The North London Working Classes Industrial Exhibition (1864)
WORKING MEN'S EXHIBITIONS.
…. And produced the Great Exhibition of 1851. It was a Great Industrial Parliament, to which the whole world was summoned, and perhaps it was none the less successful because silence was imposed as one condition. Industry in its representation appealed to the eye and the mind rather than to the ear, and a great freemasonry sprang up amongst cunning hands and lissom fingers of every people. Next the new idea was realised in Paris and in New York; and later, Manchester, the very City of Material Progress, summoned Art to an Exhibition of her treasures.
We pass over the non-performance of the Exhibition of 1862, to which much is to be forgiven, because so little was expected, in all these cases the industry of the world came to use represented by capitalists and employers, whilst the mechanician [mechanism] and the contriver was almost wholly forgotten. It was necessarily so, for in our imperfect state of society the commercial enterprise and abundant resources of the capitalist is required, but it need not always remain so, unless we choose to commit the error permanently pitching our intentions above one means of performance. Not long ago the inhabitants of the metropolis were summoned to view the ingenious contrivances and the neat handiwork of the citizens of Lambeth, and now we are asked to repair Islington, in order that we may exercise the same criticism upon the performances of the workmen of the North of London.
We regard this second invitation as symptomatic of a new era for industry, and we do not believe that our workmen can be better employed than in the development of new articles for use or luxury, or in the improvement of those which we are daily accustomed to see or handle. We are quite prepared to be surprised and delighted at these exhibitions; surprised because we are sure that people generally are not aware of the ability and ingenuity possessed by our citizens, and delighted because there is nothing more encouraging to the mind in search of improvement than to find by how much improvement we are surrounded.
The condition of our working classes is always pre-stated to us in a partial aspect. We forgot, if indeed we ever knew, that the subject is capable of analysis, and that there are lines and divisions between men and trades which have never been suspected. Workmen are not all members of Trades’ Unions, and those who are are neither the tyrants nor the fools they are represented. Exceptions there are, of course, but these exceptions are so paraded before the public eye as to cause us generally to confound the exception and the rule.
We have ignorant workmen and foolish ones, but they are happily fast sinking into a minority. We have, besides, many thousands of men capable of looking ahead, and of thinking keenly on behalf of their class; and if sometimes, in the advocacy of the right of their order, they betray a little contempt for the doctrines of political economy, it must be borne in mind that they try to promote economy of another sort in the elevation of their order above every chance of poverty.
The ranks of workmen, to present the same anomalies as the ranks of the middle classes. We find men filling the position of clergymen who would have filled positions on the Stock Exchange with credit to themselves. We have lawyers totally ignorant of all law, but excellent judges of horseflesh and pictures. We have medical men whose clients too often die as the practitioner makes up his betting book. So it is in the ranks of workmen.
We have every man credit for being master of his trade, and so he is so far as physical labour is concerned, but so he is not so far as his mental powers go. We are thus ignorant of the intellectual and mechanical wealth we possess. In the Islington exhibition we find remarkable proof of this fact, for there we have men contributing articles of industry wholly alien to their own crafts. It would seem to us sufficient that a man should labour at his own proper trade for ten hours and a half a-day. That is not the opinion of many of the vast exhibitors at Islington.
There we find that men have been trying to strike out new paths for themselves, and also new supplies for the public. Workmen have imaginations and fancies like other men, and here they have sought to show us how they indulge the bent of their own inclinations. We have a button hole machine which will cut sixty holes at one operation, a very good and useful addition to our present modes of manufacture. It is the invention of a chemist’s porter. A workman seems to have had a little tour into Kent, probably his native country, and he presents us with a series of sketched which would not disgrace an artist, and certainly do high credit to a sick butcher. There are numerous models of Shakespeare’s house, and one of the best of them is the work of a druggist’s assistant.
There is a fine crotchet table-cover, which the sign-seer would immediately pronounce to be the work of a clever woman, but a reference shows it is the work of a bedridden man. In Islington, and not less deservedly so now, when it is under the management of Miss Marriott, than when Mr. Phelps directed its fortunes. A grocer’s assistant places a model of the house of the legitimate drama upon the counter of the exhibition. A letter-carrier, laying aside his Inverness cape, contributes some photographs as good as any exhibited in Regent-street. Perhaps, however, all the exhibitors have been outdone by the gasfitter, who has mounted a clock which, upon a given touch, illuminates its face, and tells the time, rings an alarm to wake the sleeper, lights a match, and then a fire which boils the coffee as the owner is dressing.
These are only samples of what the exhibition contains, but very much more might be found to probe our assertion that there is much intellectual wealth and mechanical ingenuity now running to waste in the ranks of the working classes. We have specimens of wood-carving, busts, pictures, and musical instruments, to say nothing of ingenious works in cabinet furniture. These are all the products of the Industry of the North side of London, and it is impossible for us to say what would be developed if, with say two years’ notice, a Great Exhibition were announced similar to that of 1851, but confined on the next occasion to the ranks of the working-class. Lord Russell opened the Islington Exhibition, and he was evidently so far content with what he had seen that he advised the working men present to be patient and trust to the laws of their country.
Well, if we have any knowledge of the working classes, it is that their patience, politically speaking, since 1849, has been very remarkable. Perhaps Lord Russell was a little stung by the Exhibition as he remembered that, probably, nine out of every ten of the exhibitors had no part in the manufacture of a Parliament. He finds that workmen are thankful, but that they are not resting, and that political rest is a mere dream of aristocratic ambition, and to the law of progress even old Whigs must bend or go. We are not sure that Lord Russell’s ten-pounders could produce an Exhibition equal to that of Islington, and we are very sure that Islington could pass a competitive political examination very well in comparison with the ten-pounders who have given the Whigs twenty years of office. We look forward to the progress elicited and stimulated by exhibitions of this class, eventually raising so large a proportion of the franchise, as to render the opening gates of the constitution a comparatively easy task.
The ingenuity of the workmen will not always be at the service of capitalists, who absorb all the profits, and centre in themselves all the political power due to industry. Men will gradually begin to discover that there are short cuts to wealth now unknown, and that the media of capitalists, wholesale and retail, is not always necessary to the comfort of the consumer. We have no doubt but that the principle of Co-operation is equally applicable to the supply of articles luxury as of necessity, and it the artisan is much longer denied his political rights, he may be excused if he tries to divert the course of profit, which now only accumulated impediments to his enfranchisement. Indeed, apart from all political thought, it is a grave question for the consideration of the class of exhibitors why they are content to be the servants of others when they profess taste and ingenuity enough to elicit the admiration of their neighbours. Most men have succeeded by enterprise outside the trade or profession to which they were educated or apprenticed.
When George Stephenson amused his leisure by cleaning and mending the clocks of his neighbours, neither he nor they suspected that he would change the face of England, but so he did. So there is not an exhibitor in the Islington Agricultural Hall who may not have within him the means of raising himself by the exercise of an ingenuity far removed from his ordinary craft. We hope, therefore, that the promoters of this Exhibition will feel so far encouraged as to persevere, and that other districts will also seize the idea, and develop it in every county in England. Labour has a right call upon the community for a due recognition, and if it calls as it does in Islington, the public will not be slow to recognise the wants of a class who can so materially increase our commerce and our comfort.
SENATORIENSIS.
Related Link: - Comprehensive list of World's Fairs from the 1750's.