Second London International Exposition of 1862

First international exposition seen by Japanese

Name
: London International Exhibition on Industry and Art
Period
: May 1, 1862 - November 15, 1862
Venue
: London (South Kensington)
No: of visitors
: 6,211,000

Aiming to attract many more visitors than the first London International Exposition of 1851, the second London International Exposition of 1862 was held on a larger scale in terms of cost, venue area, event duration and number of exhibiters. Nevertheless, the 1862 event yielded neither favorable financial results nor a dramatic growth of the number of visitors. It could not provide anything that could take the place of people's impressive memory of Crystal Palace. Well-known exhibits at the event included the steel production process invented by H. Bessemer and the calculator developed by C. Babbage. Also, the event was visited by the Takeuchi Embassy to Europe, making it the first time that Japanese people observed an international exposition.

References:

Findling, J. E., Pelle, K. D. ed.: Historical dictionary of world's fairs and expositions, 1851-1988 (Greenwood Press, 1990) <D7-B3>
Hirano, Shigeomi.: Kokusai hakurankai rekishi jiten (Uchiyama kobo, 1999) <D7-G26>