South Staffordshire Industrial and Fine-Arts Exhibition in the grounds of Molineux House at Wolverhampton, 1869. The architect and designer of the decorations is Mr. Bidlake; the contractors [of the exhibition building, which is of iron and glass] are Messrs. Clarke...Around the building is a fine-arts gallery, containing nearly 800 oil and water colour paintings...The first idea of this undertaking was conceived about a year ago by a few persons who were much interested in promoting the welfare of the Wolverhampton School of Practical Art and of the South Staffordshire Educational Association. Both these institutions were much in need of funds...and a proposal was made that any surplus derived from the proceeds of the exhibition should be divided between them. It was felt, too, that the great importance and variety of the manufactured products of South Staffordshire and East Worcestershire had never hitherto been fully shown by collecting them in one place, and that the proposal to supply this want by a local industrial exhibition, supplemented by fine arts and natural history collections, could not fail to excite widespread interest and benefit all classes in the district. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.