Following the closure of the Great Exhibition in October 1851,
The Crystal Palace was bought and moved to Sydenham Hill,
South London by the newly formed Crystal Palace Company;
the grounds that surrounded it were then extensively renovated
and turned into a public park with ornamental gardens, replicas
of statues and two new man-made lakes. As part of this
renovation Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was commissioned
to build the first ever life-sized models of extinct animals. He
had originally planned to just re-create extinct mammals before
deciding on building dinosaurs as well, which he did with advice
from Sir Richard Owen, a celebrated biologist and paleontologist
of the time. Hawkins set up a workshop on site at the park and
built the models there.
The Crystal Palace was bought and moved to Sydenham Hill,
South London by the newly formed Crystal Palace Company;
the grounds that surrounded it were then extensively renovated
and turned into a public park with ornamental gardens, replicas
of statues and two new man-made lakes. As part of this
renovation Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins was commissioned
to build the first ever life-sized models of extinct animals. He
had originally planned to just re-create extinct mammals before
deciding on building dinosaurs as well, which he did with advice
from Sir Richard Owen, a celebrated biologist and paleontologist
of the time. Hawkins set up a workshop on site at the park and
built the models there.
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