2-982-319 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Meeting of Charity Schoolchildren at the Crystal Palace, 1858. 'The children of the various London Charity Schools, to the number of above five thousand...were conveyed to the Crystal Palace by special trains, for the purpose of enjoying a whole day's recreation...[They assembled]...in the great "Handel Orchestra" in the Central Transept, presenting a most striking and picturesque coup d'oeil...They sang several of our fine old psalms - the Old Hundredth, "Martin Luther's Hymn," "St. Ann's," and some others, concluding with "God Save the Queen." There was no attempt at musical display: the voices were all in unison, accompanied by the organ; and the swell of these thousands of youthful voices had a natural sublimity which could not be reached by all the resources of art'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.