Anachronistic Hearts

Ne’r to be outdone by the French’s highly successful French Industrial Exposition of 1844, Britain’s desire to make "clear to the world its role as industrial leader" organized The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations. Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's consort, an enthusiastic promoter of the self-financing exhibition, Henry Cole, Francis Henry, George Wallis, Charles Dilke and other members of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce would shape this exhibition as a celebration of modern industrial technology and design.

The British government was persuaded to form the Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 to establish the viability of hosting such an exhibition. Although the Great Exhibition was a platform on which countries from around the world could display their achievements, Britain sought to prove its own superiority. The British exhibits at the Great Exhibition "held the lead in almost every field where strength, durability, utility and quality were concerned, whether in iron and steel, machinery or textiles." Europe had just struggled through "two difficult decades of political and social upheaval," and now Britain hoped to show that technology, particularly its own, was the key to a better future.

It was attended by famous people of the time, including Charles Darwin, Samuel Colt, members of the Orléanist Royal Family and the writers Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, Lewis Carroll, George Eliot and Alfred Tennyson. Music for the opening was under the direction of Sir George Thomas Smart and the continuous music from the exhibited organs for the Queen's procession was "under the superintendence of William Sterndale Bennett".

The dream of iron, wood, and glass, That special building, nicknamed The Crystal Palace, to house the show, was designed by Joseph Paxton with support from structural engineer Charles Fox, the committee overseeing its construction including Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and went from its organization to the grand opening in just nine months.

The building was architecturally adventurous, drawing on Paxton's experience designing greenhouses for the sixth Duke of Devonshire. It took the form of a massive glass house, 564 meters (about 1851 feet) long by 138 meters (about 454 feet) wide and was constructed from cast iron-frame components and glass made almost exclusively in Birmingham and Smethwick. From the interior, the building's large size was emphasized with trees and statues; this served, not only to add beauty to the spectacle, but also to demonstrate man's triumph over nature. The Crystal Palace was an enormous success, considered an architectural marvel, but also an engineering triumph that showed the importance of the Exhibition itself. The building was later moved and re-erected in 1854 in enlarged form at Sydenham Hill in south London, an area that was renamed Crystal Palace.

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 attendance of 109,915 on 7 October. The event made a surplus of £186,000 (£18,370,000 in 2015), 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 Exhibition caused controversy as its opening approached. Some conservatives feared that the mass of visitors might become a revolutionary mob, whilst radicals such as Karl Marx saw the exhibition as an emblem of a capitalist fetishism of commodities. King Ernest Augustus I of Hanover, shortly before his death, wrote to Lord Strangford about it:

Inside the immaculate Crystal Palace, one could not exhale except in stunned admiration at the glory that was the Exhibition. Thousands, nay... tens of thousands of exhibits, artifacts, machinery, tools, cultures, and other items of significance. The beauty, the grandeur, and yet, there were those who danced to the music in The Centre Transcept.

But all-in-all... the most noted thing was that not one soul was untouched by the coal soot or the boiler mists coming from the Hall of Steam.

But inside the Crystal Palace... not all was what it seemed...

Steam ! It was one of the highlights of the century... and steam made the production process more efficient; but moreso it offered alternative methods of transportation... marine vessels, powered behemoths called trains, and yes, even conquered the clouds and roads with Airships, flying platforms, gliders, and machines from the inventors of Sky Common were the letter of the day. There upon a small stage, one Professor Philomon Eliakim Cleverly sought to set himself apart. He wished to expand his reach by sharing a key for using steam to drive an electric arc in a Geissler tube.

Pondering points of numerical confusion had led to the attempts of a Mr. Charles Babbage to automate calculation. He was so vexed by the failure in his early enterprises that it took a companion of his, a Lady Ada Lovelace, and Professor Philomon Eliakim Cleverly to remind Mr. Babbage that his life's work was right in front of them! A full-sized difference engine was pounding, thrumming, and whistling at the business of calculating formulas, and all it would take is for Professor Cleverly to signal Lady Lovelace to flip the switch and steam would conquer the night.

Later that evening, Lovelace promised Babbage that when everyone listened to the joint lecture the three of them would deliver in the Transcept on the miracle of steam beyond these numbers, it would change their lives forever.

Oh, and lives would change. These little details would matter as time went on:

A shot rings out along with a scream. Lying on the floor beside water-propelled wheel is Professor Cleverly. In the ensuing commotion, the Difference Engine goes silent; and Babbage is criticized on his work. Lady Lovelace reports to the police the absence of a leather satchel that had all day been settled on a desk containing the necessaries for the evening lecture. It will never happen -- the world will not know of a machine that can compose music, or respond to symbols and write a poem. It will never know the great humanitarian plans Professor Cleverly had, for the paper in his hand had been stolen and the information in his brain is taken away with him to the grave. His heir would also die, taking a great family to the dust.



The marvel of an idea is in the potential for infinite prospects. By steam, gear, and iron, upon the backs of the poor, unskilled and children, London has stretched itself in every visible direction. Paradise, or nightmare in the refection of the rising glass spires?? It depends on the views of the person you ask.

Cobble stoned streets turned toward a view of the Thames where the murky depths were cut with paddle-wheelers seeking superiority beside the sailing ships, their masts pointing on high. Parents pull curious children away from touching the hot boilers on the new-fangled designs of the "innovative", better known as the insane. Horses learned to be unafraid of the constant hum of generators that caused the rising and lowering of platforms from designated places in higher reaches to the world below. Those too strapped for steam appurtenances, rely on the necessity of advanced clockwork, inserting keys in to wind up holes to stay in line with the times. The places that are fashionable to go, collide with the overgenerous poverty. The rich, and fortunate, dream of airborne palaces... while the poor are confined to the dredge of rookery, living in the Eastside... or in the middle-air ghettos, always in the shadow of pretty glass spires, pollution, and disdain. Somewhere in the middle, the working man with enough means to secure himself in a suitable district, or suburb, wonders where his high or low-born interests really settle. Spiritualism gives potent omens of future warning, and well it should: London is a city on the brink.

In parliament, the Neo - Luddite Party wish to preserve the natural order of men in the world, calling for a return to cottage industry to combat steam powered corruption. The Analytical Heritage Party argues daily that furthering the work of innovative predecessors will solve a host of problems. No one knows how to address a rising gap in the classes, growing poverty, inevitable increases in pollution, and the fear of absolute power in the hands of those that understand progress best.

It has been almost twenty years since the Great Exhibition of 1851 brought the world inside the Crystal Palace to be amazed. With the steam conquered, it remains to be seen who will secure the full realization of Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace: computation. Piccadilly Circus is alive with electro-lighting, and everyone gossips over who carries on the enterprise of old Professor Cleverly. What a world! The events of that long ago night haunt the present day. Rumors of Babbage's old government project called merely "The Engine" being restored is the talk of the town. But by whom? To what end?

Difference Divers converge on the locations where working sections are exhibited. Analytics attempt to push the Engine Restoration Bill through parliament to restore construction on an engine once sanctioned by the state, which the Neo-Luddites constantly block since fear of the future has risen their numbers. There are those that claim to have discovered the threshold of where Babbage and Lovelace were headed... yet no one can still find the stolen pieces of The Great Engine, nor Lovelace's satchel said to hold her cards, journal, and notations.

Still, the debutantes must have their season. The socialites must host soirées. Supper clubs and tea parlors must have the gossip of the day! Pimps must have their whores on the streets, and all to the merry tune of a waltz.

So come! Make a scandal! Have a dance with doom! Times were simpler before, oh well. There's plenty of killing and mad science to go around before tea time...





Credit:
Much of the information was written by Livie Marie from the defunct Gears and Glass circa 2012 and edited by me for Anachronistic Hearts.