A Society against Ugliness

This chapter examines the Great Exhibition of 1851, which is considered an industrial audit of the world that included exhibits from Britain's empire and other foreign nations. It talks about the East India Company, a private company that exercised control over almost all of the Indian subcontinent that provided displays of the products of India in the Great Exhibition. It also explains the aim of the Great Exhibition, which was to reveal to merchants and manufacturers in Britain the kinds of raw materials that might be imported for Englishmen to work upon. The chapter highlights the Royal Society of Arts' activities over the previous century, which focused on the spread of information instead of awarding premiums for exploiting new resources. It describes how the products of Britain's colonies brought attention to merchants and manufacturers in Britain itself.