GREAT-BRITAIN - VICTORIA Crystal Palace Medal - Victoria


Type: Crystal Palace Medal - Victoria
Date: 1851
Mint name / Town: UK, London
Metal: Bronze
Diameter: 27.5 mm
Weight: 8.8 g.


OBVERSE

Obverse legend: VICTORIA - REGINA.
Obverse description: Head in profile to the left of Queen Victoria.

REVERSE

Reverse legend : THE CRYSTAL PALACE / LONDON 1851 // PROPOSED BY / H. R. H. PRINCE ALBERT / - / COST L. 150000..
Reverse description: View of the crystal palace and legend in 3 lines at the exergue.

COMMENTARY

The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations in 1851 was the first of the World's Fairs. It took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851 in London. It marked the height of British power in the Victorian era.

The Crystal Palace was a large cast-iron and glass exhibition hall originally built in Hyde Park to house the Great Exhibition of 1851, the first of the World's Fairs. It was later dismantled and rebuilt, in an enlarged form, in south London, in the area that still bears its name. It burned down in 1936. The Crystal Palace was a tourist hotspot, attracting people from all walks of life. His technique of construction with standardized elements prefigured that of prefabrication in architecture.
The name "Crystal Palace" was given to it by the satirical magazine Punch. The Crystal Palace Football Club was formed by palace workers.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

GREAT-BRITAIN - VICTORIA

(20/06/1837-22/01/1901)

Victoria (1819-1901) was the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, and granddaughter of George III. She succeeded her uncle Guillaume IV in 1837 and married her cousin Albert, Prince of Saxe-Coburg in 1840, against her mother's advice. She had nine children by him but became a widow in 1861. While respecting the rules of the parliamentary system, she tried to impose her views in the field of foreign affairs. Her favourite, Disraeli, had given her the title of Empress of India in 1876. Respected and loved, active and authoritarian, Victoria appeared in her time as the symbol of imperialist England. His reign marks the height of British power.



grmn/bx1851