The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-05-07 00:00:00

THE MANCHESTER EXHIBITION.

The Royal Jubilee Exhibition was on Tuesday opeped
by the Prince and Princess of Wales in ManchetNir.
The exhibition consists of one large block of buildings;
an annexe separated from it by a bridge across Talbot-
road ; and a large area of the Botanical Gardens. The
exhibition is entered from Chester-road through a
very effective imitation of the Old Cheshire Farm-
house or Magpie style. Presentations to the Prince
and Princess of Wa'es were made in the inner hall
or vestibule. There is a gallery of approach, which
is really a fine winter garden, 330 feet long and 60
feet wide. The central dome is 90 feet in diameter,
and very lofty. The main gallery is 1400 feet long.
The site is at Old Trafford, a well-known suburb,
some three miles from the Exchange. The total area
of land occupied by the exhibition is about 45 acres.
Constructed mainly of iron and glass, the buildings
look extremely handsome as Been from a distance, in
consequence principally of the fine central dome, and
sundry turrets an 3 towers. _ _ _

The Prince and Princess of Wales arrived on Mon-
day evening at Knutsford to take up their temporary
residence at Tatton Park, the Cheshire seat of Lord
Egerton, of Tatton. On Tuesday they made their en-
trance into Manchester to open the Jubilee Exhibition
at Old Trafford, and on Wednesday, after the second
day's ceremonial and festivity with Manchester and
Salford, they returned to London. Their Royal
Highnesres arrived at five minutes to six on Monday
afternoon at Knutsford by special train from Euston.
It stopped only at Rugby and Crewe. The Royal
party consisted also of the Marquis of Lothian, Lord
Hartington, Lord and Lady Lathom, Lord Herschel],
Lord Arran, Lord Sandwich, Mr. and Mrs. Dalrymple,
Mr. Sykes, M.P.' and the Dowager Marchioness
of Tweeddale. Lord Egerton met his Royal
guests at the station and rode to Tatton
Park with the Prince and Princess. There was a
great and enthusiastic crowd in the street and a gay
display of bunting. A Royal salute was fired by the
3rd Cheshire Artillery Volunteers. A bouquet was
presented to the Princess of Wales by a young lady
repregentative of the Knutsford branch of the Girls'
Society, of which Lady Egerton is president. The
road through the park was kept by the Cheshire
Volunteers, and the escort was formed by the local
yeomanry. The Princess, as every one was pleased to
observe, looked particularly well, and not fatigued
by travel. Before the Royal party left the station
Lord Egerton presented to the Prince Mr. Meldrum,
general manager of the Cheshire lines ; Mr. E.
Ross and Mr. W. S. Scott, the chief officials of
the company. A very pretty scene was enacted at
the Cheshire Town Hall before the Royal party took
train for Manchester on Tuesday morning. Knuts-
ford is famous for its May-day celebrations. Every
year the old custom is continued with its Queen of
the May, Robin Hood and his Merry Men, Little
80-peep and Goody Two Shoes, and there are also
men in armour, Beef eaters, and other historical illus-
trations of a bygone pageantry, side by side with the
rustic representations of village crowds decked with
garlands. This event was postponed this year for the
day on which the Queen's birthday is to be observed,
but on Tuesday the elected May Queen and other
characters in the piece were paraded before the Prince
and Princess and presented to them.
The Royal party arrived in Manchester by special
train at a quarter past eleven on Tuesday. They
drove straight to the Town Hall, having been officially
received at the Central Station by the Mayor and
Mayoress and the Reception Committee. In the
Town Hall addresses were presented, and at noon a
procession started for the Jubilee Exhibition along a
route of several miles in length. The bands of the
3rd Hussars and oth Lancers, troops of Yeomanry
and Cavalry, mounted police, and a number of car-
riages containing the High Sheriff, members of Par-
liament, and the mayors of adjoining boroughs, were
in the procession. About 4000 Volunteers were on
duty, and a large number of infantry. On Wednes-
day the Royal party travelled by train from Knuts-
ford to the. station at the exhibition, and the pro-
gramme of the day included a procession through
Salford Peel-park. There was then a luncheon at
the Manchester Town Hall, and the Prince and
Princess left London-road Station at a quarter past
two, the departure being signalised by a Royal salute
from the Manchester Artillery Volunteers.

The Fine Art Section, which has been formed by a
committee of wh!ch Mr. William Agnew is chairman,
and by the personal assistance in the matter of hang-
ing of Mr. Horsley, R.A.„ Mr. Barlow, R.A., Sir J. D.
Linton, and Mr. A. D. Fripp, consists of 2098
entries. Of these the majority are oil paintings and
water-colour drawings; 202 are architectural draw-
ings; and there are entries of sculpture, the principal
exhibit being George Tinworth's panel in Doulton
terra-cotta, illustrating the release of Barabbas. This
Fine Art Section is collected with the special object
of illustrating the progress of art during the Queen's
reign. The cover of the catalogue was designed by
Mr. Harry Furmiss. Taking as his motto "The pencil
speaks tho tongue of every land," he gives us an Excel-
sior Hero stepping from artists of the past to a group
of such modern celebrities as Leighton,Millais,Tadema,
Burne Jones, and Hunt. The banner upheld by the
onward and upward youth beats the practical device,
"Royal Jubilee Exhibition, Manchester, Fine Art
Section, 1887." In the galleries are paintings by
nearly every modern artist of any note. Of engrav-
ings and etchings there are a large number by Old-
ham, Barlow, Thomas Landseer, Samuel Cousins,
Macbeth, &c. At the Town Hall on Wednesday morn-
ing, Miss Emily Faithfull presented by permission to
the Princess of Wales a set of Jubilee addresses, pub-
lished by Miss Charlotte Robinson, and bound in
artistic covers of white and brown; and Mr. T. R.
Wilkinson and the Rev. Mr. Steinthal presented an
address on behalf of the Lancashire and Cheshibe
-Union of Institutes. This took place in the banquet
ball during the tour of the State apartments. There
is one section of the exhibition to which a few
words may be devoted that is, "Old Man-
chester and Salford." This admirable reproduction
of the past merits notice as practically a supple-
mentary portion of the fine arts of the exhibition.
The fashion set by the erection of a bit of Old London
at South Kensington is evidently popular, and we
now hear of a complete village to be built in pur-
suance of the idea. Meanwhile the extensive deve-
lopment presented in the grounds of the exhibition
shows what may be done when the scheme is
thoroughly undertaken with historical fidelity and
artistic taste. We have not one thoroughfare, but
streets, lanes, and alleys, crooked, confined, and
shady, and the effort has been successfully made to
suggest different periods of the history of the
city, which, for present purposes, starts with
the Mancunium of the Romans. This entrance
is made through a fine Roman arch,
with walks beyond, bearing inscriptions of the
names of the cohorts stationed in Manchester.
The timber architecture of the Tudors, of which
many examples may be seen in Cheshire and Lanca-
shire, is as faithfully reproduced as the heavy level of
the days when George the Third was King. The
longest street is Market-street-lane, and amongst the
old houses is the Palace Inn, where the Pretender
lodged on his disastrous journey south. The solid
little Italian building was the first Manchester Ex-
change, built by a lord of the-manor in the early part
of last century. Old Salford is represented by the
bridge, Salford-cross, and the domicile of the Allen
family. In the facsimile of the perpendicurar tower
of Manchester Old Church—now the Cathedral—is a
remarkable peal of bells, an improvement on the Ant-
werp carillons carried out by Alderman Bailey's firm.
Some living realism is being introduced during
the exhibition, such as two of the Pre-
tender's bodyguard; a curator in Chetham's College
dressed in the costume of the founder; watch-
men in the livery of a hundred years ago; and
shopmen and boys in costumes of the periods
between the reigns of Elizabeth and George 111.
The decoration and• illuminations were thorough as
all other features of the general scheme. There were
five triumphal arches. A somewhat sore question as
to the route to be taken by the Royal precession was
effectually settled at an interview of the deputation
with Sir Francis Knollys at Marlborough House. At
first it was proposed that the route should be from
the Central Station by Portland-street and Oxford-
street to the exhibition at Old Trafford. This would
have been a reasonably-direct course. Public meet-
ings however were held, and popular opinion set
strong against it, and, Sir Francis Knollys stating on
behalf of the Prince that the desire of their Royal
Highnesses in going to large towns was to give the
greatest possible pleasure to the inhabitants, a much
longer route was seleeted—round by Market-street,
which otherwise had been left out in the cold. Need-
less to say the men, women, and children of the
cotton capital heartily enjoyed the Royal visit which
mricecl the opening of their Jubilee Exhibition.