The Great Exhibition
Six million people—equivalent to a third of the entire population of Britain at the time—visited the Great Exhibition. The average daily attendance was 42,831 with a peak of 109,915 on 7 October. Thomas Cook arranged travel to the event for 150,000 people and it was important in his company’s development. The event made a surplus of £186,000 (£33,221,701.65 in 2023), which was used to found the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum. They were all built in the area to the south of the exhibition, nicknamed Albertopolis, alongside the Imperial Institute. The remaining surplus was used to set up an educational trust to provide grants and scholarships for industrial research; it continues to do so today.
- The Koh-i-Noor, meaning the “Mountain of Light”, the world’s largest known diamond at the time, was one of the most popular attractions of the India exhibit.
- The Daria-i-Noor, one of the rarest pale pink diamonds in the world, was shown.
- The early 8th-century Tara Brooch, discovered only in 1850, the finest Irish penannular brooch, was exhibited by the Dublin jeweller George Waterhouse along with a display of his fashionable Celtic Revival jewellery..
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