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INTRODUCTION.

tributions of the most remote towns have been received and applied, even mpayment of the military and police assistance which the Government has per-mitted to be employed on the occasion. So completely spontaneous has been theorganization for the Exhibition, that not even the several municipal councilsthroughout the country were employed, but an independent organization wascreated for the express purpose wherever a locality was disposed to form its ownLocal Committee. Without the assistance of the Local Committees of the UnitedKingdom , no Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations could ever havebeen accomplished.

Local Com- About 65 Local Committees had been formed before the issue of the Royal

United Kingdom. Commission, with the assistance of the Members of the Society ol Arts, whohad been nominated by the President to visit different parts of the kingdom.To extend this organization over the whole kingdom, into Local Committees,was one of the first acts of the Royal Commission. A circular was issued to theMayors of all towns within the United Kingdom , having a municipal constitution{Min. i., p. 1), announcing the issue of the Royal Commission, and requesting, ifno Local Committee had been formed, that the mayor would communicate withthe principal inhabitants for the purpose of ascertaining whether, in their opinion,the circumstances of the town rendered it advisable to appoint a Local Committee.The functions of these Local Committees have chiefly consisted in the recom-mendation of Local Commissioners to represent the interests of their localities—-in encouraging the production of suitable objects for exhibition—in affordinginformation in the locality relative to the Exhibition—in the collection of sub-scriptions—and in facilitating the means of visiting the Exhibition.

The Commissioners intimated that it was their wish to limit, as far as possible,the necessity for the exercise of the powers of rejection and selection of objectsintended for exhibition, and for that purpose to call to their assistance the localknowledge and discretion of the several Local Committees. They recommendedthat the Local Committees should enter into personal communication with thosepersons resident within their district, who were likely to be exhibitors; and thatthey should ascertain the character and number of the objects which it would betheir wish to send to the Exhibition. For the purpose of communicating withthe Local Committees, the Commissioners appointed Dr. Lyon Playfair , andLieut.-Colonel Lloyd, Surveyor-General of the Mauritius , Special Commissioners.

Demand for space It was not required that exhibitors should of necessity be subscribers to the

tors? rl ^' s fund. All persons desirous of contributing articles to the Exhibition of 1851, wereinvited to give notice of such intention, and transmit a general description of thenature of each article, and the space which would be required for the exhibition ofit, to the Secretary of the nearest Local Committee, and the Local Committee wasrequested to digest the returns so made to them, and transmit them to the Com-mission before the 31st Oct., 1850. It was not necessary in the first instanceeither to exhibit to the Local Committee specimens of the articles to be sent, orto give a minute specification of them. But it was decided that it was necessaryfor intending exhibitors to obtain the certificate of the nearest Local Committee,of its approval of the articles sent for exhibition, before they could be received bythe Commissioners in the building. Upwards of 330 Local Committees wereformed in the three parts of the United Kingdom and the Channel Isles . A listof those which have transmitted subscriptions to the fund, or sent articles to theExhibition, will be found in the Appendix .