FIRST REPORT

OF THE

COMMISSIONERS FOR TIIE EXHIBITION OF 1851 .

TO THIS

RIGHT IION. SPENCER HORATIO WALPOLE , &c. &c.,

One of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State.

Sill,

Her Majesty having been most graciously pleased to incorporate us by HerRoyal Charter, bearing date the 15th day of August 1850 (see p. x.), for the purposeof carrying out, conducting, and completing the exhibition of the Works of Industryof all Nations, then intended to be holdcn in London , and which has since actuallytaken place,—and the time having now arrived for rendering to Her Most GraciousMajesty an account of our proceedings under the authority thereby committed tous, and of the success which has attended the Exhibition,—we have the honour totransmit to you this Report, in order that it may be laid before Her Majesty in theproper manner.

Our original appointment by Her Majesty’s Royal Commission of the 3rd January1850 did not invest us with a Corporate character, or confer upon us the powersnecessary for carrying on and conducting the Exhibition. At the time when thatCommission was issued, a proposal had been made by the Society for the Promotionof Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, under the Presidency of His RoyalHighness Prince Albert, for establishing an Exhibition of the Works of Industryof all Nations; and the Society had, as a preliminary measure, made arrange-ments for obtaining the funds required for commencing the undertaking, andhad actually invested in the names of Trustees a sum of £20,000, to be expendedin Prizes and Medals, which should be awarded to the Exhibitors of the mostmeritorious works. The object, then, for which the Royal Commissioners wereappointed by the Royal Warrant of the 3rd January was that of inquiring into theexpediency and merits of the scheme so proposed by the Society of Arts, "and ofrendering the Society assistance, if it should appear desirable to do so, in carryingthat scheme into execution. The functions of the Commission would have beenthose of arranging the mode in which the productions of foreign countries and of thecolonics should be introduced into the kingdom, of deciding on the best and mostsuitable site for the Exhibition, its general conduct, and the mode of awarding anddistributing the Prizes. On all these points the Executive Committee, previously