The 1851 Great Exhibition: the First Pipe Show

The 1851 Great Exhibition in London opened on 1 May 1851 in a vast iron-and-glass structure built for the sole purpose in Hyde Park, and is regarded as the first international world's fair. It holds a distinct place in pipe history: pipemakers were, for the first time, seen side by side on this scale, arranged country by country in an international showcase. For that reason the exhibition is remembered in pipe writing as "the first pipe show."

The Crystal Palace and the Scale of the Exhibition

The cast-iron and glass structure designed by Joseph Paxton, later known as the Crystal Palace, was built to gather the products of the industrial age under a single roof; at roughly 563 metres long, it was the largest enclosed space of its time. Organized under the patronage of Prince Albert and Henry Cole, the exhibition displayed over one hundred thousand objects; sources give the number of exhibitors as somewhere between fourteen and seventeen thousand. Britain was represented alongside its colonies and numerous foreign nations; the Ottoman Empire was also among the participants. Exhibits were divided into four main sections — raw materials, machinery, manufactures, and fine arts — further split into thirty classes. The Koh-i-Noor diamond in the India section was among the most crowded stops. By the time it closed on 15 October 1851, more than six million visitors had passed through. The building was moved to Sydenham in 1854 and stood until it burned down on 30 November 1936.