Bpt Thomas Clarkson Osler s/o Thos. Osler & Fanny130 OSLER, THOS. CLARKSON, died Nov. 5, 1876, leaving personal estate value £140,000. He bequeathed £1,000 to the hospitals, and £3,000 to the Art Gallery.720
“In connection with the Art Gallery is the "Public Picture Gallery Fund,"
the founder of which was the late Mr. Clarkson Osler, who gave £3,000
towards it. “720
~Exhibitions of 1851 and 1862.~--Even as Birmingham may be said to have
given the first idea for the "Great Exhibition" of 1851, so it had most
to do with the building thereof, the great palace in Hyde Park being
commenced by Messrs. Fox, Henderson & Co., July 26, 1850, and it was
finished in nine months at a total cost of £176,031. In its erection
there were used 4,000 tons of iron, 6,000,000 cubic feet of woodwork,
and 31 acres of sheet glass, requiring the work of 1,800 men to put it
together. 287 local exhibitors applied for space amounting to 22,070
sup. feet, namely, 10,183 feet of flooring, 4,932 feet of table area,
and 6,255 feet of wall space. The "glory" of this exhibition was the
great crystal fountain in the centre, manufactured by Messrs. Osler, of
Broad Street, a work of art till then never surpassed in the world's
history of glass-making and glass cutting, and which now pours forth its
waters in one of the lily tanks in Sydenham Palace. 720