Glasgow International Exhibition, 1888

Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow

The 1888 International Exhibition of Industry, Science and Art was the first in a series of international exhibitions held in Glasgow. It was held to showcase the city’s achievements in industry, science and art and to raise enough money to build an art gallery, museum and school of art. It followed the 1887 Royal Jubilee Exhibition held in Manchester. The Exhibition was opened by the Prince of Wales on 8 May 1888.

The main site was in Kelvingrove Park and was a quarter of a mile long. It contained thousands of displays including textiles, foodstuffs, musical instruments, fine art and shipbuilding. The central area known as the Indian Pavilion, built by Doulton and Co., was made of terracotta. The Indian Court, meanwhile, was adorned with textiles and carpets and housed nine Indian artisans: two woodcarvers, two potters, two jewellers and three sweet-makers. Visitors could buy their products, alongside spices and other wares. Men from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) were brought over to Glasgow to serve tea to visitors in the Ceylon Tea House and the Royal Bungalow Dining Room.

John Muir, the proprietor of James Findlay & Co., a Glasgow cotton manufacturing firm that was moving into tea and jute, helped organize the Indian displays. T. N. Mukharji, the Bengali civil servant who had visited the 1886 Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London, helped select works for display. Mukharji also wrote a guide, The Art Manufactures of India, to accompany the Glasgow exhibition. The display included ornate caskets, ostrich feather fans and a silver palanquin.

John Lavery, who was part of a group of artists known as the Glasgow Boys, produced forty on-the-spot sketches of the exhibition, including one of the Indian potters.

The exhibition ended in November 1888 and recorded 5,748,379 visits.