HBSMW - The Great Exhibition of 1851

'A great people invited all civilised nations to a festival to bring into comparison the works of human skill.' So wrote Sir Henry Cole one of the exhibition's organisers. 

On 1 May 1851, Queen Victoria opened the exhibition in Hyde Park to crowds eager to see this display of British invention. It was held in a building made of steel and 30,000 panes of hand blown glass. Inside were machines, exhibits from all around the country, the Empire and wider world. 

The catalogue to the Great Exhibition, copies of which are in many libraries, is also available online. This reveals many connections, for example with the Stokes Mortar, which was invented by the managing director of the Ipswich engineers, Ransomes, who had exhibited the equipment they were making for the railway companies. For Lincoln dwellers there is an entry for Clayton, Shuttleworth & Co with an oscillating steam-engine but with ‘arrangements simple and compact, suitable for working corn mills, sawing machinery etc

My great grandfather was secretary to the committee of Surgical Instrument makers and he managed the business of J Weiss Co at 62, The Strand. He was presented with a catalogue, the cover of which has been preserved. 

Thumbing through the catalogue, it is interesting to see the names that have survived to this day: Heal & Sons no longer make furniture, but still sell it, Fox Brothers still produce wool textiles, and famously Siemens but the British arm of the family. Winsor & Newton are still active in supplying the arts community as are Rowney now as part of Daler-Rowney.

Most of the thousands of companies exhibiting at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park that summer of 1851 thrived and either died or combined as British manufacturing reached and passed its zenith. 

That year was also marked by the first comprehensive census which offers an idea of how the nation was employed. Textiles Agriculture came top with some two million people; textiles came second at over a million. Domestic service loomed large but so did coal mining and metal working. It was a nation at work.

You can buy How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World at Pen & Sword, on Amazon and at WH Smith.

Reviews of How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World

What a really fascinating book that looks at the manufacturing world from the 1850’s through to the 1950’s. Piggybacking on the industrial revolution that saw Britain expand and grow greatly, saw the expansion of the manufacturing industries such as Coal, Metals, Textiles, Glass, Electrical and so on. It was really interesting and reading about some big companies and industries and how they started, some are now long gone but some are still around today. 

This book begins from the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace and continues for the next 100 years and covers the inter-war years too. There were some nice photographs to accompany the text which I probably would have liked to have seen more of. But overall, this has been an interesting read and I would recommend it to others if you enjoy this period of history.

The History Fella

This is a brilliant book. I am reading it and find it both very enlightening and absolutely full of information. Recommend it!

Neil Main - Managing Director Micrometric Limited

The subject is fascinating; covering the period between the Great Exhibition and the Festival of Britain would seem to be an impossible task, but you have done it very well indeed. There are some great photographs.

Richard Pullen - author of The Landships of Lincoln

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars 

Fascinating book.

Well written and brings life the amazing work many people did within manufacturing.

I never knew Britain had such a wide history.

Karen Bull - NetGalley 

When Phil asked me to write the forward to his book, I was not prepared for the scale, scope, detail and insights I would gain through this magnificent body of work.

Phil covers the changing industrial and manufacturing landscape between the two great exhibitions of 1851 and 1951, the latter being the year I was born.

Household names, emerge, merge and disappear as the reader is taken on a wonderful journey from our seafaring and exploring past, through a depression and two world wars to the wonderful exhibition of 1951 which displayed the strength and depth of our industrial capability.

Paul Barron CBE DSc from the foreword he wrote for the book.

You can buy How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World at Pen & Sword, on Amazon and at WH Smith.

How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World published 15 June 2022

 Great to hear that the book is in the warehouse ready for despatch. 

The peoples of the British Isles gave to the world the foundations on which modern manufacturing economies are built. This is quite an assertion, but history shows that, in the late eighteenth century, a remarkable combination of factors and circumstances combined to give birth to Britain as the first manufacturing nation. Further factors allowed it to remain top manufacturing dog well into the twentieth century whilst other countries were busy playing catch- up. Through two world wars and the surrounding years, British manufacturing remained strong, albeit whilst ceding the lead to the United States.

This book seeks to tell the remarkable story of British manufacturing, using the Great Exhibition of 1851 as a prism. Prince Albert and Sir Henry Cole had conceived an idea of bringing together exhibits from manufacturers across the world to show to its many millions of visitors the pre-eminence of the British. 1851 was not the start, but rather a pause for a bask in glory.

The book traces back from the exhibits in Hyde Park’s Crystal Palace to identify the factors that gave rise to this pre-eminence, just as the factory system at Cromford Mill. It then follows developments up until the Festival of Britain exactly one century later. Steam power and communication by electric telegraph, both British inventions, predated the Exhibition. After it came the sewing machine and bicycle, motor car and aeroplane, but also electrical power, radio and the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

Here is a bit about me 

And here is a link to Pen&Sword in the hope that you will want to buy a copy.