Wyld's Great Globe - Site

Site

Wyld had approached the organizing committee of the Great Exhibition with a plan to erect a giant globe within the exhibition hall. Although he presented it as an educational attraction, Wyld's ulterior motive was to use the globe to promote his map-making business. The size of the proposed exhibit and the organizers' decision that no commercial enterprises should use the exhibition as a platform to sell their goods or services led to the rejection of Wyld's plan. Undaunted, Wyld began to search for an alternate location for his project; the reason later given for not building within the Crystal Palace was purely the lack of space rather than any rejection by the organising committee of the commercial aspect of the project. An article in The Builder on 30 November 1850 mentioned that negotiations were already underway to secure the gardens of Leicester Square. Described in Charles Dickens' Household Words as a "howling desert", the gardens were at that time an insalubrious area, "with broken railings, a receptacle for dead cats and every kind of abomination" and a meeting place for "ne'er well-to-do youths". Leicester Square had been Prince Albert's initial choice as a site for the Great Exhibition building, but the site was quickly dismissed as too small.

Wyld made an agreement with the owner of the gardens, Pheobe Moxhay, to acquire the freehold for £3,000, but the Tulk family, who owned the buildings on three sides of the square and already had a judgement against Moxhay's late husband, would have been able to prevent Wyld building. They used this hold over him to negotiate a favourable deal for themselves: they would allow Wyld to use the land for ten years from 25 April 1851, after which he would remove any buildings that he had erected within six months, and each branch of the Tulk family would have a one-year option to buy half the land for £500. Although Wyld and the Tulks attempted to negotiate with the owner of the buildings on the north side of the square, Henry Webb, they were not able to reach an agreement, and they eventually signed the contract without his assent. When Wyld began to prepare the site, Webb announced his intention to take out an injunction to prevent the building work proceeding. Wyld restarted negotiations with Webb and eventually (in July 1851, over a month after the building had been completed) Webb agreed to allow the ten-year agreement with the Tulks to stand.

Wyld obviously still felt insecure about his claim on the land and, although he was not an MP himself between 1852 and 1857, over the years a number of bills surfaced in Parliament aimed at either establishing the title to the gardens in his favour or confirming the validity of the erection of the globe building. It appears that Wyld initially intended to seek public funding for the construction but after an estimate of the costs he considered it was unlikely that he would be able to secure reimbursement and decided instead on a purely commercial venture.