This is a complete facsimile of the original 1854 guide to the Natural History Court in the original Crystal Palace, which had two organising themes.
First, ethnology – a speciality in anthropology emphasising comparisons between human cultures – was a new discipline in the 1850s. Displays included material from thirteen exotic human groups (and sometimes living visitors from those groups, too). Robert Gordon Latham’s guide emphasises what visitors could not see displayed, such as language and religious practices. He also shows his discipline’s obsession with rankings – one culture against another – together with the cultural biases inherent in that work.
Second, zoology and botany were represented by regional displays. Edward Forbes was a naturalist in the tradition of Alexander von Humboldt. This catalogue mentions most of the specimens displayed. It also stresses fundamental principles of biogeography. Written five years before Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, it nicely shows how naturalists theorized before evolutionary ideas took hold.
Robert Gordon Latham (1812-1888) was an ethnologist focusing on comparative physical and cultural anthropology. Edward Forbes (1815-1854) was a naturalist, with wide-ranging interests in marine biology, geology, and botany. He died shortly after this chapter was written.