art treasures

Rented ground at was the site Art for for the new exhibition everyone In 1857, your ancestors may have been among those that flocked to ’s heartland to visit an ambitious art exhibition that aimed to bring culture to the masses, says Katy Layton-Jones

hroughout the 18th century, not impact upon the day-to-day experiences approach for which the ‘Merchant Princes’ of commerce and culture existed in of the working-class majority. By the 1830s, Manchester had become justly famous. In harmony in British towns. The exclusive cultural societies were increasingly 1856, a general council was convened in the Industrial Revolution created criticised as incongruous in a town with a Mayor’s parlour for the purpose of raising largeT numbers of manufacturers, bankers, substantial working-class population. funds. The list of subscribers reveals the merchants and investors eager to spend their As one concerned onlooker noted, “there significance of local interest and self- newly acquired wealth on cultural pursuits is something inconsistent in the rules of an promotion in the scheme. The Earl of and opportunities for social climbing. institution which, professing to be established Ellesmere, Lord Lieutenant of the County, Consequently, trade and the new money it for the enlightenment of our fellow-creatures, took office as the President and the Mayor, created were perceived to be the foundations is yet forbidden ground to those who most James Watts, was initially made Chairman. upon which much urban culture depended. require a participation in its refining The executive committee comprised, This was nowhere more the case than in the influence”. As Horace Heartwell complained among others: Joseph Heron, the Town Clerk great ‘Cottonopolis’ of Manchester. As one of the Royal Manchester Institution in 1842, for the Corporation; Edmund Potter, proprietor visitor to the town observed in 1791, “the spirit it is “a beautiful temple, but the altar is cold, of the local Dinting Printing Works and of enterprise is extended, in Manchester, from and the worshippers scattered”. The remedy President of the ; and manufactures and commerce to mechanical he proposed reads like a forecast of the event , son of a great industrialist. invention, and from thence to philosophy in which was to follow 15 years later, as general”. Reading rooms, surely nothing could have been choral societies, small- attempted “on a more extensive scale A single, ambitious scale exhibitions and for the encouragement of art” than the scientific institutions Art Treasures Exhibition of 1857. event on a national entertained the urban elite while A national event scale, it signalled a S tudies

simultaneously A single, ambitious event on a national L oc a l

creating a scale, it signalled a bold escalation in bold escalation in a nd close-knit provincial cultural aspirations, and community. Yet, some contemporaries noted the cultural aspirations as exemplary as significance of hosting an artistic these activities showcase in a location that was famously In total, the list of members comprised at were in their own industrialised. As one foreign visitor wrote, least three bankers, 18 manufacturers, five way, it gradually “I can’t get used to the idea that I am going to merchants, three engineers, eight Members dawned upon a see the same Leonardo da Vincis guarded by a of Parliament and 12 men involved with Mill girls from number of civic ‘policeman’, and that I am going to be taken in local government. Yet, notwithstanding the The River Irwell with the a Manchester leaders that the front of the Jean Bellinnis, the Giorgionis and dominance of Manchester’s elite, one of the Cathedral ahead, 1859 cotton factory artistic and literary the Veroneses by bus and not by gondola”. most celebrated pretexts for the exhibition was pleasures enjoyed by The exhibition was organised with the its intended accessibility to the masses. As the

the bourgeoisie did same attention to detail and matter-of-fact newspaper of another industrial town, the Archives libr a ries/ Ma nchester Al a my/©m nchester

64 Who Do You Think You Are? October 2010 Who Do You Think You Are? October 2010 65 Art for everyone art treasures

The impressive ‘cathedral-like’ building was 700 feet long and 200 feet wide

The first-class ‘refreshment room’, decorated with a Moorish theme

Each ‘nave’ of the building was separated into different galleries PERSONAL FILE Sheffield and Rotherham Independent proposals were invited for a suitable building enthused: “The true nobility of the design design. A number of well-known architects Thomas Fairbairn of these Manchester men is to be seen in submitted plans, including Owen Jones. separated into a number of galleries housing area was designed around a Chairman of the Arts this, that they have laboured for no selfish Having originally settled upon Jones’s design, exhibits arranged into ten classes: paintings Moorish theme and the pleasure… but to please and improve the the committee proceeded to change its mind by ancient masters, paintings by modern second-class was decorated Treasures committee masses of their countrymen”. and eventually chose a submission by the masters, British portraits, historical miniatures, with a bright trompe l’oeil Avid collector and patron of the arts, Praised by some, in other quarters Edinburgh foundry, Messrs CD Young and ornamental art, sculpture, watercolours, paper, designed to give the Thomas became a lynchpin for the exhibit Manchester’s cultural aspirations were Co. This indecision led to the project being original drawings and sketches by the Old impression of a tent. The ridiculed. Even open supporters of the awarded a great deal of bad publicity. Masters, engravings and photography. One art may have been for the Thomas Fairbairn was the archetypal exhibition seemed to appreciate the difficulties French visitor even exclaimed that: “the great enjoyment of all but the cream ‘Manchester Man’. Raised in Ardwick that would be raised by such a venue. As Building a palace Exhibition of Manchester is vaster than the teas remained the preserve of the and the son of a wealthy industrialist, Prince Albert himself warned the Exhibition Still, despite these initial setbacks, the speed at Louvre Museum”. wealthy. Still, such concessions to his childhood was characterised by Commission in 1856, the grand scale and which the structure was erected represented a The exterior of the building was described the class system did not prevent visitors Unitarian beliefs and good works. The national importance of the event would have huge achievement for the organisers. The final by The Illustrated Times as resembling a from appreciating the radical nature of an values he acquired were to inform his Despite efforts to actions for the rest of his life. However, rather than founding to be emphasised from the outset if they were structure measured a vast 700 feet in length, “carriage repository or a railway shed” and art exhibition open to all. diversify, it was to secure the interest and patronage of those approximately 200 feet in width, and 140 feet a correspondent for the Sheffield and As Friedrich Engels explained in a personal mainly the upper hospitals or orphanages, it was as a patron of the arts that he in height, and lists of Rotherham Independent commented that letter to his friend and colleague Karl Marx: classes that visited was to make his mark. Fairbairn recognised the redemptive and these impressive statistics it reminded him of a railway tunnel. This “everyone here is an art lover just now and the revitalising potential of art. Indecision led to the littered accounts in both analogy was perhaps quite fitting. In order to talk is all of the pictures at the exhibition”. Having nurtured an interest in the arts throughout his teenage the local and national convey the anticipated crowds of visitors to the Nevertheless, the organisers never fully realised years, in 1841 he enjoyed a ten-month tour of Italy that fuelled both project being awarded a press. The great hall site, a special branch line of the Altrincham their ambition of a tour de force in popular his knowledge and his passion for the subject. For the remainder of constituted the largest railway was constructed. It ran right up to the cultural education. his life, he combined the roles of private collector and public patron great deal of bad publicity single area within the front façade, where it terminated next to the of the arts. One of the initial subscribers to the Art Treasures scheme, Palace, flanked on either refreshment room so that passengers could A Royal attendance in 1857, Fairbairn became chairman of its committee. An enthusiast who might lend items for display. Those side by two smaller arched halls, each of which walk directly from the platform, along a Visits by the Queen and numerous European for ’s , he was responsible for the inclusion approached to loan works were perhaps finally also stretched the full length of the building. covered corridor and into an upper gallery Royals had apparently little impact upon of Pre-Raphaelite paintings and, in another influential move, reassured by the fact that so many of those As one impressed observer noted, “inside it of the exhibition. attendance figures among the working classes. appointed the painter Augustus Leopold Egg as the curator of involved were not ignorant of the logistical resembles a church in the form of a Latin Many argued that the fault lay with the ticket ‘Modern Painters’. This bold step ensured that visitors encountered and financial challenges inherent in an cross, vaulted in glass and divided in three A class system g a llery p ortr a it prices and admissions policies. As one controversial as well as traditional works.

enterprise of this magnitude, as a considerable big naves”. The Manchester Courier extended Despite the aim of the committee to deliver tion a l correspondent to the Manchester Courier and After the closure of the exhibition, Fairbairn campaigned for number of them had served as local the ecclesiastical comparison by exclaiming culture to the masses, the Palace itself was Lancashire General Advertiser wrote in January a permanent free art gallery in Manchester as a means to knit commissioners for the . that “the chief effect on entering the building designed to enable a degree of social 1857: “if the object of the committee be to “the different ranks and interests of society together”. Although The exhibition building or ‘Palace’ was will be in the great hall, or nave, which, from segregation. In addition to the main exhibition bring together people of this class… which his efforts did not yield immediate success, he was undoubtedly to be an immense structure situated in Old its great length will eclipse most of our galleries, there were two richly decorated adopts the depth of the pocket as the true instrumental in creating the rich cultural climate in Manchester Trafford. In 1856 the land was temporarily magnificent cathedrals”. refreshment rooms, accessible to first- and standard of merit and respectability, it must that endures to this day. nchester libr a ries ©m a nchester rented from Manchester Cricket Club and Inside this cathedral of art, each nave was second-class ticket holders only. The first-class libr a ries/ Na ©m a nchester be confessed they are likely to succeed”.

66 Who Do You Think You Are? October 2010 Who Do You Think You Are? October 2010 Art for everyone

A number of attempts were made to encourage visitors from the lower strata of society but, in general, these were unsuccessful. A celebratory dinner for the Initiatives were introduced, such as the patrons of the great exhibition charitable Art Treasures Ticket Fund and the funding of free tickets for Sunday schools, as well as the lowering of the entrance fee to sixpence on certain Saturday afternoons, but statistics for visitors from the lower-classes remained disappointing. Visitors who bought the cheap sixpence tickets numbered only 65, 674 as opposed to the 987, 864 who had the more expensive shilling or season tickets. In addition to the admission charge, some critics also blamed the cost of transport and a shortage of leisure time among labourers. To combat the specific problem of travel, 349 special excursion trains provided comparatively affordable transport. These special trains ran throughout the Exhibition’s lifetime from neighbouring towns such as Preston and Liverpool, as well as more distant locations including Wolverhampton and Stafford. Always intended as a temporary venture, prominent citizens to those who would treat Yet, despite the apparent success of the success of the Art Treasures Exhibition their cultural aspirations with condescension. factory-sponsored excursions, in their closing could never justly be assessed on the basis of its The Exhibition Commission had accounts, some newspapers still lamented the legacy. Even so, onlookers hurried to evaluate succeeded in hosting a national event “for a apparent failure of the exhibition to educate the impact of the event upon British society national purpose” and had provided visitors the working man. In December 1857, the and culture. Reviewing the exhibition after its with a unique attraction. In this way, they closure, the Art Journal was pessimistic claimed culture, as well as commerce, as a about the long-lasting benefits, central feature of the new urban giants. As Statistics for visitors concluding that “the great lesson which The Times exclaimed in one of its concluding Manchester has taught, is the total editorials on the event, the Art Treasures from the lower- unfitness of Manchester for such an Exhibition had excited the envy of Londoners exhibition, and of such an exhibition for and the amazement of foreigners and: “quite classes remained Manchester”. Still, the exhibition – its rivalled the attractions of the capital”; a coverage and representation – had sentiment echoed by the editor of the disappointing provided an opportunity to publicise Athenaeum who concluded his own coverage newly emerging social and cultural values with the challenge: “Manchester has done Art Journal professed that the very extent that would define urban development well… let London do better”. of the exhibition constrained its faculty for throughout the following century. The Art teaching, arguing that “there was so much to Treasures Exhibition symbolised a conscious Katy Layton-Jones lectures at Leicester be seen, that there was no time for studying”. rebuke on the part of a number of Manchester’s University, City University and Goldsmiths

key sources many libraries and you can also been reorganised, so do call Photographs and access the digitised archive of ahead to check the new location engravings Newspapers the London Illustrated News, a of any material you want to see. If you would like to begin with One of the best places to find out newspaper that gave particularly Documents held there include some internet-based research, more is in newspapers from 1857. good coverage of the event, with committee minutes, letters from then a large number of The British Library has digitised pictures, at many libraries. exhibitors and even weather photographs and engravings of many 19th-century newspapers reports. You can search the the exhibition can be viewed that can be viewed for a fee at Documentation, archives at www.manchester. online at www.images. newspapers.bl.uk or free at reports and maps gov.uk/info/448/archives_ manchester.gov.uk. Further most libraries (ask your local If you’re keen to investigate and_local_studies. The visual evidence can be found at library about free access from the organisational side of the committee’s closing report is also . Although your PC). A full archive of exhibition, there is an array of held at the British Library and much of their collection is in The Times can be found online material held by Manchester exhibition catalogues can be read storage, it can be viewed online at at www.timesonline.co.uk/ Archives and Local Studies units. at the National Art Library. Search www.manchestergalleries.

archive with free access from These holdings have recently these at www.vam.ac.uk/nal. org/the-collections. libr a ries m a nchester

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