Archive Room

The room displays a selection of prints from our current archive which still works hard to preserve our past, record our present and inspire our future.

The RSA was the chief instigator of the Great Exhibition of 1851, to promote inventions and good design. Still famous for its Crystal Palace, the Great Exhibition of the ‘Works of Industry of All Nations of 1851’, was held in Hyde Park, London and attracted six million visitors. It was intended as an engine of improvement: a direct way to encourage invention rather than just celebrate it, to raise the standards of consumers through exposure, and to lower trade barriers. For those who sent in exhibits – manufacturers, artists, merchants, scientists, engineers, and more – the exhibition was a direct inducement to improvement.

The international exhibitions that the Great Exhibition inaugurated laid the groundwork for major free trade deals, international treaties on postage and telegraph rates, and the democratisation of passports beyond just those considered “respectable”.