2-981-817 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Opening of the Royal Aquarium and Summer and Winter Garden, Westminster, by the Duke of Edinburgh, 1876. 'There was an assembly of nearly ten thousand ladies and gentlemen...The Royal box was decorated with festooned curtains of crimson damask, blue silk hangings with white lace, and lilies provided by Mr. Wills, florist...this undertaking is intended, besides the aquarium...to afford facilities for "the encouragement of artistic, scientific, and musical tastes". It is to be "not only a popular exhibition, but a means of intellectual enjoyment and educational advantage". His Royal Highness...recognised those higher aims, which were the same that his father had in view at the Exhibition of 1851. He observed "the extensive aquarium, which is the main object of this institution, cannot fail...to stimulate the love of natural history and the acquirement of scientific knowledge". From "Illustrated London News", 1876.