The Palace and Park

The Crystal Palace, built to house the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations in London in 1851, the first of many World's Fairs, was an innovative and iconic structure built of plate glass and cast iron. In 1854, the building was moved from its original location in Hyde Park, London, and reconstructed in the London suburb of Sydenham. This guidebook describes the new exhibitions within, including elaborate courts displaying works of art and industry, as well as natural history and anthropology exhibits.

The gardens surrounding the Crystal Palace were no less remarkable: they contained the first models ever built of prehistoric life forms, created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins. It was an astonishing and novel experience for the public, to stand beside an iguanodon in its "habitat." British paleontologist Richard Owen, something of a celebrity scientist, penned the text describing the dinosaurs and other extinct creatures on display in the section, "Geology and Inhabitants of the Ancient World."