The Royal Consort whose vision led to the creation of the world’s most significant cultural quarter is to be celebrated on the 150th anniversary of his death with a special bell-ringing today.
Prince Albert – husband of Queen Victoria – was the man behind the Great Exhibition of 1851, the world’s first international trade fair, held in Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. It was Albert’s determination to use the profits of the exhibition to ‘increase the means of industrial education’ that led to the purchase of an estate in South Kensington on which the Victoria and Albert, Science and Natural History Museums as well as Imperial College, other Colleges and the Royal Albert Hall now stand.
Prince Albert
To mark Albert’s extraordinary legacy, the 1851 Royal Commission (which continues to own the freehold of much of the South Kensington estate and now supports science and engineering research) has sponsored a special peal of the bells at Imperial College London’s Queen’s Tower between 1pm and 2pm today – the 150th anniversary of the Prince’s death. It will follow a special wreath-laying at the Prince Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, led by the Royal Society of Arts.
‘Without Prince Albert’s extraordinary vision, the great institutions that now comprise the Exhibition Road Cultural Group might never have come into existence,’ states Nigel Williams, Secretary of the 1851 Royal Commission. ‘His legacy has created a cultural quarter in South Kensington that is unparalleled today in its diversity – from world-leading scientific institutions to major arts, design and learning institutions – while the Commission he established to organise the Great Exhibition continues to promote industrial education.
‘It is only fitting,’ Williams adds, ‘that on the 150th anniversary of Prince Albert’s death we should celebrate his legacy with a special peal from the belfry of Queen’s Tower. The tower was built to mark Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee and the bells (each named after members of the royal family) now toll on various royal anniversaries throughout the year.
‘We hope the bell peal will be a moment to reflect on the great gift Prince Albert bestowed not just on South Kensington but on the world.’
