Catalogue description Board of Trade: Royal Commission for the Promotion of the Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations to be holden in London in the year 1851 (The Great Exhibition): Collection of Printed Documents and Forms

The three volumes in this series are one of several collections made by the Office of the Royal Commissioners in June 1853. They contain correspondence and papers showing how the Great Exhibition was set up and organised, from original proposals by the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, through the setting up of the Royal Commission to run the exhibition, to the minutiae of organising and running the exhibition.

The first volume contains a list of the individual documents, citing their date and the number with which each has been stamped, and by which they are arranged (in straight numerical sequence) within the volumes. Also included are lists of prize winners, and copies of tickets, signs, posters and other ephemera relating to the day-to-day running of the exhibition.

Although these volumes are described in the introduction as 'that of the most complete collection that has been formed and which is deposited amongst the papers of the Royal Commission', they are not complete since a sufficient number of copies of each paper was not preserved to supply the whole of the collections; those which are not in this collection are marked with a cross in the main catalogue held at the National Art Library.

The National Art Library holds copies of all catalogues printed for the exhibition. A photocopy of the illustrated catalogue is on open access; all other copies are part of the Special Collections of the Library. The National Art Library also holds printed material collected by Charles Wentworth Dilke (a member of the exhibition Executive), and correspondence and papers of Henry Cole relating to the exhibition. Researchers are advised to contact the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, South Kensington, London, SW 7RL for further information. The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce holds the John Scott Russell Collection on the Great Exhibition. The collections of the Society are open to members and researchers by appointment only; researchers should contact the Archivist, Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, 8, John Adam Street, London, WC2N 6EZ for further information.

Board of Trade, Royal Commission for the Promotion of the Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations to be holden in London in the year 1851 (The Great Exhibition), 1847-