>There are illustrations of exhibits on line at
>e.g
>http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/bytype/prints/greatexhib/bytype/display0011
>4.html
>
>This is metalwork including coal scuttles from Wolverhampton
I have an idea - but I have never properly investigated it - that
Wolverhampton was not as well represented at the Great Exhibition as it
might have been. One of the Deputy(?) Commissioners was George Wallis, a
Wolverhampton man. I think that Wallis was one of those who ran around the
country trying to get people to exhibit.
I am not quite sure what you mean by "behind the doors" but I think that
something along those lines would be a paper on the preparatory work for
the exhibition which may not have been done in any detail. I doubt if
Wallis was the only one running about; and it may be possible to work out
which of them was successful in getting exhibitors; and why; and what sorts
of people were persuaded to exhibit; and why. This may relate to one of
the important issues of the time - how could you persuade people whose main
aim was production and sales that they should go in for beautiful design?
There is some stuff about George Wallis at:
http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/genealogy/wallis/wallis00.htm
which I wrote and is sort of work in progress;
and there is a very little about Wolverhampton at the Great Exhibition at:
http://www.localhistory.scit.wlv.ac.uk/articles/grtexhib/gtexhib.htm
which includes the contemporary comment that these coal scuttles were so
artistic that they could properly be displayed in the parlour.
Frank Sharman
Wolverhampton
01902 763246
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