By the time of the Great Exhibition, the use of railways was on the rise and there was a huge demand for this type of travel around the country. This only increased at the end of May when the entry fee for the Exhibition went down to a shilling. With the Great Exhibition becoming much more accessible to those in the lower classes, the need to get to London grew, along with the demand for cheaper travel.
This is where the country started to see the use of railway excursions to get people from all over Britain to London so that they could visit the Crystal Palace. Excursions on the railways were not set up as a result of the Great Exhibition, but they played a huge part in getting people there and this is something that can often be overlooked when taking the event and its popularity into consideration.
One company that quickly realised the significance of the railways was Thomas Cook. In 1841, Cook organised a one-day trip from Leicester to Loughborough for 500 people and, in 1845, Thomas Cook & Son was formed. By the time of the Great Exhibition, Cook’s company was a popular travel choice and after the price of the Exhibition went down, they started to introduce excursion trips to London for this world fair. These excursions often started in York and allowed people from all over the country to board these trains so that they could attend the Exhibition. As JRC Yglesias states, these trips organised by the company ‘often included board and lodging in London and his firm sold 165,000 excursion tickets for the Exhibition.’
Tickets being low in price for both the Exhibition and the railways meant that this was an event that could now be accessible by people in the working classes, rather than just the upper and middle classes as was the case in the first month of the Crystal Palace being opened. These excursions meant that working fathers could now bring their family down to London on one of these trips and it could be a family holiday.
The development of the railways in the early 1850s, tied in with the Exhibition itself, helped to put on display to the world how rapidly Britain itself was modernising and how things such as the railways could help with both travel and commerce. Jeffrey A. Auerbach helps to put into perspective the significance of the railways for the country by the time the Great Exhibition opened, stating that ‘there were only 3036 miles of railway track in 1846, less than half the amount that existed only five years later at the time of the Exhibition.’
The railways were incredibly significant for the Great Exhibition and part of its success can be given to the fact that so many people were able to visit as a result of train travel. Both the cheap entry to the Exhibition, along with the cheap day/week/month tickets on the trains, meant that people from all classes were able to attend this event and it wasn’t just limited to the upper classes who could afford events such as this. While it is difficult to give an exact number of visitors to the Great Exhibition that made use of the railways, it is clear that a significant number of labourers from around the country attended by utilising railway travel and it is down to this that a large percentage of its overall success can be credited to.
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