r Majesty,--As President of the Provisional
Committee of the Royal Albert Hall of Arts and Sciences, it is
my high privilege and gratification to report to your Majesty
the successful completion of this Hall, an important feature of
a long-cherished design of my beloved father, for the general
culture of your people, in whose improvement he was always
deeply interested. Encouraged by your Majesty's sympathies, and
liberally supported by your subjects, we have been enabled to
carry out the work without any aid from funds derived from
public taxation. I am warranted in expressing our confidence
that this building will justify the conviction we expressed in
the report submitted on the occasion of your Majesty's laying
its first stone, that by its erection we should be meeting a
great public want. Your Majesty's Commissioners for the
Exhibition of 1851 in further prosecution of my father's design
for the encouragement of the Arts and Sciences, an object which
he always had warmly at heart, are about to commence a series of
Annual International Exhibitions, to the success of which this
Hall will greatly contribute by the facilities which it will
afford for the display of objects and for the meeting of bodies
interested in the industries which will form the subjects of
successive Exhibitions. The interest shown in the Hall by the
most eminent musicians and composers of Europe strengthens our
belief that it will largely conduce to the revival among all
classes of the nation of a taste for the cultivation of music.
Your Majesty will hear with satisfaction that results have
justified the original estimate of the cost of the building, and
that, aided by the liberal assistance of your Exhibition
Commissioners, the corporation will commence its management
unfettered by pecuniary liabilities, and under conditions
eminently calculated to insure success. It is my grateful duty
to return to your Majesty our humble thanks for the additional
mark of your Royal favour which is conferred upon us by your
auspicious presence on the present occasion when our labours as
a Provisional Committee are drawing to a close. We venture to
hope that when we shall have resigned our functions into the
hands of the governing body, which will be elected under the
provisions of the Royal Charter granted to us, y