Why 8 October 1851?

Mr Blackwood and his party visit the Great Exhibition on 8 October. I chose the date for two reasons: one is that it was the day of peak attendance, when 109,915 people went through the turnstiles; the second is that it was the day that the Duke of Wellington paid his last visit to the Crystal Palace. (Tennyson and Lord Palmerston certainly visited the Exhibition, though it’s most unlikely that they visited on the same day as the Duke or even as each other. In general I tried to avoid poetic licence, though on this occasion I succumbed.)

The Duke, who was still regarded as a national hero, was cheered loudly by his admirers. Unfortunately, visitors at the other end of the building, hearing the noise and not knowing the reason for it, panicked and fled for the exits, having supposed the building to be on the point of collapse. The duke’s confrontation with Corporal Costello is, of course, entirely imaginary.

Although there were no weather forecasts in those days, there were weather reports for the previous day. I was thus able to find out from the shipping columns of The Times what the weather was like in London on the three days of the excursion – in other words: fine, fine and wet. The excursionists were fortunate to have two fine days: the summer of 1851 was one of the wettest of the century.

The image at the head of this post is the only surviving photograph (actually, a daguerreotype) of the Duke of Wellington, taken in 1844, eight years before his death and seven before his visit to the Crystal Palace.