Henry Cole

‘1851’, Scott wrote, ‘This year the Great Exhibition had occupied much of my attention’, with the preparation of his exhibits for the Crystal Palace. He attended the opening on 1 May by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He had the model of Queen Philippa's tomb on show and one of St. Nicholas's Church by Stephen Salterand some other objects, ‘(or at least one)’ but he is not sure what they were. But the recognition of all his work went to the others involved. Salter received a prize medal for his model, Cundy was awarded a medal for Queen Philippa’s tomb and Alfred Gerente for his Ely windows. Scott’s name is not to be found on the great roll of honour of exhibitors. In 1851 it does seem that Scott was rather put out by the whole affair. He thought perhaps, with some justification, that he had established himself as one of the leading architects of the day and, apart from Pugin, the leading medievalist, yet he was not invited to participate as a juror or in any other capacity, even though there was a great interest and appreciation of medieval art as was shown by the almost universal praise of Pugin's court and the awards of medals to all his craftsmen. Even Henry Roberts, now deeply involved in workers' housing, received much praise for a model lodging house, or what we would call a block of four flats, immediately to the south of the Palace, which Prince Albert had ordered to be included in the exhibition. It would not have been in Scott's nature to have written anything in his Recollections which would have detracted from the honours bestowed on his friends, or more importantly, appear to diminish Pugin's last great triumph, but he is uncharacteristically forthright about his dislike of Sir Henry Cole. Cole, as much as Prince Albert, was responsible for the Great Exhibition actually taking place. He was an energetic fixer of anything to do with the arts and had ‘a conspicuous talent for getting things done’. He was the founder of the Victoria and Albert Museum and the driving force behind the establishment of South Kensington as a kind of national precinct of artistic activity, but his claim to popular fame is as the inventor of the Christmas card. Scott clearly did not like Cole's pushfulness and thought that his nickname, after King William I's right-hand man, ‘the Modern Ingulphus’, was doubly appropriate, as he also engulfed everything in his path. Cole was the nephew of the architect David Laing, who was disgraced in 1825 when part of his Custom House collapsed. This event seems to have permanently soured Cole’s view of architects and is possibly the reason that he employed military engineers to build most of South Kensington. Unquestionably Cole and his artistic advisors, ‘The Cole Circle’ as Pevsner calls them, had important connections with considerable power and influence, which probably accounts for the ease with which Scott was to allow Digby Wyatt, one of the Circle, to take over his India Office commission a few years later.