Author: WORKMEN'S INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION 1870
Title: A Public Meeting will be held in Exeter Hall, Strand, to Promote the objects of the above Exhibition... Professor Huxley will occupy the Chair if the President, the Right Hon. W.E. Gladstone, M.P., should he be unable to attend.
Description: Jan. 10, 1869. Handbill, 255 x 125 mm. The Workmen's International Exhibition was held at the Agricultural Hall, Islington, in 1870 and focussed on the handicrafts of working men. According to the Illustrated London News (8 October 1870, p.386), these included 'mechanical inventions, cutlery, weapons, furniture, ornamental building, scientific apparatus....... textile fabrics, saddlery, boots and shoes, leatherwork, a large collection of pictures and drawings... in not a few cases, especially in the models of machinery, Englishmen of the working class show a high degree of inventive talent'. The Spectator, on the other hand, was rather more critical "Furthermore, for the better enjoyment of the Exhibition by visitors, we begin by assuring them, first, that two-fifths at least of the Exhibition are trash not worth looking at > second, that the catalogue is not worth consulting. The combined result of these two points is that, unless they are specialists, they will find quite enough to interest them, and avoid much that will disgust them, by simply sauntering up and down the central area on the ground floor, the labels and cards generally containing as much information, and very often more than, the catalogue itself." 22 October 1870.

Keywords: Ephemera


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