John Kemper
5/23/00
Internationalism and the
Search for a National Identity:
Britain and the Great
Exhibition of 1851
There was nothing small about the
Great Exhibition of 1851. Located in London’s
Hyde Park, and housed in Joseph Paxton’s colossal Crystal Palace, the
exhibition was intended as an international forum of the broadest possible
dimensions, a gathering of industry and commerce, of ideas and values, and of
peoples and nations. As envisioned by
Prince Albert and the Royal Commission charged with its planning, the
exhibition was meant as a display of international goodwill, as a peaceful
pageant of national identities. These
benevolent motivations, however, were manifested in a number of curious, and
even counterproductive, ways. As a
demonstration of industries, inventions and identities, the exhibition, in a
sense, put entire nations on display pedestals. Identities were defined in relative terms, and in 1851, these
terms were drawn in the Crystal Palace.
The much touted internationalist spirit of the exhibition, as a result,
took on some competitive overtones of nationalism. The tension between internationalism and nationalism can be
understood in a number of ways. By
examining and contrasting the rich accounts of the exhibition as presented by
official planners and by popular media, we might begin to discern the nature of
this dichotomy.
Defining Vision: The Origins of the Exhibition
For the proportions of grandeur
that the Great Exhibition came to represent in 1851, its origins were markedly
humble. Expressed in later years as a
symbol of both international fraternity and British glory, it was not initially
conceived in any such terms. On many
counts, the exhibition’s planners saw the event as a way to help identify and
remedy Britain’s shortcomings as much as to celebrate her accomplishments. While Britain certainly stood as the world’s
foremost industrial power by 1850, the foundations of this strength were not
always wholly apparent. The lessons of
the ‘Hungry Forties’ showed that economic downturns were not unknown.[1] The continuing plight of the industrial
worker in substandard working conditions must have caused concern as to the
tenability of the new industrial order.[2] The Repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846 and the
Commercial Crisis of 1847 shook the established system of international trade,
and pointed to the need for new systems and solutions.
It
is in this context of solution-building that the exhibition of 1851 might be
best understood. On June 30, 1849,
Prince Albert assembled a small group of planners in a meeting that would hatch
the event’s initial plans. Albert
opened the meeting by enumerating three motivating directives, as he saw them,
for the exhibition’s planning.(Image) Broad as they may seem, exhibition,
competition, and encouragement would serve as organizing principles.[3] Taken together, this fusion of ideals
summarizes well the underlying principles of Victorianism, as it developed
through the nineteenth century.
Competition was certainly at the heart of the liberal order over which
Britain wished to preside. The impact
of Adam Smith’s and David Ricardo’s economic modeling, coupled with recent
lessons of industrial growth, deeply imbued British identity with a competitive
spirit. Such were certainly the
motivating foundations of British imperialism throughout the century. British economic interests relied on private
business competition to govern expediently vast territorial holdings.[4] Encouragement of this competition was both a
necessary underpinning and a logical corollary. Efficient outcomes, believed by intellectuals and capitalists
alike to yield benefits to society as a whole, were the inevitable outcome of
this encouraged competition. Herein lay
the pride and glory of British capitalism in the mid-nineteenth century. Exhibition of these liberal values was a
natural manifestation of this pride. It
was also a genuinely well-intentioned form of internationalism, a theory of
relationships that liberal thinkers felt capable of peacefully governing an
increasingly complicated international system.
The
very complexion of the Royal Commission charged with planning the exhibition
represents the solidarity of good intention that would ground Albert’s project.(Image)
Chaired by Albert himself, the commission represented a considerably
wide spectrum of political, commercial, and public interests, counting among
its ranks a number of prominent MP’s from both the government and opposition,
the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, the President of the East India Company,
a Leeds wool manufacturer, and a marble sculptor.[5] Praising this diversity of composition, The Times remarked that the government
had clearly acted with “perfect impartiality,” and went so far as to assert
that “every shade of political opinion in the country, and every great interest
in the State” was represented on the commission.[6] Overlooking for the moment the writer’s
plain exaggeration, The Times account nonetheless provides an
interesting insight into the attitudes of both planners and witnesses. Such breadth of constituent membership
reflects, to a certain degree, a commonly-accepted, underlying vision of the exhibition.
On
the whole, the members of the commission were reformers and were committed
supporters of free trade. Richard Cobden had been the leading abolitionist in
the fight to end the Corn Laws and Robert Peel had been the Prime Minister who
accepted the necessity of their repeal.
Earl Granville, William Gladstone and Henry Labouchere had reduced trade
restrictions during their tenures at the Board of Trade.[7] Of the twenty-four commissioners, in fact,
only four were protectionists.[8] Only two had opposed franchise reform in
1832, and the majority of the body was composed of industrial and financial
leaders -- not nobility. Most of the
men were devoutly dedicated to the progress of science and technology. The Earl of Rosse, for example, had personally
funded a ¤20,000 telescope, the so-called “Leviathan of Parsontown.”[9] As a whole, then, this body of planners
represented a diverse segment of upper-class Britons, united in a generally
liberal outlook of free trade, scientific progress, and social reform. While it would be artificial to ascribe any
one ideological outlook to the Great Exhibition as it ultimately emerged, the
beliefs and values of its planners must naturally have affected its own
character. This impact is especially
evident in the internationalist tone of the exhibition.
Pacifist Internationalism and the Great Exhibition
In his account of the Great Exhibition,
Charles Babbage discusses at length the international benefits of the great
gathering. One excerpt of particular
clarity is instructive:
as in the Associations of science,
cultivators from all nations are invited to be present, so in the exhibition of
the productions of industry the general advantage of mankind is most advanced
by the joint contributions of the whole industrial world.[10]
Babbage, a corresponding member of
the Academy of Moral Sciences, attests to both the broad vision and, through
his very attendance, to the actual reach of the exhibition. His description here serves in many ways as
an eloquent, albeit brief, summary of liberalism, and also of one of the main
organizing principles of the Great Exhibition.
Babbage
was certainly not alone his view of the fair as a gathering for universal
progress and good will. Prince Albert
set a tone of pacifist internationalism early in the exhibition’s planning,
speaking of “peace, love and ready assistance, not only between individuals but
between the nations of the earth.”[11] One official pamphlet, published on behalf
of the commissioners went still further, pronouncing that “The exhibition of
1851 will fulfill the prophecy of the sacred volume, and hasten the period
‘when men shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into
pruning hooks.’ It is a stage forward in
that millennium which announces “peace and goodwill towards men!”[12] In example after example of official
accounts, the exhibition is portrayed as a unifying forum for sentiments of
international brotherhood, where peoples and nations would learn from each
other’s successes and failures and usher in an era of peace.
The
character of this envisioned international order, however, reflected a
distinctly British flavor in its proposed composition. Unobstructed by the now voided Corn Laws,
British merchants embraced free trade as never before. Equipped with the advantages of widespread
and pervasive domestic industry, Britons dominated this trade, spreading
empire, fortune and ideology. Going
forth into the broad empire and the world at-large, these traders carried more
than mere goods in their vessels: they carried the gospel of free trade, and
they preached the mutually beneficial nature of this commerce. The Great Exhibition, in many ways, was
intended as a display, and indeed a celebration, of the virtue of liberal, free
trade. Again, Charles Babbage
summarizes the liberal view nicely:
The
Exposition is calculated to promote and increase the free interchange of raw
materials and manufactured commodities between all the nations of the earth.
Its
object is not the exclusive benefit of England. . . . It is the interest of
every people, that all other nations should advance in knowledge, in industrial
skill, in taste, and in science.[13]
Babbage goes on to detail the
basic arguments of classical economics, emphasizing as he does the great gains
from trade in terms of both profit and efficiency. His synopsis is elucidatory indeed, for it gives voice to the
free trade proponents that played such an important role in the exhibition’s
planning.
Chief
among these free traders was Richard Cobden, a major industrialist and leader
of the Manchester School of thought.[14] A major figure in the abolition of the Corn
Laws, Cobden preached the virtues of free trade, and urged his beliefs on
Prince Albert and the rest of the commission.
Like Babbage, he saw the Great Exhibition as an opportune mode of
expression for his internationalist values.
More so than Babbage, however, Cobden chose to emphasize international
competition within systems of free trade as a sort of innocuous proxy for
other, more dangerous forms of competition.
He spoke of the triumph of industry as a substitute for the triumph of
arms.[15] This view was a commonly-shared one among
commissioners and other industrialists.
Because everyone would benefit from free trade and industrial
advancement, war became not only unnecessary, but actively counterproductive to
the larger aim of prosperity. As Europe
had learned during the Napoleonic wars some thirty-five years earlier, conflict
diverted increasing amounts of valuable resources from a society and nation,
resources that were better employed in the cause of economic growth.
To
return to a point raised above, one can easily recognize elements of all three
of Albert’ s motivations for the exposition – exhibition, competition, and
encouragement. Popular guides to the
exhibition help to underscore this point.
John Tallis, the author of a quite extensive, three-volume account of
the exhibition, spends most of his book categorizing the different exhibits by
national origin, stressing the relative values of the various innovations, and
creating a thorough inventory of the exhibitions many wonders. The French, for example, boasted “one of the
most attractive and extensive [collections] in the Exhibition.”[16] Silk looms from Lyon, ingenious kitchen
contrivances, and modish furniture combined in this account to make France the
“Queen of fashion.”(Image) Belgium receives similar praise for her brilliant collection of
arms, mass-produced rifles of the “Swiss fashion,” and rich velvet furniture.[17] Exhibits from the United States draw a mixed
review from Tallis, who notes the American collection was certainly an
“inadequate expression of her abilities.”[18] Nonetheless, there were a number of
impressive exhibits that demonstrated American ingenuity, including an improved
bank lock, some of the finest rifles in the world, and buggies with smaller,
lighter wheels, that combined beautiful form with valuable function.(Image)
Taken
together, these objective characterizations present an almost academic
appraisal of industry and technology.
The resulting account suggests a desire to learn – as if systematically
by encouragement and example – from the lessons provided by the international
exhibition. Here, in a nutshell, is the
internationalist ideal made plain. The
gains from technical innovation and industrial growth need not benefit some at
the expense of the others. Antiquated
economic notions of mercantilism needed to be dismissed; trade was no longer a
zero-sum game. The Great Exhibition was
intended by its planners as a celebration of the new order of free trade,
liberal values, and international understanding. Brought together in a global forum to compare industrial prowess
and ingenuity, nations need not compete in other, more dangerous arenas. The question that emerges, however, involves
the nature of this new competition.
What forms might this competition take, and how might it contribute to,
or diminish from, the ideal of pacifist internationalism?
Nations on Display: Defining the British Identity
Implicit
in Tallis’ mode of examination is a sharp delineation between nations, as if to
define national identities in terms of their showing at the exhibition. It seems clear that in a pageant of nations
such as the Great Exhibition, comparisons and judgments of relative value will
naturally be drawn. The second of
Albert’s own directives was, after all, competition. The nature of this competition took a great number of forms. Industrial innovation and accomplishment, as
in Tallis’ account, was certainly predominant among these, but it was by no
means exclusive. Nations were defined
by their showing at the exhibition, and this showing consisted of much more
than the mere display of industrial goods.
The influx of foreigners, quite modest by modern day standards, was
nonetheless substantial for the time.[19] Ample opportunity existed, therefore, for
genuine international interaction, and for categorization, both erroneous and
otherwise.
More
popular accounts of the Great Exhibition paint pictures of English national
identity. Authors took the opportunity
to extol the virtues that they thought typically English. One typical example, provided in an account
of the Crystal Palace by Caroline Gascoyne, reads:
Away with chains! – Britannia’s
flag unfurled,
Speaks Peace and Freedom to
th’assembled world!
Where’er her banner floats – or
sounds her name,
Distant or near, her power is
still the same –
The power of Justice, Liberty, and
Right,
Calm in their force, majestic in
their might!
And none who sought her shores, by
power opprest,
Have failed to find there,
Freedom, Peace, and Rest.[20]
Britain, therefore, is a bastion
of liberty and liberal political values.
Other accounts boast of the British work ethic, industrious,
entrepreneurial – and ultimately successful.
Still others stress the compassionate humanity of Britain, who, through
the advances of economic growth, has begun to share the fruits of her work with
the underclasses.[21] A sermon by Reverend George Clayton, ripe
with irony, helps to round out a complimentary picture of English identity:
“Humility always consists with truth. Who then can fail to discover in the themes
under consideration, an indubitable evidence of England's greatness and glory?”[22] The tone of objectivity reflects a great
deal of pride. Taken together, these
accounts constitute a fairly complete, if flattering, vision of British
identity.
In
other works, British identity was defined through less genteel comparison. Here, one begins to discern the sharp,
cutting edge of national pride, and begins to encounter a British identity
defined not in terms of its own virtue, but instead at the expense of
foreigners. One description, offered in
The World’s Fair, praised the English
virtues of ‘industry and perseverance,’ but had notably harsher descriptions
for other nationalities.[23] Indians, for example, were poor and simple;
Turks were handsome people, sensible, “except when they grow raging and
furious”; Italians were beggars, a generally lazy nation that squandered
fertile soil and favorable climate.
Other works characterized Germans as militaristic -- contrasted, of
course, with the peace-loving British.[24]
Religious
differences lent much to such criticisms.
Remarking on the international characters of the various people
assembled at the Great Exhibition, one author attributes Italy’s rampant
poverty to such differences: “God's holy word, the gospel of heaven's
preaching, has been diligently shut out. Let that in, and see, in a generation
or two, whether Italy will wallow, as she wallows now.”[25] The repressive blanket of Catholicism and
Popery, the author seems to claim, has stifled Italian growth. Similar claims of religious difference are
applied to Spain: “There, again, is the Spaniard. How splendid his nation was,
before it had finally rejected and extinguished the dawning light of the
reformation! How poor, and smitten, and mean, has that nation since become.”[26] In contrast, it might be argued that
Anglicanism has provided the individualist ethic that underlay the English rise
to perceived international prominence.
Still
more overtly racist depictions were bestowed upon more exotic foreigners. As the title strongly suggests, Thomas
Onwhyn’s Mr. and Mrs. Brown’s Visit to
London to see the great Exhibition of All Nation. How They were astonished at its wonders, inconvenience by the
crowds, and frightened out of their wits, by the foreigners, offered a
strongly bigoted caricature of foreigners.[27] The xenophobia indicated in the title
pervades, in fact, the entire book.
Descriptions of Russians and Turks are highly deprecating. A “Cannibal Islanders” cartoon depicts
exotic black foreigners, drawn with simian features, hungrily eyeing a British
child across the table. The underlying
caption: “They go to have some refreshment. . . .a party from the Cannibal
Islands after eyeing little Johnny, in a mysterious manner, offer a price for
him.”[28](Image) A
final example of xenophobic and nationalist literature can be found in Henry
Sutherland Edwards’ Authentic Account of
the Chinese Commission, which was sent to report on the Great Exhibition;
wherein the opinion of China is shown as not corresponding at all with our own,
a long, satirical poem that reflects attitudes about both Britain and China at
the time.[29](Image) In
short, Edwards’ story details the exploits of two representatives of the
Chinese Emperor’s court, sent to the Great Exhibition to report back to their
despotic master. While one of these
characters represents an enlightened, curiously Western appreciation for the
exhibition, the other obstinately refuses to open his eyes to the progress and
great culture of Britain. The latter
character’s critique of the West is biting, but revolves in large part around a
disdain for the relative peacefulness of English society. After reporting back the Emperor, the critic
of the West is paid high praises, while his Europhile partner is sentenced to
death for his poor judgment. In the
accompanying illustration, the Chinese are drawn with grossly exaggerated
features – distorted to the extent that they are made to look almost like pigs.[30] The libelous message of the work seems hard
to miss. The Chinese lack a sense of
justice; they are cruel and uncouth.
Their system of government – if indeed it can be called that – revolves
around the arbitrary and unfair rule of a despot. In short, they are everything that Britain is not.
Concluding Thoughts
The
forces of internationalism and nationalism need not be mutually exclusive. Indeed the planners of the Great Exhibition,
in expressing their views of pacifist internationalism, hinted at the forms
that British nationalism might take. An
exposition marked by “exhibition, competition, and encouragement” will
naturally pit nations against each other, at least to some extent. Whereas the competition between national
industries may have been plain among the many exhibits housed in the Crystal
Palace, the competition of national identities took place in other, more subtle
realms. A passage from John Tallis’
guidebook helps to illustrate this point:
. . .every realization of human
genius, every effort of human industry might be contemplated [at the
Exhibition], from the most consummate elaboration of the profoundest intellect,
to the simplest contrivance of uneducated thought. The philosopher and the savage stood side by side; the accomplished
artist and the rude boor alike were free to choose, “a local habitation” and
might each with equal advantage hope to acquire “a name;” from the wondrous
calculation machine, down to the simplest toy, there was “ample space and verge
enough” to display whatever might be deemed worthy of public attention.[31]
While all nations and individuals
had a place at the Great Exhibition, this is not to say that all would be
accepted on equal terms. It was not enough
to merely display national identities at the exhibition. Like all other goods at the exhibition,
these identities were subject to comparison and competition. The modes of comparison were not always
fair; biases were directed against the “savage,” while working in favor of the
“philosopher.” These biases reflect a
certain degree of national pride, not only in the popular press, but throughout
the evidence documenting the Great Exhibition.
The ideas and publications of the Royal Commission and Prince Albert,
are no exception. While clearly they
were driven in their planning by a genuine good will and desire for pacifist
internationalism, their very view of this internationalism was unmistakably
British in character. Espousing the
views developed by British thinkers -- Locke, Smith, Ricardo and Bentham – and
applying them to a trade system that Britain stood to dominate, these planners
did not act entirely selflessly. The
balance of nationalism and internationalism in the Great Exhibition is, therefore,
a delicate one, consisting of both subtle and overt forms of nationalist
pride. In the end, it seems hard to
hazard any blanket conclusions, except to raise the continuingly relevant
question of whether or not there can exist a genuinely objective and
universally beneficial form of internationalism. The example of the Great Exhibition provides powerful clues in
this regard.
Select Bibliography
Babbage,
Henry. The Exposition of 1851. London:
John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1851.
Gibbs-Smith
C.H. The Great Exhibition of 1851. London:
Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1950.
Arnstein,
Walter L. Britain Yesterday and Today –
1830 to Present. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Co., 1996.
Auerbach,
Jeffrey. The Great Exhibition of 1851. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.
Porter,
Bernard. The Lion’s Share. New York: Addison Wesley Longman Ltd.,
1996.
The Great Exhibition: Cole, Albert, and Paxton. http://www.cyberstation.net/hf/cp/cap.html
[1] Jeffrey Auerbach, The Great Exhibition of 1851 (New Haven: Yale University Press 1999), 10.
[2] Walter L. Arnstein, Britain Yesterday and Today (Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Co. 1996) 27. Arnsteing cites quite a few authors, including Hobsbawm, Ashton, Hartwell, etc. in painting a pessimistic picture of the industrial revolution’s social ramifications.
[3] Auerbach, 23.
[4] Bernard Porter, The Lion’s Share, A Short History of British Imperialism 1850-1995 (New York: Addison Wesley Longman Ltd., 1996), 3.
[5] C.H. Gibbs-Smith, The Great Exhibition of 1851(Official Pamphlet) (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1950), 25.
[6] Quoted in Auerbach, 29.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid. These were, according to Auerbach, Stanley, Baring, Thompson, and Pusey.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Charles Babbage, The Exposition of 1851, (London: John Murray, 1851), 24.
[11] The Times, 22 March, 1850, quoted in Auerbach, 161.
[12] Short Statement, p. 7, quoted in Auerbach, 161.
[13] Babbage, 42-43.
[14] Arnstein, 38.
[15] Auerbach, 163.
[16] John Tallis, Tallis’ History and Description of the Crystal Palace, and the Exhibition of the World’s Industry in 1851, Vol. I (London: John Tallis & Co., 1852.), 61.
[17] Tallis, I, 66.
[18] Ibid., 67.
[19] Auerbach, 186. Census estimates of the foreign population in 1851 range around 50,000 in England and Wales.
[20] Gascoyne, Reflections and Tales, 7-8, quoted in Auerbach, 167.
[21] Tallis, I, 207.
[22] George Clayton, Sermons on the Great Exhibition. (London: Benjamin L. Green, 1851.) http://landow.stg.brown.edu/victorian/1851/clayton.html
[23] World’s Fair, 71, 76, quoted in Auerbach, 167.
[24] Auerbach, 167.
[25] “The World’s Great Assembly,” English Monthly Tract Society Publication (London: J.F. Shaw, 1851), 10-11.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Auerbach, 174.
[28] Illustration and Caption in Ibid., 175.
[29] Detailed in Ibid., 176.
[30] Ibid., 177. This comparison is further suggested, I submit, by the presence of a pig in the foreground of the picture.
[31] Tallis, vol. I, 207.