Hastings and the Great Exhibition
It has been shewn in the pages devoted to the Mechanics’ Institutions that those associations, both of Hastings and St. Leonards, were the first of their kind in the provinces to take an active movement in the project; and that the movement resulted in a large measure of success will be seen from what follows.
On Wednesday and Thursday, the 26th and 27th of February, an exhibition of a majority of the manufactured articles intended for the “world’s fair,” took place in the carriage show-room of Messrs. Rock and Son at Stratford place (now White-rock place). The admission was by gratuitous tickets and the interest then manifested was such as to give the strongest encouragement to the local committee who had laboured to forward the movement. The exhibition was open from ten till four each day, and the crowd which pressed for admittance was so great that it became necessary to keep the doors closed against the applicants for several minutes at a time, so that they might be let in and out by batches. Shortly before 4 o’clock on the first day a notice was posted that no more could be admitted that day, and several hundred persons had to go away disappointed, although it was calculated that not fewer than a thousand had been already gratified with the view. Such an unexpected crowd caused some embarrassment to the committee, who, during the evening sent out the crier to announce that on the following day the public would be admitted fifty at a time at intervals of twenty minutes. This arrangement was only made under circumstances of imperative necessity. The articles exhibited were as hereunder described.
A Dioropha Carriage was a prominent feature in the exhibition, constructed by Messrs. Rock & Son on an entirely new and improved principle. It combined three distinct carriages in one — namely, a close carriage, a half-headed barouche, and a completely open carriage without any cover whatever, and all this without any sacrifice of comfort. It was painted with the richest ultramarine blue and embellished with other appropriate colours. The inside was lined with rich silk tabbiret,[1] which as well as the blue and white lace trimmings was designed and manufactured for the purpose. The carriage was further ornamented with silver mountings, the lamps were of an original design, and the steps were upon a new principle under letters patent. The panels were decorated with devices emblematical of the reign of peace, having the motto per totum orbem[2].
A Pony Phaeton, by the same manufacturers and of a kind peculiar to Hastings, was another of the exhibits. It possessed, however, several improvements, including the patent springs invented by J. Rock, jun., and remarkable for their extraordinary lightness. The -
