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Art Treasures Exhibition, Manchester 1857

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165-572: The Art Treasures of Great Britain was an exhibition of fine art held in Manchester , England, from 5 May to 17 October 1857. It remains the largest art exhibition to be held in the UK, possibly in the world, with over 16,000 works on display. It attracted over 1.3 million visitors in the 142 days it was open, about four times the population of Manchester at that time, many of whom visited on organised railway excursions. Its selection and display of artworks had

330-457: A curtain wall system that allowed the hanging of vertical bays of glass from cantilevered beams. The Lily House was built specifically to house the Victoria amazonica waterlily which had recently been discovered by European botanists; the first specimen to reach England was originally kept at Kew Gardens , but it did not do well. Paxton's reputation as a gardener was so high by that time that he

495-510: A market in 1282. Around the 14th century, Manchester received an influx of Flemish weavers, sometimes credited as the foundation of the region's textile industry. Manchester became an important centre for the manufacture and trade of woollens and linen , and by about 1540, had expanded to become, in John Leland 's words, "The fairest, best builded, quickest, and most populous town of all Lancashire". The cathedral and Chetham's buildings are

660-460: A seaport at Liverpool , the availability of waterpower from its rivers, and its nearby coal reserves. The name Manchester, though officially applied only to the metropolitan district within Greater Manchester, has been applied to other, wider divisions of land, particularly across much of the Greater Manchester county and urban area. The "Manchester City Zone", " Manchester post town " and

825-643: A 234-page catalogue, a series of "Handbooks" by type of object, and an illustrated weekly periodical "The Art Treasures Examiner". An apparently satirical book by "Tennyson Longfellow Smith" of "Poems inspired by Certain Pictures at the Art Treasures Exhibition" was illustrated with caricatures. A 16-page booklet was titled the "What to see, and Where to see it: The Operative's Guide to the Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition" (an "operative"

990-470: A Manor House was built. By 1421 Thomas de la Warre founded and constructed a collegiate church for the parish , now Manchester Cathedral ; the domestic premises of the college house Chetham's School of Music and Chetham's Library . The library, which opened in 1653 and is still open to the public, is the oldest free public reference library in the United Kingdom. Manchester is mentioned as having

1155-582: A bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in the Manchester Arena ; the bomb killed 23, including the attacker, and injured over 800. It was the deadliest terrorist attack and first suicide bombing in Britain since the 7 July 2005 London bombings . It caused worldwide condemnation and changed the UK's threat level to "critical" for the first time since 2007. Birmingham has historically been considered to be England or

1320-554: A commissioner for the 1853 Dublin Exhibition, to Thomas Fairbairn son of Manchester iron founder Sir William Fairbairn and a commissioner for the 1851 Great Exhibition. The concept quickly gained momentum: after an initial meeting on 26 March 1856, a guarantee fund of £74,000 was soon underwritten by around 100 contributors, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert granted their patronage. A General Committee established in May 1856, chaired by

1485-472: A comparable size. His submission was budgeted at a remarkably low £85,800. By comparison, this was about 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 times more than the Great Stove at Chatsworth but it was only 28% of the estimated cost of Turner's design, and it promised a building which, with a footprint of over 770,000 square feet (18 acres; 7.2 ha), would cover roughly 25 times the ground area of its progenitor. Impressed by

1650-547: A conference was held at the University of Manchester in November 2007. 53°27′42″N 2°17′04″W  /  53.4617371°N 2.2843194°W  / 53.4617371; -2.2843194 Manchester Manchester ( / ˈ m æ n tʃ ɪ s t ər , - tʃ ɛ s -/ ) is a city and metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester , England, which had an estimated population of 568,996 in 2022. It contributes to

1815-410: A controversial issue that had been a major sticking point for the vocal anti-exhibition lobby. Paxton's modular, hierarchical design reflected his practical brilliance as a designer and problem-solver. It incorporated many breakthroughs, offered practical advantages that no conventional building of that era could match and, above all, it embodied the spirit of British innovation and industrial might that

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1980-610: A description of the dinosaurs was entitled: 'Geology and Inhabitants of the Ancient World. Described by Richard Owen , FRS. The animals constructed by B.W. Hawkins , FGS'. In the central transept was the 4,000-piece Grand Orchestra built around the 4,500-pipe Great Organ. There was a concert room with over 4,000 seats that hosted successful Handel Festivals for many years and August Manns's Crystal Palace Concerts from 1855 until 1901. The performance spaces hosted concerts, exhibits, and public entertainment. Many famous people visited

2145-570: A formative influence on the public art collections that were then being established in the UK, such as the National Gallery , National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum . Manchester was a small provincial town in the medieval period, but by 1855 it was an industrial city with 95 cotton mills and 1,724 warehouses. It was visited by French historian Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835, who scathingly wrote: A sort of black smoke covers

2310-419: A grid 77 modules long by 19 modules wide. As each module was self-supporting, Paxton was able to leave out modules in some areas, creating larger square or rectangular spaces within the building to accommodate larger exhibits. On the lower level, these larger spaces were covered by the floor above, and on the upper level by longer spans of roofing, but the dimensions of these larger spaces were always multiples of

2475-514: A grid of cast iron beams, which was held up on slim cast iron pillars. The resulting cube, with a floor area of 24 feet (7.3 m) by 24 feet (7.3 m), formed the basic structural module of the building. By multiplying these modules into a grid, the structure could be extended virtually indefinitely. In its original form, the ground level of the Crystal Palace (in plan) measured 1,848 feet (563 m) by 456 feet (139 m), which equates to

2640-499: A key inspiration. Paxton left his meeting with Cole on 9 June 1850 fired with enthusiasm. He immediately went to Hyde Park, where he walked the site earmarked for the Exhibition. Two days later on 11 June, while attending a board meeting of the Midland Railway , Paxton made his original concept drawing, which he doodled onto a sheet of pink blotting paper . This rough sketch (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum ) incorporated all

2805-559: A large transport and distribution infrastructure: the canal system was extended, and Manchester became one end of the world's first intercity passenger railway—the Liverpool and Manchester Railway . Competition between the various forms of transport kept costs down. In 1878 the GPO (the forerunner of British Telecom ) provided its first telephones to a firm in Manchester. The Manchester Ship Canal

2970-526: A loanword from Latin castra , "fort; fortified town"). The city is widely known as "the capital of the North". The Brigantes were the major Celtic tribe in what is now known as Northern England ; they had a stronghold in the locality at a sandstone outcrop on which Manchester Cathedral now stands, opposite the bank of the River Irwell . Their territory extended across the fertile lowland of what

3135-490: A major gamble for Paxton, but circumstances were in his favour: he enjoyed a stellar reputation as a garden designer and builder, he was confident that his design was perfectly suited to the brief, and the commission was under pressure to choose a design and get it built, with the exhibition opening less than a year away. In the event, Paxton's design fulfilled and surpassed all the requirements, and it proved to be vastly faster and cheaper to build than any other form of building of

3300-639: A member of the English Core Cities Group since its inception in 1995. The town of Manchester was granted a charter by Thomas Grelley in 1301 but lost its borough status in a court case of 1359. Until the 19th century local government was largely in the hands of manorial courts , the last of which was dissolved in 1846. From a very early time , the township of Manchester lay within the historic or ceremonial county boundaries of Lancashire . Pevsner wrote "That [neighbouring] Stretford and Salford are not administratively one with Manchester

3465-575: A notable place in the history of Marxism and left-wing politics; being the subject of Friedrich Engels ' work The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 ; Engels spent much of his life in and around Manchester, and when Karl Marx visited Manchester, they met at Chetham's Library. The economics books Marx was reading at the time can be seen in the library, as can the window seat where Marx and Engels would meet. The first Trades Union Congress

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3630-442: A peak of 108 in 1853. Thereafter the number began to decline and Manchester was surpassed as the largest centre of cotton spinning by Bolton in the 1850s and Oldham in the 1860s. However, this period of decline coincided with the rise of the city as the financial centre of the region. Manchester continued to process cotton, and in 1913, 65% of the world's cotton was processed in the area. The First World War interrupted access to

3795-585: A population of 2,539,100 in 2004. In addition to Manchester itself, the LUZ includes the remainder of the county of Greater Manchester . The Manchester LUZ is the second largest within the United Kingdom, behind that of London. Religious beliefs, according to the 2021 census Since the 2001 census, the proportion of Christians in Manchester has fallen by 22 per cent from 62.4 per cent to 48.7 per cent in 2011. The proportion of those with no religious affiliation rose by 58.1 per cent from 16 per cent to 25.3 per cent, whilst

3960-468: A problem with sparrows becoming a nuisance, and shooting was out of the question inside a glass building. Queen Victoria mentioned this problem to the Duke of Wellington , who offered the solution, " Sparrowhawks , Ma'am". Paxton was acclaimed worldwide for his achievement and was knighted by Queen Victoria in recognition of his work. The project was engineered by William Cubitt ; Paxton's construction partner

4125-438: A property named Penge Place, which had been excised from Penge Common at the top of Sydenham Hill . The reconstruction of the Crystal Palace began on Sydenham Hill in 1852. The new building, while incorporating most of the constructional parts of the original one at Hyde Park, was so completely different in form as to be properly considered a quite different structure – a ' Beaux-arts ' form in glass and metal. The main gallery

4290-520: A reasonable number of bays had been completed, the columns for the upper floor were erected (longer shear-legs were used for this, but the operation was essentially the same as for the ground floor). Once the ground floor structure was complete, the final assembly of the upper floor followed rapidly. For the glazing, Paxton used larger versions of machines he had originally devised for the Great Stove at Chatsworth, installing on-site production line systems, powered by steam engines, that dressed and finished

4455-414: A self-supporting shell standing on slim iron columns, with no internal structural walls whatsoever. Because it was covered almost entirely in glass, it also needed no artificial lighting during the day, thereby reducing the exhibition's running costs. Full-size elm trees growing in the park were enclosed within the central exhibition hall near the 27-foot (8 m) tall Crystal Fountain. However this caused

4620-832: A separate royal reception room. Following his visit, American author Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote that, in the Second Class refreshment room: John Bull and his female may be seen in full gulp and guzzle, swallowing vast quantities of cold boiled beef, thoroughly moistened with porter or bitter The exhibition comprised over 16,000 works split into 10 categories: Pictures by Ancient Masters, Pictures by Modern Masters, British Portraits and Miniatures, Water Colour Drawings, Sketches and Original Drawings (Ancient), Engravings, Illustrations of Photography, Works of Oriental Art, Varied Objects of Oriental Art, and Sculpture. The collection included 5,000 paintings and drawings by "Modern Masters" such as Hogarth , Gainsborough , Turner , Constable , and

4785-535: A standby design of its own, for a brick building in the rundbogenstil (round-arch style) by Donaldson, featuring a sheet-iron dome designed by Tunnel, but it was widely criticized and ridiculed when it was published in the newspapers. Adding to the committee's woes, the site for the exhibition was still not confirmed. The preferred site was in Hyde Park, adjacent to Princes Gate near Pennington Road, but other sites considered included Wormwood Scrubs , Battersea Park ,

4950-583: A week. Thanks to the simplicity of Paxton's design and the combined efficiency of the building contractor and their suppliers, the entire structure was assembled with extraordinary speed: a team of 80 men could fix more than 18,000 panes of sheet glass in a week, and the building was completed and ready to receive exhibits in just five months. According to a study by John Gardner of Anglia Ruskin University , published in The International Journal for

5115-468: Is 35.0 miles (56.3 km) north-east of Liverpool and 35.0 miles (56.3 km) north-west of Sheffield , making the city the halfway point between the two. The city centre is on the east bank of the River Irwell , near its confluences with the Rivers Medlock and Irk , and is relatively low-lying, being between 35 and 42 metres (115 and 138 feet) above sea level. The River Mersey flows through

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5280-402: Is 806.6 millimetres (31.76 in) compared to a UK average of 1,125.0 millimetres (44.29 in), and its mean rain days are 140.4 per annum, compared to the UK average of 154.4. Manchester has a relatively high humidity level, and this, along with abundant soft water, was one factor that led to advancement of the textile industry in the area. Snowfalls are not common in the city because of

5445-496: Is achieved by restricting inappropriate development within the designated areas and imposing stricter conditions on permitted building. Due to being already highly urban, the city contains limited portions of protected green-belt area within greenfield throughout the borough, with minimal development opportunities, at Clayton Vale , Heaton Park , Chorlton Water Park along with the Chorlton Ees & Ivy Green nature reserve and

5610-586: Is an art lover just now and the talk is all of the pictures at the exhibition". To entertain the visitors, Charles Hallé was asked to organise an orchestra to perform a daily concert, in addition to a daily organ recital. After the exhibition closed, he continued running the orchestra, which became the Hallé Orchestra . A temporary "Art Treasure Hotel" housed some visitors overnight, and others were directed to local boarding houses. The exhibition gave rise to several different publications. The committee published

5775-452: Is contiguous on all sides with several large settlements, except for a small section along its southern boundary with Cheshire . The M60 and M56 motorways pass through Northenden and Wythenshawe respectively in the south of Manchester. Heavy rail lines enter the city from all directions, the principal destination being Manchester Piccadilly station . Manchester experiences a temperate oceanic climate ( Köppen : Cfb ), like much of

5940-769: Is not known. The event made a surplus of £186,000 (equivalent to £25,720,000), money which was used to found the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum in South Kensington . The Crystal Palace had the first major installation of public toilets , the Retiring Rooms , in which sanitary engineer George Jennings installed his "Monkey Closet" flushing lavatory (initially just for men but later catering for women also). During

6105-563: Is now Salford and Stretford . Following the Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century, General Agricola ordered the construction of a fort named Mamucium in the year 79 to ensure that Roman interests in Deva Victrix ( Chester ) and Eboracum ( York ) were protected from the Brigantes. Central Manchester has been permanently settled since this time. A stabilised fragment of foundations of

6270-525: Is one of the most curious anomalies of England". A stroke of a baron's pen is said to have divorced Manchester and Salford, though it was not Salford that became separated from Manchester, it was Manchester, with its humbler line of lords, that was separated from Salford. It was this separation that resulted in Salford becoming the judicial seat of Salfordshire , which included the ancient parish of Manchester . Manchester later formed its own Poor Law Union using

6435-528: Is still in use as Crystal Palace , while the only remains of the High Level station are the subway under the Parade with its Italian mosaic roofing, a Grade II* listed building . The South Gate is served by Penge West railway station . For some time this station was on an atmospheric railway . This is often confused with a 550-metre pneumatic passenger railway which was exhibited at the Crystal Palace in 1864, which

6600-603: Is that it comes from Brittonic * mamm - (" breast ", in reference to a " breast-like hill "). However, more recent work suggests that it could come from * mamma ("mother", in reference to a local river goddess ). Both usages are preserved in Insular Celtic languages , such as mam meaning "breast" in Irish and "mother" in Welsh . The suffix -chester is from Old English ceaster ("Roman fortification", itself

6765-424: Is the UK's largest city-centre shopping centre. Large city sections from the 1960s have been demolished, re-developed or modernised with the use of glass and steel. Old mills have been converted into apartments. Hulme has undergone extensive regeneration, with million-pound loft-house apartments being developed. The 47-storey, 554-foot (169 m) Beetham Tower was the tallest UK building outside of London and

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6930-465: Is the world's oldest surviving inter-city passenger railway station. At the University of Manchester , Ernest Rutherford first split the atom in 1917; Frederic C. Williams , Tom Kilburn and Geoff Tootill developed the world's first stored-program computer in 1948; and Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov first isolated graphene in 2004. Manchester has a large urban sprawl , which forms from

7095-666: The Madonna and Child with Saint John and the Angels which had only recently been attributed to Michelangelo . The display of this unfinished work caused much excitement, and it is still known as the Manchester Madonna . The French art critic Théophile Thoré commented that: La collection de Manchester vaut à peu près le Louvre ("Manchester's collection is worth almost as much as the Louvre's"). Not all private owners responded positively to

7260-669: The Bridgewater Concert Hall , the Manchester Arena , and (in Salford) the rebranding of the port as Salford Quays . Two bids to host the Olympic Games were part of a process to raise the international profile of the city. Manchester has a history of attacks attributed to Irish Republicans, including the Manchester Martyrs of 1867, arson in 1920, a series of explosions in 1939, and two bombs in 1992. On Saturday 15 June 1996,

7425-547: The Chance Brothers . The 990,000-square-foot building with its 128-foot-high ceiling was completed in thirty-nine weeks. The Crystal Palace boasted the greatest area of glass ever seen in a building. It astonished visitors with its clear walls and ceilings that did not require interior lights. It has been suggested that the name of the building resulted from a piece penned by the playwright Douglas Jerrold , who in July 1850 wrote in

7590-480: The Christmas Blitz on the nights of 22/23 and 24 December 1940, when an estimated 474 tonnes (467 long tons) of high explosives plus over 37,000 incendiary bombs were dropped. A large part of the historic city centre was destroyed, including 165 warehouses, 200 business premises, and 150 offices. 376 were killed and 30,000 houses were damaged. Manchester Cathedral , Royal Exchange and Free Trade Hall were among

7755-489: The Great Exhibition in 1851. There had already been an "Exposition of British Industrial Art in Manchester" in 1845. Unlike these earlier exhibitions, the Manchester exhibition was restricted to works of art without any industrial or trade items on display. The idea for an exhibition in Manchester was first expressed in a letter sent on 10 February 1856 by John Connellan Deane, son of Irish architect Sir Thomas Deane and

7920-557: The Isle of Dogs , Victoria Park , and Regent's Park . Opponents of the scheme lobbied strenuously against the use of Hyde Park (and they were strongly supported by The Times ). The most outspoken critic was Charles Sibthorp ; he denounced the exhibition as "one of the greatest humbugs, frauds and absurdities ever known," and his trenchant opposition to both the exhibition and its building continued even after it had closed. At this point, renowned gardener Joseph Paxton became interested in

8085-710: The King of Belgium , the Queen of the Netherlands , Louis Napoleon , Benjamin Disraeli , William Ewart Gladstone , Lord Palmerston , the 2nd Duke of Wellington , Charles Dickens , Alfred Lord Tennyson , Florence Nightingale , Elizabeth Gaskell , John Ruskin , Nathaniel Hawthorne , and Maria Mitchell . Titus Salt commissioned three trains to transport 2,600 of his factory workers from Saltaire to visit on Saturday 19 September. Many other railway excursions were organised, mostly from

8250-654: The Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire Lord Ellesmere (and, after his death in February 1857, by the Lord Overstone ), assisted by an Executive Committee chaired by Fairbairn. Deane was appointed as General Commissioner, on an annual salary of £1,000. The committee took artistic advice from German art historian Gustav Waagen , who had published the first 3 volumes of his Treasures of Art in Great Britain in 1854. George Scharf

8415-456: The Palm House, Kew Gardens , and the other by French architect Hector Horeau but despite the great number of submissions, the committee rejected them all. Turner was furious at the rejection and reportedly badgered the commissioners for months afterwards, seeking compensation, but at an estimated £300,000, his design (like Horeau's) was too expensive. As a last resort, the committee came up with

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8580-801: The Port of Manchester and linking the city to the Irish Sea , 36 miles (58 km) to the west. The city's fortune declined after the Second World War , owing to deindustrialisation, and the IRA bombing in 1996 led to extensive investment and regeneration. Following considerable redevelopment, Manchester was the host city for the 2002 Commonwealth Games . The city is notable for its architecture , culture , musical exports , media links , scientific and engineering output , social impact , sports clubs and transport connections . Manchester Liverpool Road railway station

8745-556: The Pre-Raphaelites , and 1,000 works by European Old Masters , including Rubens , Raphael , Titian and Rembrandt ; several hundred sculptures; photographs, including Crimean War images by James Robertson and the photographic tableau Two Ways of Life by Oscar Gustave Rejlander ; and other works of decorative arts, such as Wedgwood china, Sèvres and Meissen porcelain , Venetian glass, Limoges enamels , ivories, tapestries, furniture, tableware and armour. The Committee bought

8910-499: The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) carried out the 1996 Manchester bombing , the detonation of a large bomb next to a department store in the city centre. The largest to be detonated on British soil, the bomb injured over 200 people, heavily damaged nearby buildings, and broke windows 1 ⁄ 2 mile (800 m) away. The cost of the immediate damage was initially estimated at £50 million, but this

9075-401: The University of Manchester and Royal Northern College of Music in the 2011/2012 academic year. Of all households in Manchester, 0.23 per cent were Same-Sex Civil Partnership households, compared with an English national average of 0.16 per cent in 2011. The Manchester Larger Urban Zone , a Eurostat measure of the functional city-region approximated to local government districts, had

9240-522: The city centre into the other neighbouring authorities; these include The Four Heatons , Failsworth , Prestwich , Stretford , Sale , Droylsden , Old Trafford and Reddish . The city is also contiguous with Salford and its borough but is separated from it by the River Irwell . This urban area is cut off by the M60 , also known as the Manchester Outer Ring Road , which runs in a circular around

9405-644: The urban warming effect but the West Pennine Moors to the north-west, South Pennines to the north-east and Peak District to the east receive more snow, which can close roads leading out of the city. They include the A62 via Oldham and Standedge , the A57 , Snake Pass , towards Sheffield , and the Pennine section of the M62 . The lowest temperature ever recorded in Manchester

9570-539: The " Manchester Congestion Charge " are all examples of this. For purposes of the Office for National Statistics , Manchester forms the most populous settlement within the Greater Manchester Urban Area , the United Kingdom's second-largest conurbation. There is a mix of high-density urban and suburban locations. The largest open space in the city, at around 260 hectares (642 acres), is Heaton Park . Manchester

9735-450: The "Police Commissioners". In 1853, Manchester was granted city status . In 1885, Bradford , Harpurhey , Rusholme and parts of Moss Side and Withington townships became part of the City of Manchester. In 1889, the city became a county borough , as did many larger Lancashire towns, and therefore not governed by Lancashire County Council . Between 1890 and 1933, more areas were added to

9900-685: The 2011 census. The city experienced the greatest percentage population growth outside London, with an increase of 19 per cent to over 500,000. Manchester's population is projected to reach 532,200 by 2021, an increase of 5.8 per cent from 2011. This represents a slower rate of growth than the previous decade. The Greater Manchester Built-up Area in 2011 had an estimated population of 2,553,400. In 2012 an estimated 2,702,200 people lived in Greater Manchester . An 6,547,000 people were estimated in 2012 to live within 30 miles (50 km) of Manchester and 11,694,000 within 50 miles (80 km). Between

10065-430: The 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria's accession to the throne. The gardens closed in 1907, becoming White City Pleasure Gardens in 1907 and near the present-day White City Retail Park. The exhibition was used as a model for the display of art in public galleries during the second half of the 19th century. Although the works displayed were returned to private collections, many found their way into public collections over

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10230-467: The British Isles, with warm summers and cold winters compared to other parts of the UK. Summer daytime temperatures regularly top 20 °C, quite often reaching 25 °C on sunny days during July and August in particular. In more recent years, temperatures have occasionally reached over 30 °C. There is regular but generally light precipitation throughout the year. The city's average annual rainfall

10395-482: The City of Manchester became a metropolitan district of the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester . That year, Ringway , the village where the Manchester Airport is located, was added to the city. In November 2014, it was announced that Greater Manchester would receive a new directly elected mayor. The mayor would have fiscal control over health, transport, housing and police in the area. Andy Burnham

10560-506: The Great Exhibition was intended to celebrate. The geometry of the Crystal Palace was a classic example of the concept of form following manufacturer's limitations: the shape and size of the whole building was directly based around the size of the panes of glass made by the supplier, Chance Brothers of Smethwick . These were the largest available at the time, measuring 10 inches (25 cm) wide by 49 inches (120 cm) long. Because

10725-527: The History of Engineering & Technology, the speed of the erection work was thanks to the use, for the first time, of nuts and bolts made to what was later to be known as the British Standard Whitworth (BSW), when up to that time nuts and bolts were made individually, and could not be interchanged. When completed, the Crystal Palace provided an unrivalled space for exhibits, since it was essentially

10890-612: The Industrial Revolution brought wealth to the city, it also brought poverty and squalor to a large part of the population. Historian Simon Schama noted that "Manchester was the very best and the very worst taken to terrifying extremes, a new kind of city in the world; the chimneys of industrial suburbs greeting you with columns of smoke". An American visitor taken to Manchester's blackspots saw "wretched, defrauded, oppressed, crushed human nature, lying and bleeding fragments". The number of cotton mills in Manchester itself reached

11055-467: The UK's second city, but in the 21st century claims to this unofficial title have also been made for Manchester. The City of Manchester is governed by the Manchester City Council . The Greater Manchester Combined Authority , with a directly elected mayor , has responsibilities for economic strategy and transport, amongst other areas, on a Greater Manchester-wide basis. Manchester has been

11220-528: The V&A. The works were organised chronologically, to demonstrate the development of art, with works from northern Europe on one wall contrasted with contemporaneous works from southern Europe on the facing wall. Although the collection included works from Europe and the Orient, it had a clear emphasis on British works. Most public British collections were in a nascent state, so most of the works were borrowed from 700 private collections. Many had never been exhibited in public before. The exhibition included

11385-451: The apex of the shear, the navvies hoisted the columns, girders and other parts into place. As soon as two adjacent columns had been erected, a girder was hoisted into place between them and bolted onto the connectors. The columns were erected in opposite pairs, then two more girders were connected to form a self-supporting square—this was the basic frame of each module. The shears would then be moved along and an adjoining bay constructed. When

11550-420: The basic 24 feet (7.3 m) by 24 feet (7.3 m) grid unit. The modules were also strong enough to be stacked vertically, enabling Paxton to add an upper floor that nearly doubled the amount of available exhibition space. The first floor galleries were double the height of the ground floor galleries below, and the Crystal Palace could theoretically have accommodated a full second-floor gallery, but this space

11715-399: The basic features of the finished building, and it is a mark of Paxton's ingenuity and industriousness that detailed plans, calculations and costings were ready to submit in less than two weeks. (The statue of Albert, Prince Consort , in Perth, Scotland , was sculpted with the subject holding a plan of the Crystal Palace. The statue was unveiled by Queen Victoria in 1864. ) The project was

11880-474: The beginning of July 2011 and end of June 2012 (mid-year estimate date), births exceeded deaths by 4,800. Migration (internal and international) and other changes accounted for a net increase of 3,100 people between July 2011 and June 2012. Compared with Greater Manchester and with England, Manchester has a younger population, with a particularly large 20–35 age group. There were 76,095 undergraduate and postgraduate students at Manchester Metropolitan University ,

12045-409: The building included a large hall, with corrugated iron sides and vaults supported by iron columns, with space for an orchestra at one end and a large pipe organ by Kirtland and Jardine . Each column bore the exhibition's monogram: "ATE". The hall was subdivided internally by partitions, creating separate galleries. The interior was lined with wood panels covered with calico . Most internal decoration

12210-503: The building parts. These included a machine that mechanically grooved the wooden window sash bars and a painting machine that automatically dipped the parts in paint and then passed them through a series of rotating brushes to remove the excess. The last major components to be put into place were the 16 semi-circular ribs of the vaulted transept, which were the only major structural parts that were made of wood. These were raised into position as eight pairs, and all were fixed into place within

12375-486: The buildings seriously damaged; restoration of the cathedral took 20 years. In total, 589 civilians were recorded to have died as result of enemy action within the Manchester County Borough. Cotton processing and trading continued to decline in peacetime, and the exchange closed in 1968. By 1963 the port of Manchester was the UK's third largest, and employed over 3,000 men, but the canal was unable to handle

12540-417: The cast iron columns, which also had an ingenious dual function: each was cast with a hollow core, allowing it to double as a concealed down-pipe that carried the storm-water down into the drains beneath the building. One of the few issues Paxton could not completely solve was leaks—when completed, rain was found to be leaking into the huge building in over a thousand places. The leaks were sealed with putty, but

12705-686: The city and these areas. It joins the M62 to the north-east and the M602 to the west, as well as the East Lancashire Road and A6 . The name Manchester originates from the Latin name Mamucium or its variant Mancunio and the citizens are still referred to as Mancunians ( / m æ n ˈ k juː n i ə n / ). These names are generally thought to represent a Latinisation of an original Brittonic name . The generally accepted etymology of this name

12870-543: The city ... From this foul drain, the greatest stream of human industry flows out to fertilise the world. Manchester gained city status in 1853, and the exhibition was financed by the city's increasingly affluent business grandees, who were motivated by a desire to demonstrate their cultural attainment, and inspired by the Paris International Exhibition in 1855, the Dublin Exhibition in 1853, and

13035-566: The city, which had been administered by Lancashire County Council, including former villages such as Burnage , Chorlton-cum-Hardy , Didsbury , Fallowfield , Levenshulme , Longsight , and Withington . In 1931, the Cheshire civil parishes of Baguley , Northenden and Northen Etchells from the south of the River Mersey were added. In 1974, by way of the Local Government Act 1972 ,

13200-458: The civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort ( castra ) of Mamucium or Mancunium , established c.  AD 79 on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell . Throughout the Middle Ages , Manchester remained a manorial township but began to expand "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century. Manchester's unplanned urbanisation

13365-711: The collection of Jules Soulages of Toulouse, founder of the Société Archéologique du Midi de la France for £13,500 to form the core of the collection of medieval and Renaissance decorative arts. The collection had previously been exhibited at Marlborough House in London with a view to being acquired for the South Kensington Museum (now the V&;A), but the Treasury refused to fund the purchase. They were later acquired by

13530-443: The committee's entreaties to lend their works of art. William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire reportedly declined, replying contemptuously: What in the world do you want with art in Manchester? Why can't you stick to your cotton spinning? The exhibition was opened by Prince Albert on 5 May 1857, in mourning following the death of Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh only a few days before, on 30 April. The exhibition

13695-611: The confluence of the Irwell and Irk sometime before the arrival of the Normans after 1066. Much of the wider area was laid waste in the subsequent Harrying of the North . In the Domesday Book of 1086, Manchester is recorded as within the hundred of Salford and held as tenant in chief by a Norman named Roger of Poitou , later being held by the family of Grelley, lord of the manor and residents of Manchester Castle until 1215 before

13860-444: The design and construction of the exhibition building, comprising accomplished engineers Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Robert Stephenson , renowned architects Charles Barry and Thomas Leverton Donaldson , and chaired by William Cubitt . By 15 March 1850 they were ready to invite submissions which had to conform to several key specifications: the building had to be temporary, simple, as cheap as possible, and economical to build within

14025-460: The development of powered cranes ; the raising of the columns was done manually using shear legs (or shears), a simple crane mechanism. These consisted of two strong poles which were set several meters apart at the base and then lashed together at the top to form a triangle; this was stabilized and kept vertical by guy ropes fixed to the apex, stretched taut and tied to stakes driven into the ground some distance away. Using pulleys and ropes hung from

14190-696: The eastern portion in Beckenham, Kent. When built, most of the buildings were in the County of Surrey, as were the majority of grounds, but in 1899 the county boundary was moved, transferring the entire site to Penge Urban District in Kent. The site is now within the Crystal Palace & Anerley Ward of the London Borough of Bromley . Two railway stations were opened to serve the permanent exhibition: The Low Level station

14355-455: The entire building was scaled around those dimensions, it meant that nearly the whole outer surface could be glazed using hundreds of thousands of identical panes, thereby drastically reducing both their production cost and the time needed to install them. The original Hyde Park building was essentially a vast, flat-roofed rectangular hall. A huge open gallery ran along the main axis, with wings extending down either side. The main exhibition space

14520-515: The exhibition made a small profit of £304 14s. 4d, a good result compared to the crippling £20,000 loss made by the Dublin Exhibition, which ruined its organiser William Dargan . The railway that transported visitors to the site did even better, making a profit of about £50,000. After the exhibition ended, the exhibited works were returned to their owners, and the temporary building and its contents were auctioned. Glass display cases were bought by

14685-414: The exhibition, 827,280 visitors each paid one penny to use them. It is often suggested that the euphemism " spending a penny " originated at the exhibition, but the phrase is more likely to date from the 1890s when public lavatories, fitted with penny-coin-operated locks, were first established by British local authorities. The Great Exhibition closed on 15 October 1851. The life of the Great Exhibition

14850-601: The export markets. Cotton processing in other parts of the world increased, often on machines produced in Manchester. Manchester suffered greatly from the Great Depression and the underlying structural changes that began to supplant the old industries, including textile manufacture. Like most of the UK, the Manchester area was mobilised extensively during the Second World War . For example, casting and machining expertise at Beyer, Peacock & Company 's locomotive works in Gorton

15015-409: The final bill up to £37,461. Over the entrance was inscribed the first line of John Keats 's Endymion : "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." By the exit was a line from Alexander Pope 's Prologue to Joseph Addison 's Cato : "To wake the soul by tender strokes of art." The hall also included two public refreshment rooms, First Class and Second Class, later supplemented by a tent outside, and

15180-502: The final version of the Roman fort is visible in Castlefield . The Roman habitation of Manchester probably ended around the 3rd century; its civilian settlement appears to have been abandoned by the mid-3rd century, although the fort may have supported a small garrison until the late 3rd or early 4th century. After the Roman withdrawal and Saxon conquest , the focus of settlement shifted to

15345-463: The first 10 days, and on Thursdays, daily admission was half a crown ; on other days, admission was reduced to 1 shilling . An experiment in reducing admission to sixpence after 2 pm on Saturdays – to encourage working class visitors – did not noticeably increase revenue and was abandoned. The exhibition attracted more than 1.3 million visitors – about four times the population of Manchester in 1857. Prominent visitors included

15510-531: The floodplain surrounding the River Mersey, as well as the southern area around Manchester Airport. The green belt was first drawn up in 1961. Historically the population of Manchester began to increase rapidly during the Victorian era , estimated at 354,930 for Manchester and 110,833 for Salford in 1865, and peaking at 766,311 in 1931. From then the population began to decrease rapidly, due to slum clearance and

15675-572: The following decades, having usefully boosted their reputation by their appearance in Manchester. The National Portrait Gallery in London had been founded in 1856 and opened its doors to the public in 1858. Scharf was its first director, and arranged the displays in chronological order, as the Manchester exhibition had done. A second but smaller National Art Treasures Exhibition was held in Folkestone in May ;– October 1886. A large exhibition of paintings

15840-409: The form of a long triangular prism, which made it both extremely light and very strong, and meant it could be built with the minimum amount of materials. Paxton set the dimensions of this prism by using the length of single pane of glass (49 inches (120 cm)) as the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle, thereby creating a triangle with a length-to-height ratio of 2.5:1, whose base (adjacent side)

16005-512: The highest residential accommodation in Europe when completed in 2006. It was surpassed in 2018 by the 659-foot (201 m) South Tower of the Deansgate Square project, also in Manchester. In January 2007, the independent Casino Advisory Panel licensed Manchester to build the UK's only supercasino , but plans were abandoned in February 2008. On 22 May 2017, an Islamist terrorist carried out

16170-508: The home country and the empire. France was the largest foreign contributor. The exhibits were grouped into four main categories—Raw Materials, Machinery, Manufacturers and Fine Arts. The exhibits ranged from the Koh-i-Noor diamond, Sèvres porcelain , and music organs to a massive hydraulic press, and a fire engine. There was also a 27-foot tall Crystal Fountain. In the first week, the prices were £1; they were then reduced to five shillings for

16335-478: The increased building of social housing overspill estates by Manchester City Council after the Second World War such as Hattersley and Langley . The 2012 mid-year estimate for the population of Manchester was 510,700. This was an increase of 7,900, or 1.6 per cent, since the 2011 estimate. Since 2001, the population has grown by 87,900, or 20.8 per cent, making Manchester the third fastest-growing area in

16500-451: The increasingly large container ships. Traffic declined, and the port closed in 1982. Heavy industry suffered a downturn from the 1960s and was greatly reduced under the economic policies followed by Margaret Thatcher 's government after 1979. Manchester lost 150,000 jobs in manufacturing between 1961 and 1983. Regeneration began in the late 1980s, with initiatives such as the Metrolink ,

16665-468: The interior and grounds of the building. Within two years the rebuilt Crystal Palace was complete, and on 10 June 1854, Queen Victoria again performed an opening ceremony, in the presence of 40,000 guests. Several localities claim to be the area to which the building was moved. The street address of the Crystal Palace was Sydenham (SE26) after 1917, but the actual building and parklands were mostly in Penge with

16830-607: The length of the building, and narrower barrel vaults 45 feet (14 m) wide to either side, all crossed by a 104 feet (32 m) transept towards the western end. The design of the main structure has been attributed to Francis Fowke , who later designed the Natural History Museum in London, and an ornamental brick entrance at the eastern end was designed by local architect Edward Salomons . The materials used included 650 long tons (660 t) of cast iron , 600 long tons (610 t) of wrought iron , 65,000 square feet (6,000 m) of glass and 1.5 million bricks. Internally,

16995-536: The light coming into the building, and acted as a primitive evaporative cooling system when water was sprayed onto them. The other part of the solution was Paxton's ingenious ventilation system. Each of the modules that formed the outer walls of the building was fitted with a prefabricated set of louvres that could be opened and closed using a gear mechanism, allowing hot stale air to escape. The flooring consisted of boards 22 centimetres (8.7 in) wide which were spaced about 1 centimetre (0.39 in) apart; together with

17160-427: The louvres, this formed an effective passive air-conditioning system. Because of the pressure differential, the hot air escaping from the louvres generated a constant airflow that drew cooler air up through the gaps in the floor. The floor too had a dual function: the gaps between the boards acted as a grating that allowed dust and small pieces of refuse to fall or be swept through them onto the ground beneath, where it

17325-412: The low bid for the construction contract submitted by the civil engineering contractor Fox, Henderson and Co , the commission accepted the scheme and gave its public endorsement to Paxton's design in July 1850. He was exultant but now had less than eight months to finalize his plans, manufacture the parts and erect the building in time for the exhibition's opening, which was scheduled for 1 May 1851. Paxton

17490-467: The name "Manchester". In 1792, Commissioners – usually known as "Police Commissioners" – were established for the social improvement of Manchester. Manchester regained its borough status in 1838 and comprised the townships of Beswick , Cheetham Hill , Chorlton upon Medlock and Hulme . By 1846, with increasing population and greater industrialisation, the Borough Council had taken over the powers of

17655-429: The new art museum in South Kensington (which later became the V&A) – were appointed as contractors to build a temporary iron-and-glass structure similar to the Crystal Palace in London, 656 feet (200 m) long and 200 feet (61 m) wide, with one central barrel vault 56 feet (17 m) wide with a 24 feet (7.3 m) wide hip vault on either side roofing a 104 feet (32 m) wide central gallery running

17820-469: The new museums under construction in South Kensington. The building was entirely demolished by November 1858. Having cost over £37,000 in all, the materials comprising the building sold for little more than £7,000; internal fittings and decorations that cost £18,581 sold for £2,836. The site became part of Manchester Botanical Gardens, and was used to hold a Royal Jubilee Exhibition in 1887, to celebrate

17985-449: The next three weeks, a price which still effectively limited entrance to middle-class and aristocratic visitors. The working classes finally came to the exhibition on 26 May, when weekday prices were reduced to one shilling (although the price was two shillings and sixpence on Fridays, and still five shillings on Saturdays). Over six million admissions were counted at the toll-gates, although the proportion which were repeat/returning visitors

18150-634: The only significant survivors of Leland's Manchester. During the English Civil War Manchester strongly favoured the Parliamentary interest. Although not long-lasting, Cromwell granted it the right to elect its own MP . Charles Worsley , who sat for the city for only a year, was later appointed Major General for Lancashire, Cheshire and Staffordshire during the Rule of the Major Generals . He

18315-444: The parts could be mass-produced in large numbers, and many parts served multiple functions, further reducing both the number of parts needed and their overall cost. Because of its comparatively low weight, the Crystal Palace required no heavy masonry for supporting walls or foundations. The relatively light concrete footings on which it stood could be left in the ground once the building was removed (they remain in place today just beneath

18480-423: The pioneering public gardens at Birkenhead Park which directly influenced the design of New York's Central Park . At Chatsworth, he had experimented extensively with glasshouse construction, developing many novel techniques for modular construction, using combinations of standard-sized sheets of glass, laminated wood , and prefabricated cast iron. The "Great Stove" (or conservatory) at Chatsworth (built in 1836)

18645-440: The positions for the cast iron columns; these points were then set precisely by theodolite measurements. Then the concrete foundations were poured, and the base plates for the columns were set into them. Once the foundations were in place, the erection of the modules proceeded rapidly. Connector brackets were attached to the top of each column before erection, and these were then hoisted into position. The project took place before

18810-461: The project, and with the enthusiastic backing of commission member Henry Cole , he decided to submit his own design. At this time, Paxton was chiefly known for his celebrated career as the head gardener for the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth House . By 1850, Paxton had become a preeminent figure in British horticulture and had also earned great renown as a freelance garden designer; his works included

18975-568: The proportion of Muslims increased by 73.6 per cent from 9.1 per cent to 15.8 per cent. The size of the Jewish population in Greater Manchester is the largest in Britain outside London. The Crystal Palace The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park , London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around

19140-410: The relatively poor quality of the sealant materials available at that time meant that the problem was never totally overcome. To maintain a comfortable temperature inside such a large glass building was another major challenge, because the Great Exhibition took place decades before the introduction of electricity and air-conditioning. Glasshouses rely on the fact that they accumulate and retain heat from

19305-448: The rest of the world does tomorrow." Manchester's golden age was perhaps the last quarter of the 19th century. Many of the great public buildings (including Manchester Town Hall ) date from then. The city's cosmopolitan atmosphere contributed to a vibrant culture, which included the Hallé Orchestra . In 1889, when county councils were created in England, the municipal borough became a county borough with even greater autonomy. Although

19470-401: The roof of the original Hyde Park structure had a horizontal profile, so heavy rain posed a potentially serious safety hazard. Because normal cast glass is brittle and has low tensile strength, there was a risk that the weight of any excess water build-up on the roof might have caused panes to shatter, showering shards of glass onto the patrons, ruining the valuable exhibits beneath, and weakening

19635-443: The roofing. Once completed, the channels acted both as the joists that supported the roof sections, and as guttering—a patented design now widely known as a " Paxton gutter ". These gutters conducted the rainwater to the ends of each furrow, where they emptied into the larger main gutters, which were set at right angles to the smaller gutters, along the top of the main horizontal roof beams. These main gutters drained at either end into

19800-518: The satirical magazine Punch about the forthcoming Great Exhibition, referring to a "palace of very crystal". After the exhibition, the Palace was relocated to an open area of South London known as Penge Place which had been excised from Penge Common . It was rebuilt at the top of Penge Peak next to Sydenham Hill , an affluent suburb of large villas. It stood there from June 1854 until its destruction by fire in November 1936. The nearby residential area

19965-480: The sea docks on the Mersey. The Bridgewater Canal , Britain's first wholly artificial waterway, was opened in 1761, bringing coal from mines at Worsley to central Manchester. The canal was extended to the Mersey at Runcorn by 1776. The combination of competition and improved efficiency halved the cost of coal and halved the transport cost of raw cotton. Manchester became the dominant marketplace for textiles produced in

20130-417: The short time remaining before the exhibition opening, which had already been scheduled for 1 May 1851. Within three weeks, the committee had received some 245 entries, including 38 international submissions from Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hanover , Switzerland, Brunswick , Hamburg and France . Two designs, both in iron and glass, were singled out for praise—one by Richard Turner , co-designer of

20295-470: The south of Manchester. Much of the inner city, especially in the south, is flat, offering extensive views from many highrise buildings in the city of the foothills and moors of the Pennines, which can often be capped with snow in the winter months. Manchester's geographic features were highly influential in its early development as the world's first industrial city. These features are its climate, its proximity to

20460-415: The structure. Paxton's ridge-and-furrow roof was designed to shed water very effectively. Rain ran off the angled glass roof panes into U-shaped timber channels which ran the length of each roof section at the bottom of the 'furrow'. These channels were ingeniously multifunctional. During construction, they served as the rails that supported and guided the trolleys on which the glaziers sat as they installed

20625-439: The sun, but such heat buildup would have been a major problem for the exhibition. This would have been exacerbated by the heat produced by the thousands of people who would be in the building at any given time. Paxton solved this with two clever strategies. One was to install external canvas shade-cloths that were stretched across the roof ridges. These served multiple functions: they reduced heat transmission, moderated and softened

20790-463: The surface of the site). The modules could be erected as quickly as the parts could reach the site—some sections were standing within eighteen hours of leaving the factory—and since each unit was self-supporting, workers were able to assemble much of the building section-by-section, without having to wait for other parts to be finished. Fox, Henderson and Co took possession of the site in July 1850, and erected wooden hoardings which were constructed using

20955-481: The surrounding grounds, and two large transepts were added at either end of the main gallery. It was modified and enlarged so much that it extended beyond the boundary of Penge Place, which was also the boundary between Surrey and Kent . The reconstruction was recorded for posterity by Philip Henry Delamotte , and his photographs were widely disseminated in his published works. The Crystal Palace Company also commissioned Negretti and Zambra to produce stereographs of

21120-425: The surrounding towns. A commodities exchange , opened in 1729, and numerous large warehouses, aided commerce. In 1780, Richard Arkwright began construction of Manchester's first cotton mill. In the early 1800s, John Dalton formulated his atomic theory in Manchester. Manchester was one of the centres of textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution . The great majority of cotton spinning took place in

21285-566: The third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom as a part of Greater Manchester, which has a population of approximately 2.92 million.  It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The city borders the boroughs of Trafford , Stockport , Tameside , Oldham , Rochdale , Bury and Salford . The history of Manchester began with

21450-406: The timber that later became the floorboards of the finished building. More than 5,000 navvies worked on the building during its construction, with up to 2,000 on site at one time during the peak building phase. More than 1,000 iron columns supported 2,224 trellis girders and 30 miles of guttering, comprising 4,000 tons of iron in all. Firstly stakes were driven into the ground to roughly mark out

21615-476: The towns and cities around Manchester, but also Shrewsbury, Preston, Leeds, Grimsby, Nottingham, and Lincoln. Thomas Cook had arranged excursions to the Great Exhibition in 1851 and the Paris Exhibition in 1855, and this time he organised "moonlight" excursions from Newcastle , leaving at midnight and returning late that evening. Friedrich Engels wrote to Karl Marx about the exhibition: "Everyone up here

21780-498: The towns of south Lancashire and north Cheshire, and Manchester was for a time the most productive centre of cotton processing. Manchester became known as the world's largest marketplace for cotton goods and was dubbed " Cottonopolis " and "Warehouse City" during the Victorian era . In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, the term "manchester" is still used for household linen: sheets, pillow cases, towels, etc. The industrial revolution brought about huge change in Manchester and

21945-466: The world gathered in its 990,000-square-foot (92,000 m ) exhibition space to display examples of technology developed in the Industrial Revolution . Designed by Joseph Paxton , the Great Exhibition building was 1,851 feet (564 m) long, with an interior height of 128 feet (39 m), and was three times the size of St Paul's Cathedral . The 60,000 panes of glass were manufactured by

22110-535: The world. A centre of capitalism, Manchester was once the scene of bread and labour riots, as well as calls for greater political recognition by the city's working and non-titled classes. One such gathering ended with the Peterloo massacre of 16 August 1819. The economic school of Manchester Capitalism developed there, and Manchester was the centre of the Anti-Corn Law League from 1838 onward. Manchester has

22275-577: The year of re-opening, 18 handbooks were published in the Crystal Palace Library by Bradbury and Evans as guides to the new installations. Many of these were written by the specialists involved in creating and curating the new displays. So the 1854 guide to the Egyptian Court, destroyed in the 1866 fire, was entitled: 'The Egyptian Court in the Crystal Palace. Described by Owen Jones, architect, and Joseph Bonomi , sculptor'. That which included

22440-460: Was 135 feet (41 m) high, with 772,784 square feet (71,794.0 m ) on the ground floor alone. The Great Exhibition was opened on 1 May 1851 by Queen Victoria. It was the first of the World's fair exhibitions of culture and industry. There were some 100,000 objects, displayed along more than ten miles, by over 15,000 contributors. Britain occupied half the display space inside with exhibits from

22605-452: Was 4 feet (1.2 m) long. By mirroring this triangle he obtained the 8-foot-wide (2.4 m) gables that formed the vertical faces at either end of the prism, each of which was 24 feet (7.3 m) long. With this arrangement, Paxton could glaze the entire roof surface with identical panes that did not need to be trimmed. Paxton placed three of these 8 feet (2.4 m) by 24 feet (7.3 m) roof units side-by-side, horizontally supported by

22770-409: Was a diligent puritan , turning out ale houses and banning the celebration of Christmas; he died in 1656. Significant quantities of cotton began to be used after about 1600, firstly in linen and cotton fustians , but by around 1750 pure cotton fabrics were being produced and cotton had overtaken wool in importance. The Irwell and Mersey were made navigable by 1736, opening a route from Manchester to

22935-460: Was able to design and build the largest glass structure yet created, from scratch, in less than a year, and complete it on schedule and on budget. He was even able to alter the design shortly before building began, adding a high, barrel-vaulted transept across the centre of the building, at 90 degrees to the main gallery, under which he was able to safely enclose several large elm trees that would otherwise have had to be felled—thereby also resolving

23100-494: Was appointed as the exhibition's Art Secretary; he became secretary and director to the newly founded National Portrait Gallery in 1857. The exhibition was held outside the city centre, on a three-acre site in Old Trafford owned by Sir Humphrey de Trafford , Bt., which he had previously let as a cricket ground . Manchester Cricket Club surrendered its lease and moved a short distance to Old Trafford Cricket Ground . The site

23265-420: Was brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution and resulted in it becoming the world's first industrialised city. Historically part of Lancashire , areas of Cheshire south of the River Mersey were incorporated into Manchester in the 20th century, including Wythenshawe in 1931. Manchester achieved city status in 1853. The Manchester Ship Canal opened in 1894, creating

23430-562: Was built between 1888 and 1894, in some sections by canalisation of the Rivers Irwell and Mersey, running 36 miles (58 km) from Salford to Eastham Locks on the tidal Mersey. This enabled oceangoing ships to sail right into the Port of Manchester. On the canal's banks, just outside the borough, the world's first industrial estate was created at Trafford Park . Large quantities of machinery, including cotton processing plant, were exported around

23595-478: Was collected daily by a team of cleaning boys. Paxton also designed machines to sweep the floors at the end of each day. But in practice, it was found that the trailing skirts of the female visitors did the job well. Thanks to the considerable economies of scale Paxton was able to exploit, the manufacture and assembly of the building parts was exceedingly quick and cheap. Each module was identical, fully prefabricated, self-supporting, and fast and easy to erect. All of

23760-418: Was conveniently adjacent to Manchester Botanical Garden and to the west of an existing railway line of the Manchester, South Junction and Altrincham Railway . The railway company built a new station (now Old Trafford tram stop ) which was used by thousands of visitors from the city and from further afield on organised excursions. C.D. Young & Co , of London and Edinburgh – already engaged as builders of

23925-542: Was done by John Gregory Crace of London. A 24-foot (7.3 m) wide gallery ran around the transept at an upper level. The central third of each vault was glazed, providing ample diffuse light. In the summer, the glazing in the picture galleries was shaded with calico to prevent damage to the artworks, and firemen played water on the roof as a form of rudimentary air conditioning when the interior temperature exceeded 70 °F (21 °C). Young & Co's original quote of £24,500 proved over-optimistic, and cost overruns pushed

24090-429: Was elected as the first mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017 . At 53°28′0″N 2°14′0″W  /  53.46667°N 2.23333°W  / 53.46667; -2.23333 , 160 miles (260 km) northwest of London, Manchester lies in a bowl-shaped land area bordered to the north and east by the Pennines , an upland chain that runs the length of northern England , and to the south by the Cheshire Plain . Manchester

24255-552: Was held in Bethnal Green , an industrial part of the East End of London , from 1872, designed specifically to attract working-class visitors. This was in what is now the V&;A Museum of Childhood , using prefabricated buildings moved from South Kensington. An exhibition was held at Manchester Art Gallery in 2007–08 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Art Treasures Exhibition, and

24420-843: Was held in Manchester (at the Mechanics' Institute, David Street), from 2 to 6 June 1868. Manchester was an important cradle of the Labour Party and the Suffragette Movement. At that time, it seemed a place in which anything could happen—new industrial processes, new ways of thinking (the Manchester School , promoting free trade and laissez-faire ), new classes or groups in society, new religious sects, and new forms of labour organisation. It attracted educated visitors from all parts of Britain and Europe. A saying capturing this sense of innovation survives today: "What Manchester does today,

24585-425: Was invited to take the lily to Chatsworth. It thrived under his care, and in 1849 he caused a sensation in the horticultural world when he succeeded in producing the first amazonica flowers to be grown in England. His daughter Alice was drawn for the newspapers, standing on one of the leaves. The lily and its house led directly to Paxton's design for the Crystal Palace. He later cited the huge ribbed floating leaves as

24750-399: Was key to the increase in Manchester's population. Manchester began expanding "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century as people flocked to the city for work from Scotland, Wales, Ireland and other areas of England as part of a process of unplanned urbanisation brought on by the Industrial Revolution . It developed a wide range of industries, so that by 1835 "Manchester

24915-430: Was known as the Crystal Palace pneumatic railway . Dozens of experts such as Matthew Digby Wyatt and Owen Jones were hired to create a series of courts that provided a narrative of the history of fine art. Amongst these were Augustus Pugin 's Mediaeval Court from the Great Exhibition, as well as courts illustrating Egyptian , Alhambra , Roman , Renaissance , Pompeian , and Grecian art and many others. During

25080-471: Was left open. Paxton also used longer trellis girders to create a clear span for the roof of the immense central gallery, which was 72 feet (22 m) wide and 1,800 feet (550 m) long. Paxton's roofing system incorporated his elegant solution to the problem of draining the building's vast roof area. Like the Chatsworth Lily House (but different to its later incarnation at Sydenham Hill), most of

25245-467: Was limited to six months, after which something had to be decided on the future of the Crystal Palace building. Against the wishes of parliamentary opponents, a consortium of eight businessmen, including Samuel Laing and Leo Schuster , who were both board members of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR), formed a holding company and proposed that the edifice be taken down and relocated to

25410-458: Was originally erected in Hyde Park in London to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, which showcased the products of many countries throughout the world. The commission in charge of mounting the Great Exhibition was established in January 1850, and it was decided at the outset that the entire project would be funded by public subscription. An executive building committee was quickly formed to oversee

25575-520: Was quickly revised upwards. The final insurance payout was over £400 million; many affected businesses never recovered from the loss of trade. Spurred by the investment after the 1996 bombing and aided by the XVII Commonwealth Games , the city centre has undergone extensive regeneration. New and renovated complexes such as The Printworks and Corn Exchange have become popular shopping, eating and entertainment areas. Manchester Arndale

25740-405: Was redesigned and covered with a barrel-vaulted roof; the central transept was greatly enlarged and made even higher; the large arch of the main entrance was framed by a new facade and served by an imposing set of terraces and stairways. The building measured 1,608 feet (490 m) feet in length by 384 feet (117 m) feet across the transepts. The new building was elevated several metres above

25905-832: Was renamed Crystal Palace after the landmark. This included the Crystal Palace Park that surrounds the site, home of the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre , which was previously a football stadium that hosted the FA Cup Final between 1895 and 1914. Crystal Palace F.C. were founded at the site and played at the Cup Final venue in their early years. The park still contains Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins 's Crystal Palace Dinosaurs which date back to 1854. The huge, modular, iron, wood and glass, structure

26070-692: Was switched to bomb making; Dunlop's rubber works in Chorlton-on-Medlock made barrage balloons ; and just outside the city in Trafford Park , engineers Metropolitan-Vickers made Avro Manchester and Avro Lancaster bombers and Ford built the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines to power them. Manchester was thus the target of bombing by the Luftwaffe , and by late 1940 air raids were taking place against non-military targets. The biggest took place during

26235-411: Was the first major application of his ridge-and-furrow roof design and was at the time the largest glass building in the world, covering around 28,000 square feet (2,600 m ). A decade later, taking advantage of the availability of the new cast plate glass , Paxton further developed his techniques with the Chatsworth Lily House, which featured a flat-roof version of the ridge-and-furrow glazing, and

26400-573: Was the ironwork contractor Fox and Henderson, whose director Charles Fox was also knighted for his contribution. The 900,000 square feet (84,000 m ) of glass was provided by the Chance Brothers glassworks in Smethwick. This was the only glassworks capable of fulfilling such a large order; it had to bring in labour from France to fulfil the order in time. The final dimensions were 1,848 feet (563 m) long by 456 feet (139 m) wide. The building

26565-438: Was the operator of a machine, as in a mill). Sales of season tickets raised more than £20,000, added to daily admission fees amounting to nearly £61,000. Another £8,111 was raised by selling over 160,000 catalogues, plus £239 from selling concert programmes. Almost £1,500 came from the charges for safe-keeping of personal effects at the cloakroom, and £3,346 from the refreshments contract. From gross receipts of £110,588 9s. 8d.,

26730-526: Was two stories high, with the upper floor stepped in from the boundary. Most of the building had a flat-profile roof, except for the central transept, which was covered by a 72-foot-wide (22 m) barrel-vaulted roof that stood 168 feet (51 m) high at the top of the arch. Both the flat-profile sections and the arched transept roof were constructed using the key element of Paxton's design: his patented ridge-and-furrow roofing system, which had first seen use at Chatsworth. The basic roofing unit, in essence, took

26895-508: Was visited ceremonially by Queen Victoria on 29 June, during her second visit to Manchester , and then by the Queen and her entourage privately on 30 June. The exhibition ran until 17 October 1857, but was closed on Wednesday 7 October 1857 to mark a "day of humiliation" on account of the ongoing Indian Mutiny . Season tickets were sold in advance for 2 guineas (including admission on the two state ceremonial occasions) or 1 guinea (without). During

27060-426: Was without challenge the first and greatest industrial city in the world". Engineering firms initially made machines for the cotton trade, but diversified into general manufacture. Similarly, the chemical industry started by producing bleaches and dyes, but expanded into other areas. Commerce was supported by financial service industries such as banking and insurance. Trade, and feeding the growing population, required

27225-462: Was −17.6 °C (0.3 °F) on 7 January 2010. The highest temperature recorded in Manchester is 38.0 °C (100.4 °F) on 19 July 2022, during the 2022 European Heatwave . Manchester lies at the centre of a green belt region extending into the wider surrounding counties. This reduces urban sprawl , prevents towns in the conurbation from further convergence, protects the identity of outlying communities, and preserves nearby countryside. It

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