Companion to the Official Catalogue. Synopsis of the Contents of the Great Exhibition of 1851 ([1851])

Robert Hunt wrote the Synopsis of the Contents of the Great Exhibition of 1851. It provided him with a financial opportunity to write on a popular topic that was related to science. The Synopsis was published by Spicer Brothers and W. Clowes & Sons. As Hunt considered the Exhibition an unrivalled opportunity to educate visitors, his commentary stressed the role of science in achieving significant developments in manufacturing techniques and processes. Hunt’s Synopsis provides an uneven account of the exhibits, with ‘Mining and Metallurgy’ – Hunt’s main area of scientific interest – occupying eleven pages in the original, whereas France was only accorded one page, the Sculpture Court one paragraph and China one line. The attempt to arrange a system by which with the smallest amount of fatigue the largest sum of information may be obtained in a visit to the Exhibition of the Industry of all Nations, is, from the miscellaneous character of the accumulation, surrounded with many difficulties.