2-888-376 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Banquet given by the Mayor of Southampton to the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of London, 1850. Dinner given by Richard Andrews, Mayor of Southampton in Hampshire, '...to celebrate the successful progress in South Hants of public feeling in favour of the Great Industrial Exhibition ot 1851'. The banquet took place in Southampton Town Hall, of which '...both the interior and exterior were fitted up magnificently...On the tables were vases filled with flowers, and the top of the hall was wreathed with flowers and evergreens...The judicial bench formed a dais at which the principal guests sat'. Many toasts were proposed and drunk: Andrews '...thanked the Lord Mayor [Thomas Farncombe] for the honour [he] had conferred upon him by [his] attendance [and] hoped he should see many more such assemblies before the Great Exhibition of 1851, and for many years afterwards. (Applause.)'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.