Bingley Hall. Architect: J. A. Chatwin. 1850. Broad Street, Birmingham. Engraving published by William Hodgetts, from the Birmingham Museums Trust/Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery. Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust, licensed under CC0 (public domain).
The exhibition hall was located on the site of an older wooden structure, which itself had been built on the grounds of Bingley House — residence of the LLoyds family, of banking fame. It was erected in the record time of six weeks in 1850 by the firm of Branson and Gwyther, for whom the young Chatwin was then working, and, as William Harman explains, cost roughly £6000 to put up, and was roughly square in shape,
the measurements being 224ft. by 212ft., giving an area of nearly one acre and a half. There are ten entrance doors, five in King Edward's Place, and five in King Alfred's Place, and the building may be easily divided into five separate compartments. The Hall will hold from 20,000 to 25,000 people, and is principally used for Exhibitions and Cattle Shows; with occasionally "monster meetings," when it is considered necessary for the welfare of the nation to save sinners or convert Conservatives. [68]
In other words, Harman concludes rather wittily, it was also used for religious and political gatherings.
Left: Part of the exterior, showing the main entrance, in its last days. Right: Interior, during the first exhibition there.
It has a particular significance for this era of "world fairs" because it was Birmingham's, and indeed the country's, first permanent exhibition hall. The wooden hall that it replaced had been visited in November 1849 by Prince Albert, and quite probably gave him the idea of erecting a venue for exhibitions in London: the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park. Chatwin's design, despite being hastily constructed for the Birmingham Cattle Show of late 1850, was not only completed earlier, but was more solid and traditional, with a brick Romanesque frontage complete with an impressive classical portico. If it looked a little like a railway station, that may be because Chatwin was "combining his newly acquired railway engineering knowledge with architectural ad artistic skills" (Bridges 91), as well as the use of materials from railway projects. This more enduring structure became the setting not only for exhibitions and gatherings of the more serious sort, but also for entertainments, such as concerts and circuses.
Bingley Hall was finally demolished after a major fire in 1984, and replaced on the site by the International Convention Centre, opened in 1991.
Links to Related Material
- The Great Exhibition of 1851
- The Dublin International Exhibition Building (1865), by Alfred G. Jones
- Yorkshire Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition Hall (1866), by Edward Taylor
Bibliography
"Birmingham and Midland Counties Agricultural Association." Illustrated London News Vol. 17 (14 December 1850): 458-60. Internet Archive. Web. 8 December 2024.
Bingley Exhibition Hall, Broad Street, Birmingham (engraving). Birmingham Museums.Web. 8 December 2024.
Bridges, Tim. "J.A. Chatwin." Birmingham's Victorian and Edwardian Architects. Edited by Phillada Ballard. Birmingham: Oblong Creative, for the Birmingham and West Midlands Group of the Victorian Society, 2009. 89-122.
"The Cattle Show and Cattle Market." Illustrated Weekly News Vol.II, No. 61 (6 December 1862): 460-61. Internet Archive. Web. 8 December 2024.
Harman, Thomas T. Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham. Birmingham: Cornish Brothers, 1885. Internet Archive, from a copy in the University of California Libraries. Web. 8 December 2024.
Created 8 December 2024