History

LJMU and the World’s Fair Movement

By the turn of the nineteenth century Britain, like its European neighbours, had taken an interest in advancing technological knowledge through the exhibiting of mass-produced goods.

First on a national, and by 1851, an international scale, ambitious public displays of handicrafts and ceramics, optical and scientific instruments, lathes and looms, were exhibited in Victorian Britain with ever greater frequency and in ever greater number.

Today, these distinctive cultural events are known collectively as the ‘World’s Fair Movement.' Most, if not all, had certain things in common. First, they sought to drive sales in a competitive and increasingly global marketplace.

Second, as the character of national progress became uniformly aligned with economic output, they fostered a belief that ‘taste’ and ‘good design’ were skills that could be taught and learned.

Third, intended to benefit an increasingly urban population, they sought to advance certain reformist and civically minded values amongst the viewing public.

Five, most, if not all, were commercial ventures, aimed at generating income for municipal, charitable, or otherwise local initiatives.

Six, each prioritised cultural and intellectual improvement, particularly amongst the era’s newly emerging class of upwardly mobile, skilled operatives.

Finally, in an age of increasing mechanisation, these fairs sought to apply to manufactured goods an aesthetic sensibility, one in which the fine and creative arts were united with the tools of industry.

To combine beauty with utility might seem peculiar today. Yet, as the first President of LJMU, Thomas Stewart Traill, was to state in 1825:

The exhibitions

The ‘Exhibition of Objects Illustrative of the Fine Arts, Natural History, Philosophy, Machinery, Manufactures, Antiquities, etc’, officially opened to the public in June 1840. Three more would soon follow: in 1842; 1844; and 1861.

Hosted by Liverpool Mechanics’ Institution (a forerunner of LJMU), and situated in their Mount Street premises, the first exhibition alone attracted over 100,000 visitors in a six-week period.

These exhibitions were intended to showcase the best of Liverpool’s artistic and manufacturing capabilities during the mid-nineteenth century. For as little as sixpence, visitors could see displayed paintings, sculptures, and engravings by artists of historical and local significance, together with anthropological and ethnographical specimens, tools, machinery, and the apparatus of industry.

The success of these exhibitions depended almost exclusively upon the generosity of the local population. At the time, Liverpool Mechanics’ Institution lacked a significant institutional collection of its own.

As a result, most of the items on display belonged to members of LMI itself– its staff and students – as well as the residents of the town and greater north-west region. The exhibitions pre-date the foundation of National Museums Liverpool.

Consequently, the catalogues produced to accompany them are unique, providing unparalleled insight into the provenance of artworks owned by some of Liverpool’s most notable collectors, patrons, and donors of the nineteenth century.

Over time, LMI’s exhibitions became successively more elaborate. Infused with a carnivalesque atmosphere, menageries, live demonstrations, and a ‘Glaciarium’ (an artificially frozen ‘lake’), were eagerly visited by crowds as part of the exhibitions’ wide-ranging programme of events.

Today, this emphasis on spectacle and wonder might appear strange or distasteful. At the time, however, Victorian society encouraged a culture of ‘learning by looking.’

This was especially true of World’s Fairs, where visitors would potentially see for the first time artefacts from non-Western cultures alongside the more mundane objects of their daily lives.

This instructional element of the exhibitions was in-keeping with the ethos of the organisation. Founded under the umbrella of the mechanics’ institute movement, the aim of LMI was to provide skills and education to those from artisanal and working-class backgrounds.

The exhibition of pupils’ work, for example, was and continued to be, a permanent fixture of LMI’s exhibitions. So too was the display of wares created ‘on the spot’ by local craftspeople, including the likes of fringe weavers, printers, potters, and glass blowers.

By implication, however, this championing of Liverpool’s domestic industries helped to endorse a vision of Britain as being racially and culturally superior. So-called ‘curiosities’ – ceremonial clothing, weaponry, botanical and animal specimens and even, plaster casts of human skulls - were exhibited with relish for public inspection.

Accompanying them were a whole host of public events, lectures, and live demonstrations, designed to further illuminate the ‘manners and customs’ of societies which appeared to onlookers as remote or obscure.

By 1861, a marked shift had occurred in the character and the aims of LMI’s exhibition programme. As evidenced by the printed catalogues, the fairs now comprised two distinctive collections. One was exclusively devoted to the artistic talents of Liverpool’s citizens.

The other was uncompromisingly nationalistic in outlook. This change was likely connected to the success of London’s Great Exhibition of 1851; an event which inspired the British government to create its first ever public programme of art education.

Central to this initiative was the formation of a state-sponsored ‘travelling art collection.’ And, at the request of LMI’s board of directors, it was this travelling collection which would fill the rooms of Liverpool Mechanics' Institute's Mount Street building in the autumn of 1861. With upwards of 600 items, most, if not all of which, came from The British Museum and the National Museum of South Kensington (now the Victoria and Albert Museum), this was a significant event in the history of LMI.

According to local commentators, it was also a very necessary one. As reported in the Liverpool Mercury,  LMI’s exhibition, and others like it,  provided the means by which the ‘skill[s] and taste[s] of Englishmen … [could be] brought into competition with the inventive genius of the foreigner.'

This circulation of artworks and scientific instruments via a government directive also heralded a new phase of educational provision in British society.  With its aims of ‘improv[ing] public taste’ and ‘encourag[ing] the formation of local museums,’ for the first time, art and its curatorship  became a collaboration between local and centralised agencies.

The effects of this shift in priorities were evident in Liverpool at both a city-wide and an institutional level.  By 1883, Liverpool Mechanics’ Institution  had undergone a further organisational restructure. Differentiated by discipline and age group, there now existed a dedicated Liverpool School of Art which operated out of a newly erected building on the corner of Mount Street.

For the first time, students could undertake bespoke training in elementary, mechanical, architectural, figural and ornamental drawing. This training was distinct from that offered by the Liverpool Institute, which generally provided a broader programme of instruction aimed at children under the age of sixteen.

Likewise, after 1860, Liverpool’s first public museum moved from its temporary location on Ropewalks to a permanent site on William Brown Street. Based on the natural history collection of the 13th Earl of Derby and featuring ‘models of Liverpool, and samples of imports that had been shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851’, arguably in this museum the regional and the (inter)national were truly combined. Today, the museum still stands. Fittingly, it is known as the World Museum.

Conclusion

Research that investigates the historical relationship between art, industry, and exhibition culture in nineteenth-century Britain has tended to privilege metropolitan initiatives. Many, if not all, histories of the phenomenon begin with London’s Great Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations (1851).

Frequently lauded as a defining moment in Britain’s national story, this research project has sought to challenge the disproportionate attention the Great Exhibition has received, instead repositioning regional exhibitions as key contributors to the century’s broader culture of display.

As the material digitised within this collection demonstrates, Britian’s World’s Fair movement owes its origins to local initiatives, primarily to those developed by educators, speculators, and industrialists located within Britain’s northern heartland. Counted amongst their number were the board of directors at Liverpool Mechanics’ Institution.

At the same time, however, LMI’s celebrations of industrial and artistic strength often went hand in hand with visions of imperial grandeur and racial superiority. Stage managed, these regional exhibitions unproblematically translated global narratives of progress into locally meaningful experiences.

Today, such events are viewed as colonial endeavours; spaces in which the diffusion of knowledge about the ‘new world’ (both technologically and geographically) served as spectacle and wonder, whilst further promulgating societal divisions along racial, class, and gendered lines.

In presenting this collection of material to a public audience, it is hoped that LJMU can better understand its own role in this specific cultural moment, as well as opening up new avenues of research in the history of art, education, and British imperial activity.