ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses the types of objects displayed at the Great Exhibition, the ways in which these were represented, and the varying opinions expressed towards China and explore the Ottoman Empire, with the purpose of drawing out both the similarities and, more importantly, the differences in the ways the two nations were perceived. Britain's attitudes would have been far from indifferent towards either China or the Ottoman Empire at the time, since in the twenty years preceding 1851 she had been significantly involved with both, directly and indirectly. British foreign policy regarding China was entirely different, although events in the twenty years prior to the Great Exhibition had scarcely been more peaceful. During the 1820s, Britain had cooperated with Russia in order to induce the Ottomans to grant independence to Greece, and a combined Russian, British and French squadron had destroyed a Turkish Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Navarino in 1827.