Today we meet Jersey’s Colonel John Le Couteur, who is attending the opening of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park, London, in 1851. The Channel Islands occupy a prominent place at the event.
The world is changing. Prince Albert, the scion of the Victorian age, puts it best – “the unity of mankind is within reach”. Technology drives his optimism. “The distances which separate the different nations and parts of the globe”, he declares, “are rapidly vanishing and we can traverse them with incredible ease; thought is communicated with the rapidity, and even the power, of lightning”. The telegraph, the penny post and the maritime arteries of empire are binding the world together, and Jersey is deeply enmeshed in the web. Indeed, the first pillar boxes in the British Isles will open in St Helier in 1852.
To celebrate the new era of global seaborne trade, the Prince Consort has called upon the world to showcase its greatest treasures in London. They call it the “Great Exhibition”.
Music: Chariots by Gavin Luke courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Image: The Crystal Fountain, F. & C. Osler of London and Birmingham. Created for display at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Public Domain - Wikimedia Commons.