Henry Cole gave a glorious speech describing all the wonders the Exhibition would display, and the fabulous benefits that would accrue from it not only to mankind in general, but to London in particular in being the host to ‘an intellectual festival of peaceful industry, a festival such as the world had never seen before’. The speech was received with rapturous applause, and the most influential financiers in the country were converted to the cause. The Times at this point took notice, declared itself enthusiastically for the Exhibition and described Albert as his country’s benefactor for thinking of the idea. A week later the Government succumbed to the invisible pressure, threw caution to the winds, and agreed to issue a Royal Commission.
From that time the Great International Exhibition was a certainty; all that remained was to organise it. Thus the great boulder of work and worry that was to crush Albert began rolling slowly down the slope towards him.
21st August 1900
THE NAMES of the commissioners were published on January the 4th, 1850, and included Albert as President, Lord Granville as Vice-President, and Peel and Russell, like the two poles, providing impartial political support. There were twenty-four commissioners altogether, but most of them were included for show rather than for any active help they might give. It was on Granville, cultured, tactful, hardworking, good-tempered and utterly imperturbable, that Albert came to rely almost entirely.
Money was the next concern. Albert persuaded the Duke to put his name at the head of the subscription list, and with that distinguished lead money began to pour in. I put myself down for £1,000 and Albert for £500, and in the first six weeks £15,000 was raised, such was the general interest in the business. A working man even sent a shilling, together with a most touching letter of support. Henry Cole, who was immensely active in publicising the affair and coaxing money out of pockets both high and low, saw to it that the circumstance and the letter were published in The Times.
As interest at home and abroad increased, it became a matter of pressing urgency to decide on a home for the exhibition. Enquiries were coming in from all over the world, and since it was plainly going to be impossible to assess even roughly how many individuals would exhibit, or how much in bulk they would want to display, the commissioners were obliged to fix on an arbitrary size for the building. They ruled that the exhibition should cover 800,000 square feet, four times the size of the largest exhibition yet held anywhere. But where to put all these square feet? An area of about twenty acres was needed. Albert put forward the suggestion of Leicester Square – then an open, undeveloped place – but it was surrounded by poor and neglected areas which the commissioners felt might not give the right impression to visitors. It was Henry Cole who put forward the counter suggestion of Hyde Park – the Garden of London, central, spacious, and handsome. In his energetic way he took his wife and children to the Park after church one Sunday and walked about until he had found the perfect spot – the strip of ground stretching from Albert Gate to Prince’s Gate, lying between the Serpentine River and the Cavalry Barracks at Knightsbridge. Albert thought this an excellent site, and I approved of it (once it was determined that it would not interfere with the cavalry’s movements in any way) and so with Crown permission already secured, we assumed that the matter was decided.
The next stage was for the design of the building to be chosen. A separate Building Committee was formed, consisting of two commissioners, three architects and three civil engineers (including Mr Brunel, the railway man), and they decided that as time was pressing, a general competition would be the quickest way to obtain ideas. So on March the 13th they issued an invitation to the public, at home and abroad, to submit suggestions as to the form the building should take. Anyone might contribute – architects or amateurs – but the time limit was April the 8th.
Despite the tight deadline, two hundred and forty-five designs were submitted, ranging from the preposterous to the Babylonian – and in a very short time two hundred and forty-five designs had been rejected by the Building Committee. They issued a
report stating that while some few had been highly commendable, none was quite suitable, and all contained serious flaws of design for an international exhibition. The committee felt itself in a strong position to learn from the mistakes of the two hundred and forty-five others, and intended to provide a plan of its own which would combine suitability of purpose with ‘some striking features’ to show the current state of the science of construction in England. It then-shut itself away to ponder, and we were left waiting in breathless silence outside its closed door.
Would that the rest of the country had also remained silent! While the Building Committee deliberated, a ferocious reaction to the general euphoria over the exhibition set in, and soon the papers were full of nothing else. It began with Lord Brougham (who was growing steadily madder by the month). Having originally spoken out in favour of the exhibition, he now suddenly stood up in the House to launch a violent attack on it. Hyde Park, he declared, was the lungs of the capital, and now it was proposed to choke them with a tubercule – a huge building, paid for by the money out of Englishmen’s pockets, put up for foreigners to sell their wares in.
In the Lower House he was joined by another madman, Colonel Sibthorpe, a truculent little man with a fierce black beard and a flashing eyeglass who passionately opposed change of any sort, and who hated any idea that was new since 1815. He had discovered that ten elm trees in Hyde Park had been marked with whitewash, signifying that they would have to be cut down for the proposed exhibition building. These trees, he thundered, were the property of the people – and for what reason were they to be destroyed? Why, for the biggest fraud and humbug ever to be forced upon the people of this country! The Government was going about demolishing valuable public property solely for the purpose of encouraging foreigners, who would laugh at us for our folly while filling their pockets at our expense.
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