In 1854, a spectacle unlike anything the world had ever seen before was unveiled in the heart of London. Nestled within the newly-opened Crystal Palace Park in Sydenham stood a collection of over 30 full-scale models of prehistoric creatures, meticulously crafted and arranged across artificial islands. These were the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs – the first attempt anywhere on Earth to bring the long-extinct denizens of the past back to life through sculpture.
The story of these remarkable statues is one that spans over 160 years, encompassing their creation at the cutting edge of Victorian science, their decline into obscurity and disrepair, and the modern efforts to study, restore and protect them. More than just relics of a bygone age, the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs embody a pivotal moment in the history of paleontology, when our conception of the prehistoric world was just beginning to take shape. And while the models may appear crude and inaccurate to modern eyes, they remain an invaluable window into the cultural and scientific context of their time.
Building the Birthplace of "Dinomania"
The tale of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs is inextricably linked with the relocation and expansion of the Crystal Palace itself. Originally erected in Hyde Park as the centerpiece of the Great Exhibition of 1851, this marvel of glass and iron was dismantled after the event and rebuilt on an even grander scale at Penge Place in Sydenham in 1852-1854. The grounds surrounding the new Crystal Palace were developed into an elaborate Victorian pleasure garden, envisioned as a permanent attraction to educate and entertain the public.
As part of this project, leading sculptor and natural history artist Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was commissioned to create a series of replicas of ancient animals, to be displayed on islands within the park‘s central lake. With the guidance of renowned paleontologist Sir Richard Owen, Hawkins settled on a trio of extinct groups to recreate: the dinosaurs, marine reptiles such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, and Cenozoic mammals like giant sloths and mammoths.
Hawkins and his team labored from 1852 to 1855 to construct the concrete and brick models, working out of a custom studio dubbed the "Extinct Animal Manufactory." The immense figures were built at a total cost of around £13,729 – equivalent to over £1.5 million today. Hawkins was so proud of his creations that he held a lavish dinner party on New Year‘s Eve 1853 inside the mold of one of the Iguanodon sculptures, serving an eight-course meal to a circle of distinguished scientists.
When the Crystal Palace Park finally opened to the public in June 1854, the prehistoric menagerie was an instant sensation. Visitor numbers to the Palace reached 2 million within the first year, with the dinosaurs proving an especially popular draw. The models vividly brought to life animals that had never been seen by human eyes, sparking a wave of "dino-mania" decades before the term would be coined. Even Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were captivated, returning several times to marvel at the stony beasts.
Monuments to a Changing Science
While the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs were a groundbreaking achievement for their time, they were also a product of an era when paleontology was still a young and rapidly evolving science. In crafting his sculptures, Hawkins worked from a limited selection of fossil evidence under the direction of Sir Richard Owen, Britain‘s preeminent authority on prehistoric life.
Owen himself had only introduced the term "Dinosauria" a decade previously, and held several conceptions about the anatomy and appearance of dinosaurs that we now know to be false. He believed these animals to be lumbering, quadrupedal behemoths akin to giant lizards or crocodiles. Critically, he did not recognize that they could be active, fast-moving, and potentially warm-blooded creatures, or that some walked upright on their hind legs.
As a result, Hawkins‘ models contained serious inaccuracies even by the scientific standards of the day, and would soon be utterly surpassed by new fossil discoveries and theories. The most famous example is the Iguanodon statue, posed as a squat, four-legged beast with a rhino-like horn on its nose. We now know that Iguanodon was a mostly bipedal dinosaur, and that the supposed "horn" was in fact a modified thumb spike.
Such flaws did not go unnoticed by other scientists even at the time of the models‘ unveiling. Gideon Mantell, Owen‘s great rival and the original discoverer of Iguanodon, publicly criticized the dinosaurs‘ outmoded depictions. As Mantell and other paleontologists published new evidence that contradicted Owen‘s ideas, the Crystal Palace statues became increasingly seen as embarrassingly antiquated.
By the late 19th century, leading experts were denouncing the models, with American dinosaur hunter Othniel Charles Marsh condemning them as "grossly inaccurate" in 1895. The Crystal Palace Company, too, lost faith in Hawkins‘ creations, cancelling plans for additional models and leaving several unfinished sculptures to languish in his workshop. When the Crystal Palace itself was destroyed by fire in 1936, the crumbling dinosaurs were abandoned to neglect and vandalism.
Preserving a Priceless Relic
The fortunes of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs reached their nadir in the mid-20th century, as the sculptures fell into serious disrepair and were overtaken by vegetation. It took a concerted campaign by historians and conservationists to rescue these priceless relics from ruin.
The first major restoration effort was carried out in 1952 by Victor H.C. Martin, who reconstructed damaged figures and cleared away obscuring vegetation. However, the statues remained in a precarious state, and their condition continued to deteriorate over the following decades.
In the 1970s, the fight to save the sculptures gained new momentum when the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs were granted protected status as Grade II listed buildings. Further renovations in 2001-2003 saw crumbling models painstakingly repaired and missing parts recreated in fiberglass. The dinosaurs‘ official designation was upgraded to Grade I in 2007, confirming their place among Britain‘s most historically significant structures.
Despite these efforts, the venerable statues still face significant threats to their long-term survival. A comprehensive conservation survey in 2016 found the 160-year-old models to be suffering from a range of issues including cracking, erosion, and waterlogging. In 2020, Historic England formally declared the sculptures to be "at risk", underlining the need for ongoing investment and care.
Today, the fight to preserve the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs for future generations is led by organizations such as Friends of Crystal Palace Dinosaurs. This conservation charity works to promote the models‘ restoration and upkeep while also providing educational programming to connect visitors with the site‘s rich history. In 2021, the group successfully crowdfunded the installation of a permanent bridge to improve access to the dinosaur islands.
Visitor Numbers to Crystal Palace Park:
Year | Visitors
-----|---------
1854 | 2,000,000
1860 | 1,746,000
1870 | 1,555,000
1880 | 1,250,000
1890 | 1,100,000
*Estimated figures. Sourced from: Piggott, J.R. (2004). Palace of the People: The Crystal Palace at Sydenham 1854-1936. University of Wisconsin Press.*The Enduring Importance of Hawkins‘ Vision
The Crystal Palace Dinosaurs are more than just aged curios or obsolete attractions. They represent a pivotal turning point in the way humans perceived the prehistoric world and our planet‘s ancient past. In giving three-dimensional form to creatures that had never been seen alive, Hawkins and Owen were reshaping the public‘s understanding of natural history. No longer were the beings of former eras mere fragments of bone, but tangible, fleshed-out animals that captured the Victorian imagination.
Indeed, it could be argued that the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs established one of the first and most impactful examples of "paleoart" – the practice of reconstructing prehistoric life through artistic depictions. Widely disseminated through replicas, prints, and photographs, Hawkins‘ restorations had an outsized influence on how dinosaurs were represented in popular media well into the 20th century. The trope of slow, stupid, swamp-bound dinosaurs that persisted in art and film had its roots in the Crystal Palace.
At the same time, the many inaccuracies in the sculptures provided a cautionary tale against scientific dogmatism. Whereas Owen and Hawkins created their visions of ancient reptiles as definitive statements, later generations came to realize that our knowledge of the past is always tentative and subject to change. The trajectory of the models‘ reputation, from celebrated marvels to discredited mistakes to cherished relics, mirrors the ongoing self-correcting process of science itself.
In the 21st century, the value of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs lies in their unique power to captivate and educate, to serve as a tactile link between our world and the unimaginably distant past. The sense of wonder they inspired in Victorian audiences is one that still resonates with modern visitors, even if our scientific conception of dinosaurs has evolved.
More than that, the story of the models‘ creation, decline, and rediscovery has much to teach us about the history of science as a human endeavor. In learning how Hawkins and Owen artfully assembled their visions from fragmentary evidence and educated guesses, we see the fingerprints of their individual passions and biases, as well as the influence of prevailing cultural attitudes. The rejection and neglect of the sculptures in later decades, meanwhile, reveals the ever-shifting nature of scientific consensus.
Perhaps most importantly, the remarkable survival of the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs into the present day stands as a testament to the necessity of science history preservation. Against all odds, these fragile statues have endured as a priceless window into the origins of paleontology and the cultural milieu of their age. Their conservation and upkeep must remain an ongoing priority, so that Hawkins‘ vision may continue to inspire and educate for generations to come. Only by physically safeguarding the relics of our scientific heritage can we maintain a tangible link to the sense of awe and discovery that drives us to interrogate the mysteries of the natural world.
As the historian Martin J.S. Rudwick argues in his book Scenes from Deep Time, the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs "transcend the details of anatomical accuracy or error, and achieve an authentic general effect that is based on the best available scientific knowledge of the time." In preserving and celebrating these unique monuments, we pay tribute not just to the emergence of paleontology as a science, but to the timeless human impulse to reconstruct and understand the vanished worlds of our planet‘s past. It is an impulse that has driven scientific progress for centuries, and one that finds its most spectacular and enduring expression in the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs.
