Prince Albert, the Great Exhibition of 1851, and the German Connection

In popular and general historical accounts, the Great Exhibition of 1851 is closely associated with Prince Albert, and Prince Albert is closely associated with the Great Exhibition. When one is being discussed, the other invariably appears.1 Recurrently and generally, Albert is believed to have come up with the exhibition idea, designed it, led it and somehow ‘owned’ it. Symptomatically, the Wikipedia webpage on the Great Exhibition currently states, in an anodyne and yet equally misleading fashion, that “The Great Exhibition was organised [...] by Prince Albert”.2 A closer examination of literature on, and discussion of, the matter reveals a perplexing level of uncertainty regarding the exact relationship between Albert and the Exhibition, however. Other figures, for example Henry Cole, are also sometimes recognised as having played a leading role, while the exhibition is also interpreted as a biproduct of industrialisation, Free Trade, and the High Victorian period. Still, the Exhibition, it is widely if naively believed, was Albert’s project. These associations are also intermingled, reflected and reinforced in material culture. Significantly, many of the memorials erected in Albert’s memory after his untimely death in 1861 display and reinforce themes suggesting the centrality of the exhibition to his life’s work and his responsibility for it. Foremost among them is that in Hyde Park overlooking ‘Albertopolis’ and Exhibition Road.3 As these memorials show, this way of thinking, lazy and superficial as it may be, has a long history. In fact, even as the exhibition was being organised and taking place, many people presented or saw it as Albert’s project, and claims were made at the time, even by those associated with the exhibition, that Albert had