ABSTRACT
The Great Exhibition of 1851 which took place in Hyde Park, London, celebrated the achievements of the Industrial Revolution. It inspired a number of major exhibitions in the century which followed. Some were directly related to technical developments in industries such as fisheries and dairy produce but by the late nineteenth century exhibitions became less specific and more general. 1 The success of all exhibitions was that they attracted large numbers of sightseers whose attendance was facilitated by cheap travel on the railways. The first of these, in 1886, took place in Liverpool and attracted some 2 million visitors; at the same time, the Edinburgh International Exhibition of Industry, Science & Art was held from May to October 1886. It was regarded as a ‘world fair’ and was visited by 2.77 million people:
‘The gardens surrounding the pavilion were beautifully arranged and featured a fountain, rockery and bandstand. Eateries and drinking establishments both temperance and regular were dotted around …. an electric railway offered ease of access from one end of the site to the other. At night the building and grounds were lit by 3,200 electric lamps – the largest illumination scheme ever attempted in Scotland at that time’. 2
