High Minds

by Simon Heffer

  This was not pure sycophancy: Albert was an aesthete. ‘When you were last here,’ begins a letter to Peel from him on 3 October 1841, ‘our conversation turned upon the Niebelungen Lied . . . I thought it would amuse you to see a very fine edition of the work which has lately appeared, and therefore I send it to you.’2 Albert went on to appraise the merit of the illustrations in the edition, and then discussed the Royal Commission with Peel, saying how ‘glad’ he was that Peel’s announcement of it ‘was so well received in the House of Commons’. He asked that ‘there had better be no artist by profession in the Commission. The benefit of an artist’s opinion could be equally obtained by taking it upon examination and evidence. And even better, as it would enable the Commission to procure the different opinions of a greater number of artists.’

  He said this with humility: ‘I only give you my crude views and have no wish whatever to press them against the experience of others.’ Peel, nonetheless, replied that he found the Prince’s view ‘perfectly put’.3 Peel had the Commission composed almost entirely of Lords and Commons.4 Albert found this ‘an admirable selection, and I can only rejoice that party distinctions should have been excluded from this national undertaking.’5 When in October 1841 the artist Cornelius came to England he was consulted by Peel and the Prince on his ideas for ‘decoration’ of the new parliamentary building. ‘I can quite enter into Cornelius’s opinion,’ Albert wrote to Peel, ‘respecting the fitness of the English school for historical composition, for I can understand that he may be disgusted with its mistaken tendency: to obtain mere effect and to bribe the senses and acquire applause by rich colouring and the representation of voluptuous forms overlooking at the same time its deficiency in real poetical imagination and invention and the importance of Correct Drawing.’6 Albert regretted that ‘the taste of the public is not now what it ought to be’ and indeed that the taste of the artists themselves could do with refinement through further ‘study’. After a sizeable disquisition on the benefits of the fresco, he concluded: ‘If some were sent to study at Munic [sic], Florence and Rome, I have not the slightest doubt, they would produce works fully equal to the present school of the Germans.’

  Albert was courteous and helpful with the Household appointments; and Peel also formed a good relationship with his secretary, George Anson. Conscious of the difficulties Peel was having getting Ashley to serve in the administration, Anson asked Ashley on 7 September 1841 whether he might wish to be Lord-in-Waiting to the Prince, a post declined by Lord Lyttelton: ‘Do you think Lord Ashley could be persuaded to take this place about the Prince? The same objections need not apply to his entering the Prince’s service as applied to a place offered by the Minister and it would not prevent his being transferred to other office when the factory question was disposed of.’7 Ashley did not waver.

  Albert used his moral force and intellectual energy to transform the Royal Family. His notion of family life, and of his role as paterfamilias, saw the elevation of family values almost to a cult. Whatever an aristocracy that continued to set its own rules thought of this, the expanding middle class strove to emulate it. The self-discipline and self-reliance it preached would over the rest of the nineteenth century make the middle class the true power in the land, not least because its aspirational nature made that class more numerous, more wealthy and more influential. The model Albert set for it was perceptively described, six years after his death, by Walter Bagehot as that of ‘a family on the throne’.8 But it was his typically German earnestness as much as his status that ensured the Exhibition would be a success.

  II

  The Great Exhibition marked a junction of a period of strife and darkness with one of prosperity and light. The French had been in the habit of holding exhibitions to promote their country and its business since the era of Napoleon Bonaparte. In the early 1840s Francis Whishaw, secretary of the Society of Arts, investigated the practicalities of holding such an event in London. Albert was president of the Society, and present at a meeting in 1845 where Whishaw mentioned the notion. The Society had been founded in 1754 and had endured a long period of decline. Albert and the council resolved to reactivate it, and an exhibition seemed a superb means of doing so. It would take a man of extraordinary drive and vision to manage the day-to-day organisation of such a project. Fortunately, such a man was on hand in the shape of a middle-ranking government official named Henry Cole.

  Cole would become one of the most important public servants of the era, in some respects the most important. Born in 1808, he had left Christ’s Hospital School at fifteen to work in a lowly capacity at the Record Commission, a body whose job was to attempt to assemble and catalogue the nation’s public records, which were in an uncodified and shambolic state. Cole was a prime example of the aspirational middle class, the lives of whose members would benefit so much by the range of projects to which he would apply himself during his long and varied career. He also set them a fine example by his push, and by his knack of being deferential only when it furthered his own agenda. After a decade in the department Cole realised it needed radical reform, being even more corrupt and based on jobbery and nepotism than most of the rest of the Civil Service. He took on the role of whistleblower, and was dismissed in 1835 for writing two articles in the Examiner exposing the practices of the department. Unfortunately for Cole he wrote these not only because of a principled disagreement about how the Record Commission was run, but after a disagreement about his salary: his motives were open to question.

  However, so forceful had been the criticisms that a parliamentary inquiry was set up, as a result of which Cole was exonerated and given his job back. The Record Commission was reformed, and Cole appointed one of the four senior assistant keepers there: but a bad odour lingered. It would not be the last time Cole would use the force of his personality to get what he wanted, or that what he deemed in the best interests of the country would be remarkably similar to what he wanted.

  By the time he came to Albert’s attention Cole had done considerably more than reform the Record Commission. He had been Rowland Hill’s right-hand man in establishing the penny post, which was launched on 6 May 1840 and at a stroke established a communications infrastructure accessible to the entire population as well as to all officialdom: it was a leading tool in the modernisation of Britain under the Victorians. Aided by the existence of this service, Cole also invented the Christmas card in 1843. He lent his considerable weight both as an official and as an accomplished journalist to the establishment of the standard-gauge railway track. There being no limit to his talents, he designed in 1846 a tea service that won a Society of Arts prize and went into mass production. His enthusiasm for a national exhibition came after this triumph, which occurred at the 1847 exhibition of manufacturing that the Society put on of its own accord. After further small, but successful, exhibitions in the two succeeding years, Cole persuaded the Society to petition Parliament to launch a national event, to give a showcase for British manufacturing at a time when markets were reviving around the world and Britain’s command of the oceans and growing imperial reach made penetration of those markets relatively easy.

  He became a member of the council of the Society in 1847 and by 1850 he was its chairman, a post in which, according to Sir Henry Trueman Wood, a later secretary of the Society, he exerted ‘the strongest personal influence over the Society’, amounting, in the early years of his reign, to ‘total control’.9 This control was hardly surprising, because Cole was by this time known to have the ear and confidence of the president, Prince Albert, to whom in his role as chairman he answered directly. Cole also made sure that he wrote the petition to Parliament himself. For all his asperities Cole knew how to play the courtier, and Albert placed complete reliance upon him. He teamed up with two others who became driving forces behind the idea: John Scott Russell, secretary of the Society of Arts, and Francis Fuller, an expert on agriculture. These three went to Paris in June 1849 with Matthew Digby Wyatt, the artist and writer, to get the me
asure of how the French mounted their exhibitions.

  Fuller had an important conversation with Thomas Cubitt, the architect and builder, who had been Prince Albert’s partner in the design and construction of Osborne, and with whom, returning from Paris, he travelled back from Southampton after Cubitt had been working at the house. Fuller recorded in his diary that, having seen how the French did things, he told Cubitt that ‘we could do a much grander work in London by inviting contributions from every nation’. He observed that ‘if Prince Albert would take the lead in such a work he would become a leading light among nations’.10 Fuller seemed to have found for Albert the role he had been seeking that would not drag him into political difficulties: though he may have been rehearsing a view already expressed by Cole, who knew the Prince even by that stage well enough to make intelligent assumptions about what might appeal to his sense of duty – and his sense of frustration.

  Cubitt returned to Osborne on business two days after his meeting with Fuller, and told Albert what had been said. Albert trusted him and was swayed by his enthusiasm, deciding it had to be taken further. Knowing Scott Russell and Cole well through his association with the Society of Arts, Albert had informal discussions with them over the next couple of days, and gave Cole an audience on 29 June, where he let it be known that an international rather than a national exhibition would be his ambition. The next day the three Paris trippers and Cubitt were summoned to Buckingham Palace, to discuss a plan. Important ideas were raised at this meeting that would have a direct bearing on the event: such as what the exhibition would consist of and where it would be held. The former would be ‘Raw Materials of Manufactures – British Colonial and Foreign, Machinery and Mechanical Inventions, Manufactures, Sculptors and Plastic Art generally’.11 It was, it seems, the Prince who came up with the idea of an exhibition hall built on the south side of Hyde Park, after such improbable locations as Somerset House and Leicester Square were rejected. Albert also realised that money should be raised: he thought about £100,000, and that the Society of Arts should hold the fund.

  The day after the Buckingham Palace meeting Cole took his wife and children to Kensington to inspect the suggested location, and then went to see Henry Labouchere, the President of the Board of Trade, to brief him on the plan, about which he should shortly be hearing from Albert himself. On 9 July Albert wrote to Labouchere saying: ‘I should like to have some conversation with you on the subject of a great national and even international Exhibition which the Society of Arts have been anxious to invite for the year 1851.’12 Albert stressed ‘the highest importance’ of the project and how it would need to be approached ‘in harmony with and under the guidance of the Govt’. Part of the conversation would be about the appointment of a Royal Commission to oversee the exhibition and all the arrangements, and to determine prizes for exhibitors. These would be funded by the Society for Arts. The first prize would be £5,000, a sum deemed large enough to entice even the most hostile manufacturer to take part. Albert suggested the following members of the Commission: the Duke of Buccleuch, the Earl of Ellesmere, Lord Stanley, Lord John Russell, Peel, Sir R. Lane, Sir H. de la Beche and Messrs Labouchere, Gladstone, Cobden, Fuller and Scott Russell.13

  Cole immediately wrote to Colonel Charles Phipps, Albert’s private secretary, urging dispatch in getting the commission formally appointed. When it was, the impartial selection of its members pleased The Times, which was also glad to see the manufacturing and mercantile interest so well represented by such as Cobden. Charles Barry, the architect of the new Houses of Parliament, and William Cubitt, president of the Institution of Civil Engineers (no relation to Thomas) were applauded too.14 The urgent matter was to find a builder who would enter into the scheme on a speculative basis, to be paid a percentage out of the revenues from the exhibition itself, a cost estimated by Cubitt (who was not willing to shoulder the burden himself) at around £50,000. Fuller, through his father-in-law, found such a builder: James Munday, and his nephew George, who on 23 August 1849 signed a contract to build the exhibition hall. The Mundays made it clear that it was Albert’s name at the head of the enterprise that persuaded them to take the risk.15 When the news was broadcast, manufacturers from outside London, annoyed perhaps that they had not been offered a share of these spoils, complained at the speculative nature of the enterprise, and at Albert’s association with it. They argued that if the project were destined to be such a success, a public subscription would have paid for the building. The sting was taken out of this complaint when the names of the commissioners were published, and it was clear from it that these were high-minded, disinterested men and not commercial adventurers.

  Albert gave formal authority to Cole, Fuller and Scott Russell to visit manufacturing districts to urge participation in the event.16 Cole had similar high powers vested in him by the Society of Arts, which appointed an executive committee to manage its involvement with the exhibition. He, Fuller and Scott Russell quickly found that, as Albert himself put it, ‘the manufacturers generally are very favourably disposed towards the plan’.17 The substantial prize money had clearly done its work, but so too had Albert’s patronage. It was important to gather evidence of a strong desire to participate so it could be presented to Parliament after its return from the long recess, which in those days lasted from August until late January: also, those driving the scheme saw the benefits of advising the Cabinet as quickly as possible of the likely success of the venture. Cole’s tour of the British Isles – which included a hugely successful meeting in Dublin – ended with a rousing gathering at the Mansion House in London on 17 October 1849 at which Cole effectively challenged the money men of Great Britain to subscribe to build better and more impressive works than any of their European competitors could.

  He told them what he had learned on his travels around England, and about how ‘one gentleman only, out of some 600 or 700 whom we have consulted’ was in favour of restricting the exhibition to British goods only, rather than those from all over the world.18 Interestingly, people did not see the event as one solely for Britain to boast about itself or to make money: a clergyman from Dover whom Cole met said it might contribute to world peace, hastening the time when swords would be beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning-hooks – a quotation met by cries of ‘hear, hear’ from the meeting. This was very much Albert’s view. But Cole also sought to impress and create a sense of awe by outlining what he envisaged would be in the exhibition: ‘We shall probably have enormous elephants’ tusks from Africa and Asia; leather from Morocco and Russia; Beaver from Baffin’s Bay; the wools of Australia, Yorkshire and Thibet; silk from Asia and from Europe; and furs from the Esquimaux.’ Perhaps even more exciting, ‘the Court of Directors of the East India Company intend to exhibit the best of everything that India can produce.’ For good measure there would be gold from California and silver from Mexico – and from Cornwall. He also promised displays by the latest machinery: not just the most sophisticated looms, but even such printing presses as could now turn out 10,000 copies of The Times each hour.

  Cole also explained, to great enthusiasm, why the Prince had chosen the Kensington site. ‘High and low, rich and poor, would have equally good access (hear, hear) . . . those who rode down in omnibuses, and those who went in their private carriages, would have equal facilities of approach. (Cheers.)’ His peroration was tub-thumping. ‘I think we may expect some hundred thousand people to come flowing into London from all parts of the world, by railways and steamboats, to see this great exhibition. I think we may calculate on the advent of foreign merchants who may want to buy, pleasure-seekers in abundance, and men of science anxious to see what has been done. In short, London will act the part of host to all the world at an intellectual festival of peaceful industry suggested by the consort of our beloved Queen, and seconded by yourselves – a festival such as the world never before has seen.’ The Times report concluded with the information that ‘Mr Cole resumed his seat amidst much cheering from all parts of the hall.’
Various resolutions about proceeding with the exhibition were then put to the meeting and passed unanimously: the full mercantile wealth of the City of London was now behind the plan.

  When deputations from the manufacturing districts sought audiences of Albert via Russell, the Prime Minister, to discuss the project, the Prince was urged to meet them. Stafford Northcote told Grey (who had by this time been promoted from equerry to Albert’s private secretary, in succession to Phipps) on 9 January 1850 that Labouchere thought ‘the reception of the Manchester deputation by the Prince in person would have a most excellent effect, and would probably ensure the cordial co-operation of the town, which appears to have taken alarm at some of the proceedings of the Society of Arts.’19 Albert duly met them. The Lord Mayor of London, and his counterparts in Birmingham and Glasgow, quickly attested to the enthusiasm of their constituencies, and asserted that ‘money will not be wanted’.20 Enthusiasm brought its own problems, however, as Grey noted, namely ‘the selection of articles to be exhibited’.

  The commissioners met for the first time on 11 January 1850, at Westminster, with Albert in the chair. One of the first decisions was that the Mundays should be bought out of their speculative deal and a loan from the government should fund the building of what became the Crystal Palace, so that the only business relationship in the management of the exhibition was between the Commission and the Society of Arts. This created the additional burden on the Commission of finding funds to guarantee the Treasury loan, which would be repaid out of the proceeds of the event. The Commission also assumed some of what had been the duties of the Society; which, as the person of Cole was prominent in both, was easily done.