Queen's Gate Living
1851 Commissioners' Estate
The final player in the development of the Queen’s Gate area was the Royal Commission set up to promote the Great Exhibition of 1851. The Great Exhibition was the brain child of Prince Albert, the Prince Consort (Queen Victoria’s husband). The 1851 Exhibition produced a large surplus profit. Prince Albert conceived the idea of a centre for institutions which would encourage the application of science and art to industry. And so this part of Kensington was marked out for the Science Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Natural History Museum. It was the 1851 Commissioners who galvanised the development of this still mainly rural area with this grand construction project. They planned to partly finance it by building houses in the surrounding area. The Baroness de Grafffenreid Villars sold them all her land and they bought some of the 5th Earl of Harrington’s land east of the new road of Queen’s Gate.
