Miles apart: the India display at the Great Exhibition

ABSTRACT Who was responsible for assembling the India exhibit of the 1851 Great Exhibition in London? John Forbes Royle has typically been credited — or charged — with organizing the exhibit. This paper draws on the official Exhibition archive as well as the untapped resource of Bengal newspapers to examine the extent of Royle's role in the organization of the exhibit from London and to probe who, if any, his coadjutors in India were. The findings allow us to take a more accurate measure of the relations and interests that operated in assembling the display, as well as some of the ways in which the exhibit exceeded its planners' intentions.