Be prepared for anything, lads...
Standing With Dinosaurs
Be prepared for anything, lads...
The Background
1. The History of the Dinosarus
For those of you who don't already know, the Crystal Palace,
built in 1851 and burned down in 1936, was the Millenium Dome of
the Victorian era (with the slight difference that people
actually took the Crystal Palace seriously); it was a showcase
for everything that the Victorians thought was worth celebrating.
One such thing was paleontology, they being as obsessed with
dinosaurs as we. Consequently, the world's first full-size
dinosaur models were built by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins on the
site, on two artificial islands; a third island contained similar
models of prehistoric mammals. They were sufficiently far from
the Palace to escape the blaze, and are still in fantastic
condition today (thanks to ongoing restoration efforts) even if
they are now more of historical than of scientific interest.
This is a drawing Hawkins did for an 1853 lecture about his
creations, giving you a rough idea of what the first and second
islands looked like in the 1850s. Some of the details were
changed in the final execution, and the pterodactyls in the
middle vanished sometime in the intervening 150 years, but just
about all the dinosaurs shown on this site are in it somewhere.
2. History of this Site
Although I'd been fascinated by the dinosaurs ever since I read about
them in a Stephen Jay Gould article, I first got the idea for this site
in 1999, when I visited Crystal Palace Park and brought along my
camera. A friend of mine, a big dinosaur/Victoriana fan who lives in
Canada and can't get over to Britain, asked if I could scan the
pictures I took and send them to him. Afterwards, I got to thinking
that surely there must be other people around the world, who had heard
of the dinosaurs (or who hadn't, but might like to) and would like to
see what they look like. And from the response I've had over the past
few years, I'd say I was right. So whether you're a longtime Waterhouse
Hawkins junkie, a visitor from one of the paleontology/science history
sites which has linked to me over the years (thanks guys) or just
someone who happened across this place by accident, welcome.
Most of the pictures on this site are from two visits to the park in
1999, in the summer and the autumn. In 2002, the dinosaurs underwent
restoration, and the last few pictures are of the finished products,
taken in 2003. Someday I might get a subject index up on this page, but
I'm not sure there's enough demand for it yet.
Now sit back, and let me take you on a tour of the islands...
--Nyder
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