ABSTRACT
Among the 6 million visitors to the Great Exhibition in 1851 were 120 employees from W. D. & H. O. Wills. No doubt they marvelled at the ‘blazing arch of lucid glass’ – as one contemporary described Exhibition Hall 1 – and the diversity of human ingenuity displayed beneath it. For many industries the Exhibition represented revolutionary changes in methods of production which had transformed, or were in the process of transforming, their whole structure and organization. Against this the tobacco industry's technical achievements were modest. On the marketing side of the industry, however, fundamental innovations were being made. And the more observant of the visiting employees probably noticed people from other parts of the country who were using tobacco or snuff made in the Wills factories at Redcliff Street and Maryleport Street.
