1849-1851.
Prince Albert's Industry--His proposal for a Great
Exhibition--Adoption of the Scheme--Competing Designs--Mr.
Paxton's selected--Erection of the Crystal Palace--Colonel
Sibthorp denounces the Scheme--Papal Titles in Great
Britain--Popular Indignation--The Ecclesiastical Titles
Bill--Defeat of Ministers on the Question of the
Franchise--Difficulty in finding a Successor to Russell--He
resumes Office--Opening of the Great Exhibition--Its success and
close.
[Sidenote: Prince Albert's Industry.]
Reference has been made already to the wise restraint which Prince
Albert imposed upon himself in respect to politics and legislation; but
those would greatly misinterpret the motives and impulses of that active
intellect who should attribute this reserve either to apathy or
constitutional indolence. Prince Albert did not admit that, because he
was withheld by recent developments of representative government from
personal interference in legislation and diplomacy, it was the less
incumbent upon him, as Consort of the Head of the State, to make himself
thoroughly informed on all the leading political questions of the day,
as well as on the special work of the public departments. Added to this
was the active part he took in schemes of social and commercial
improvement, and in scientific and artistic progress. An early riser at
all times, it was his custom, summer and winter, to dispose of a couple
of hours' work before breakfast, and it is no figure of speech to say
that few of the Queen's subjects can have been more constantly or more
laboriously employed than her husband. The Prince had lived down any
popular prejudice which he had to encounter in the early years of his
married life; people had come to understand and appreciate his abilities
and disposition, and the time had come when his genius and industry were
to bear remarkable fruit.
[Illustration: _R. T. Pritchett, F.S.A._} {_By permission of J. F.
Green, Esq._
THE FIRST STEAM LIFEBOAT, "DUKE OF NORTHUMBERLAND."
Built in 1890; is propelled by a turbine, driven by powerful steam
engines, and is capable of being steered by means of the jets of water
from the turbine, even if the rudder is disabled. She is 50 feet long,
14 feet 4 inches extreme breadth, 3 feet 6 inches deep, and is built of
steel in fifteen watertight compartments. She is stationed at New
Brighton, Cheshire; a similar boat is at Harwich; and a third is now
being built.]
[Sidenote: His Proposal for a Great Exhibition.]
[Sidenote: Adoption of the Scheme.]
Prince Albert was President of the Society of Arts, a body which, dating
from the middle of the eighteenth century, had, from time to time,
offered prizes for specimens of British textile, ceramic, and other
manufactures; but the project of holding a competitive Exhibition on an
international scale originated with the Prince himself. In the course of
July 1849 he had laid his proposals before some of the members of the
Society, and means were at once adopted to arouse the interest of
manufacturers at home, abroad, and in the colonies, and to open
negotiations with foreign governments. The idea caught on at once; the
States of Europe were at peace, and nothing could more surely tend to
obliterate the recollection of recent disturbances than to join in
friendly rivalry in the arts of peace. A Royal Commission was appointed
to carry out the preparations, and the scheme was formally inaugurated
on March 21, 1850, at a banquet given by the Lord Mayor to the Chief
Magistrates of all the towns in the United Kingdom, to which Prince
Albert and the foreign Ambassadors were also invited.
[Illustration: _C. J. Staniland, R.I._} {_From Contemporary Prints._
A. Master. B. Purser. C. Clerk. D. Midshipman. E. Rear-Admiral.
F. Petty Officer. G. Boatswain. H. Carpenter. J. Seaman.
UNIFORMS OF THE BRITISH NAVY, 1837.
In the early part of the reign there was no regulation dress for seamen,
and even in the case of officers the regulations were not enforced as
they are now.]
[Sidenote: Competing Designs.]
[Sidenote: Mr. Paxton's selected.]
[Sidenote: Erection of the Crystal Palace.]
Somerset House had been placed at the disposal of the Commissioners for
the purposes of the Exhibition, but the fervour with which all nations
embraced the idea soon made it manifest that no permanent edifice could
contain more than a small fraction of the exhibits. There was no time to
be lost--the 1st of May 1851 had been fixed for the opening ceremony.
The difficulty was not the cost, for a guarantee fund of £200,000 had
been speedily subscribed; but the designs and specifications had to be
submitted, the materials prepared, and the erection completed, all
within the space of nine months. A site in Hyde Park was chosen, and the
Commissioners set to work to examine no fewer than 245 designs and
specifications sent in by architects all over the world. They had almost
decided in favour of a design by a French architect, when a certain Mr.
Joseph Paxton--not a professional architect, but superintendent of the
Duke of Devonshire's gardens at Chatsworth--produced a scheme so
original and simple that it was adopted at once in preference to all
others. It was an enormous conservatory of glass and iron--1,848 feet
long, 408 feet broad, and 66 feet high--with transepts constructed so as
to contain some of the elms still growing in Hyde Park. The decision of
the Commissioners was not arrived at till July 26: not a single casting
or piece of material had been prepared yet; but the contractors, Messrs.
Fox, Henderson & Co., undertook to deliver the building ready for
painting and fitting on December 31. The ground lying between Albert
Gate and Knightsbridge Barracks on the east and west, between Rotten Row
and St. George's Place on the north and south, was handed over to them
on July 30; the first column was raised on September 26, and on the
stipulated day Messrs. Fox and Henderson handed over the structure of
the Crystal Palace, as it was called, to the Commissioners. Though the
great fabric vanished with the leaves of a single summer, yet this
achievement of the contractors deserves record among the most famous
exploits of industrial enterprise, affording, as it did, a practical
illustration of the dominant object of the Great Exhibition, as Prince
Albert had defined it in his speech at the Mansion House; namely, "To
give us a true test and living picture of the point of development at
which the whole of mankind has arrived ... a new starting point from
which all nations will be able to direct their further exertions."
[Illustration: _R. Simkin._}
A. Seaman (Full Dress).
B. First Class Petty Officer, White (Summer) Full Dress.
C. Chief Petty Officer.
D. Seaman (Landing Order).
E. Admiral.
F. Captain.
G. Midshipman.
H. Lieutenant.
J. Boatswain.
UNIFORMS OF THE BRITISH NAVY, 1897.]
[Sidenote: Colonel Sibthorp denounces the Scheme.]
[Sidenote: Papal Titles in Great Britain.]
[Sidenote: Popular Indignation.]
There were _frondeurs_, of course, as there always are in the projection
of any scheme involving novelty; and the _Times_ lent its sonorous voice
to swell the clamour raised against the desecration of Hyde Park by the
introduction of a commercial speculation. It may appear to some that the
British retain to this day some traces of insular prejudice against
foreigners, but such a feeling was far more prevalent in 1850 than one
is apt to realise now. It found fitting expression in the House of
Commons from the lips of Colonel Sibthorp, who declared that "when Free
Trade had left nothing else wanting to complete the ruin of the Empire,
the devil had suggested the idea of the Great Exhibition, so that the
foreigners who had first robbed us of our trade might now be enabled to
rob us of our honour."[D] The circumstances of the moment secured the
gallant Colonel more sympathy than his grotesque speech and exaggerated
fears would otherwise have won for him. The Protestant spirit of England
had taken alarm at a Papal bull re-establishing in Great Britain a
hierarchy of bishops deriving titles from the sees to which they were
appointed. This might have seemed a higher compliment to Great Britain
than the arrangement under which the Roman Catholic bishops, which had
existed ever since the Reformation, held their appointments, under
fictitious titles in _partibus infidelium_. But a good deal had occurred
in recent years to arouse Protestant jealousy of Papal aggression. The
Tractarian movement had resulted in the secession of Newman, Manning,
and other conspicuous clergy and laymen to the Church of Rome; people
both in London and Rome had begun to prognosticate a general secession
from the Church of England, and there was something peculiarly startling
in the appointment at this juncture of Cardinal Wiseman as Archbishop of
Westminster. Most Englishmen greatly preferred that the Pope should
continue to regard and call them "infidels," than that he should be
permitted to bring them under his immediate patronage in this formal and
ostentatious manner; and the feeling of irritation was intensified by
Wiseman's pastoral letter to the English people on October 7, 1850, in
which the new Archbishop announced that "your beloved country has
received a place among the fair churches which, normally constituted,
form the splendid aggregate of Catholic communion." Either the
Protestant Reformation, for which Great Britain had paid so heavy a
price, was a precious reality, in which case, so it appeared to most
Englishmen, this was an insolent and significant aggression by the Court
of Rome, or it was an obsolete blunder, and Rome was going to forgive it
and resume her spiritual sway over our people.
[Illustration: _John Leech._} {_From "Punch."_
THE BOY WHO CHALKED UP "NO POPERY," AND THEN RAN AWAY.
Lord John Russell's Ecclesiastical Titles Bill of February was
materially modified and made much less stringent before it was
reintroduced in March.]
[Sidenote: The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill.]
The Prime Minister lost no time in showing how the affair presented
itself to his mind. Within less than a month he had proclaimed that the
Pope's action was "a pretension of supremacy over the realm of England,
and a claim to sole and undivided sway, which is inconsistent with the
Queen's supremacy, with the rights of our bishops and clergy, and with
the spiritual independence of the nation as asserted even in Roman
Catholic times"; and he vindicated the sincerity of these expressions by
introducing, immediately after the meeting of Parliament in February
1851, a Bill to prevent the assumption by Roman Catholics of titles
taken from any place within the United Kingdom.
It was a hazardous measure to steer through the Imperial Parliament.
Outside popular passion was aflame; effigies of the Pope and Wiseman,
sixteen feet high, had been dragged through the streets of London on the
Fifth of November instead of the usual Guy Faux. On the other hand, both
the Radicals and the Irish Catholics in the House might be counted on to
offer fiercest opposition to the Bill. Ministers themselves dreaded
enacting anything that savoured of religious intolerance, and the Queen
herself has left on record her feelings about the subject.
"I would never have consented," she wrote to the Duchess of Gloucester,
"to anything which breathed a spirit of intolerance. Sincerely
Protestant as I have always been, and always shall be, and indignant as
I am at those who call themselves Protestants while they are, in fact,
quite the contrary, I much regret the unchristian and intolerant spirit
exhibited by many people at the public meetings. I cannot bear to hear
the violent abuse of the Catholic religion, which is so painful and so
cruel towards the many good and innocent Roman Catholics. However, we
must hope and trust this excitement will soon cease, and that the
wholesome effect of it upon our own Church will be lasting."
[Illustration: _Sir J. E Boehm, R.A._} {_National Portrait Gallery._
THOMAS CARLYLE, 1795-1881.
The son of a stonemason; born at Ecclefechan, Dumfries, and educated at
Edinburgh University. His essays and historical writings, set forth in
virile and rugged English, have had a very great influence on literature
and on popular thought, both in England and America. "Sartor Resartus"
appeared in 1833-4; the "French Revolution" in 1837; "Cromwell's Letters
and Speeches" in 1847; "Frederick the Great" in 1858-65.]
No wiser words have ever been written or spoken by a monarch. It was
both necessary and desirable to give effect to the national repugnance
to spiritual interference; but it was imperative that spiritual freedom
should be left absolutely unfettered. The progress of the measure
through the House of Commons was like that of Samson's foxes through
the Philistines' corn; it kindled every slumbering sentiment of acrimony
and hatred. The Radicals, through Mr. Roebuck, exclaimed against it as
"one of the meanest, pettiest, and most futile measures that ever
disgraced even bigotry itself." The Irish employed all their
inexhaustible resources in resistance; nor was their opposition modified
in the least degree by the Government agreeing to exclude Ireland from
the Bill. Nevertheless, after four nights' debate on the motion for
leave to introduce the Bill, the division list showed a majority of 332
in favour of it.
[Illustration: _F. Winterhalter._} {_In the Royal Collection._
THE FIRST OF MAY, 1851.
The Duke of Wellington presenting a casket to his godson, Prince Arthur
(Duke of Connaught). The Prince Consort holds a plan of the Great
Exhibition, which is seen in the distance.]
[Sidenote: Defeat of Ministers on the Question of the Franchise.]
[Sidenote: Lord Russell Resumes.]
But just as Peel fell on the morrow of his great victory on the Corn
Laws, so within a week of the division on the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill
Russell encountered defeat in resisting a motion to extend the
Franchise. He resigned office: the Queen sent for Lord Stanley, who
recommended that an attempt should be made by Russell to form a
coalition Cabinet with the help of the party of the late Robert Peel.
But the recent debate had raised implacable bitterness between the
Peelites and the Whigs. Next, Lord Aberdeen refused to attempt the
formation of a Ministry, on the ground that no Ministry could stand
which would not undertake to deal with Papal aggression, which he was
determined not to do. Lord Stanley then reluctantly tried his hand and
failed. The situation was more embarrassing than any that had arisen
since 1812, when the Lords Wellesley, Moira, Grey, and Grenville had
successively failed to form a Cabinet. The deadlock brought about a
touching incident. Her Majesty resolved to ask the advice of her
well-tried servant, the Duke of Wellington, then in his eighty-third
year. He gave it in terms as concise as one of his own general orders:
"That the party still filling the offices, till Her Majesty's pleasure
shall be declared, is the one best calculated to carry on the Government
at the present moment." On March 3, therefore, Lord John Russell, on Her
Majesty's invitation, returned to office. The Ecclesiastical Titles Bill
was resumed, but the more stringent clauses were withdrawn, and in the
form in which it finally received the Royal Assent it did no more than
declare the illegality of the English titles assumed by the Roman
Catholic hierarchy.[E]
[Illustration: _H. C. Selaus._} {_From an Engraving._
THE OPENING CEREMONY OF THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1851.
The Queen, Prince Consort, Duchess of Kent, and the Royal Children on
the Dais; members of the Ministry on the left; Foreign Ambassadors on
the right.]
[Sidenote: Opening of the Great Exhibition.]
While this agitation and these debates were in progress, it may be
believed that many people were far from hospitably disposed towards the
crowds of foreigners which the Great Exhibition was designed to draw to
London. But all hostile criticism was reduced, first to whispers, by the
marvellous success of the structure itself, and then to silence, by the
splendour of the opening ceremony and of the display within the
building. It is the poet's gift to store the essence of events in very
small phials, and Thackeray's _May Day Ode_ vividly reflects the
feelings of the nation on that far-off spring morning:
"But yesterday a naked sod,
The dandies sneered from Rotten Row,
And cantered o'er it to and fro;
And see, 'tis done!
As though 'twere by a wizard's rod,
A blazing arch of lucid glass
Leaps like a fountain from the grass
To meet the sun!"
A generation has sprung up since that day, satiated with marvels and
surprised by no achievement of hand and brain. But no such visible,
tangible accomplishment in the arts of peace had ever been manifested up
to that time; if Prince Albert's idea had been one of startling novelty,
the celerity of its realisation was still more startling.
[Illustration: _F. Winterhalter._} {_From the Royal Collection._
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE CONSORT.
From the Portrait painted in 1859.]
"God bless my dearest Albert!" wrote the Queen with no feigned emotion,
"God bless my dearest country, which has shown itself so great to-day!
One felt so grateful to the great God, who seemed to pervade all and
bless all."
More than mere womanly emotion, this, in presence of an exciting scene.
The May Day poet put on it the same interpretation:
"Swell, organ, swell your trumpet blast!
March, Queen and Royal pageant, march
By splendid aisle and springing arch
Of this fair Hall!
And see! above the fabric vast
God's boundless heaven is bending blue,
God's peaceful sun is beaming through,
And shining over all."
One note of discord, and one only, was heard; rather, one note necessary
to make the complete harmony was silent. It would have fulfilled the
international character of the Exhibition and emphasised it as an echo
of the message of peace on earth and goodwill towards men had the Corps
Diplomatique availed themselves of Prince Albert's invitation to present
an address to the Queen. But, strangely as it may sound at the present
day, most of the great Continental rulers held severely aloof from the
whole project of the Exhibition. They were apprehensive of the effect
which contact with English institutions, so dangerously liberal, might
have on their own subjects, and the foreign Ambassadors agreed, by a
majority of three, to decline to present an address.
[Sidenote: Its Success and Close.]
The success of the opening ceremony attended the Exhibition to its close
on October 15. Between six and seven millions of persons visited it, and
the surplus funds accruing to the Commissioners, amounting to upwards of
£200,000, were afterwards applied, on Prince Albert's suggestion, to the
purchase of the South Kensington estate, now occupied by various
institutions for the encouragement of Science and Art.
As inaugurating an era of universal peace, which its most enthusiastic
supporters expected it to do, the Great Exhibition of 1851 proved a
failure; but as a means of diffusing among the people of Great Britain
views about foreigners more enlightened than those they entertained
before, as an impetus to commerce and manufacture and a stimulus to
artistic production, the "Crystal Palace" has fully fulfilled the most
sanguine anticipation.
[Illustration: _W. L. Wyllie, A.R.A._}
THE WHITE STAR LINE R.M.S. "TEUTONIC" AS AN ARMED CRUISER AT THE NAVAL
REVIEW, August 4, 1889.
Addressing the members of the Institute of Naval Architects on March 30,
1887, upon the "Merchant Service and the Royal Navy," Sir N. Barnaby,
late Director of Naval Construction, referred to the arrangements which
had then recently been completed between the Admiralty and the White
Star and other Companies for the retention of their steamers for war
purposes, and pointed out that "this seed, for which we have to thank
Mr. Ismay, was planted at the Admiralty nine years ago; ... the outcome
of proposals made by Mr. Ismay as far back as 1878," when he urged upon
the attention of the Admiralty that a fast mail or passenger steamer
might be as efficient a factor in a naval war as an ordinary war
cruiser, and offered to make an agreement to hold at the disposal of the
Admiralty, upon terms then specified, certain ships for the purposes of
the State in time of war.]
[Illustration: _From a Photograph_} {_by Frith & Co._
BUCKINGHAM PALACE.
Buckingham Palace occupies the site of old Buckingham House, which was
altered and enlarged to fit it for a Royal Residence by John Nash in the
reigns of George IV. and William IV. It was altered again in 1837 for
Queen Victoria, and the east front (that shown in the Illustration)
added in 1850, when the Marble Arch was removed from the front of the
Palace to its present site at the north east corner of Hyde Park. The
lake in the foreground is the ornamental water in St. James's Park.]