Ballooning, steam and Victorian fantasies

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The month of May marks the 150th anniversary of The Great Exhibition of 1851 that took place in Hyde Park, London from 1 May to 11 October. The Victorian-era Great Exhibitions were platforms that launched countless inventions. The newly developed ‘cast plate glass,’ for example, made possible the construction, to a design by Joseph Paxton, of the very building that housed the exhibition, dubbed ‘The Crystal Palace.’ Paxton, also a gardener of renown, based the Crystal Palace on a greenhouse he designed for the recently discovered giant Victoria amazonica waterlily. The Crystal Palace embodied both the Victorian imagination and the greatest offerings of industrial manufacturing. Another new technique promoted at the Exhibition – steel plate engraving – resulted in prints which commemorate the event.

(Above) Samuel Read, The Crystal Palace international exhibition of 1851, (c.1851), etching and engraving, gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton 1959, Baillieu Library Print Collection, University of Melbourne.

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Joseph Paxton, The Crystal Palace and Park, 1854, engraving,  Gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton, 1959. Baillieu Library Print Collection, University of Melbourne.

 

At this time the industrial revolution was buoyed both by balloon ascensions and the marvel of steam power. Queen Victoria ascended the throne in 1838 ushering in a distinctive era of art and culture. Manufacturing was not the only thing to be transformed; this was also a time of lofty ambitions and wafting imaginations.

The first manned hot air balloon ascension had taken place in the previous century at the Palace of Versailles in 1783. Jean-Pierre Blanchard’s flight to cross the English Channel soon followed in 1785. Blanchard’s balloon was propelled by the balloonist flapping a pair of oars back and forth, which can be seen depicted in the distant background of the stipple engraving by William Birch. In literature, Jules Verne’s popular novel Five weeks in a balloon (1863) expanded the ambitions of the adventurous to every cloud, mountain and ocean. The Victorians saw in the balloon a vehicle for turning an inflated idea into an innovation. It is interesting note that the first model of propelled balloon was designed by Australian aviator David Bland and was exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851.

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William Birch after Thomas Rowlandson, Dover Castle, 1789, stipple engraving,  Gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton, 1959, Baillieu Library Print Collection, University of Melbourne.

Another vehicle traversing the sky was the airship. These curious leviathans of the air enabled improved travel, and they began taking over the skies of London during the World Wars. Scotland’s Forth Bridge, itself a monument to the wonder of Victorian engineering, in Lumsden’s etching, is partnered by airships and also the steam train, both elevated into the stratosphere.

 

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 Ernest Stephen Lumsden, Forth Bridge, (1940-46), etching, Baillieu Library Print Collection, University of Melbourne.

The individual who dramatically advanced transport on land was engineer George Stephenson, who enabled the public to travel by steam locomotive for the first time in 1825. The invention of the railways evolved, surprisingly, alongside the sewing machine, which transformed the textile industry and factory work. One memento in the Print Collection capturing these historic developments is an unusual transport souvenir. This piece of textile immortalises Stephenson and his innovations through the medium of machine embroidery; the image was probably adapted from an engraved image.

Unknown artist, Robert Stephenson and rocket locomotive, (19th century), Gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton, 1959. Baillieu Library Print Collection, Uinveristy of Melbourne.

Unknown artist, Robert Stephenson and rocket locomotive, (19th century), Gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton, 1959. Baillieu Library Print Collection, Uinveristy of Melbourne.

The contraptions for ballooning, locomotion and manufacture let fly numerous Victorian fantasies which were captured in print media. These often aerial ambitions enabled the Victorians, at the same time, to soar through industrial advancements.

 

Kerrianne Stone (Curator, Prints)

 


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