Joseph Paxton

Sir Joseph Paxton (3 August 1803 - 8 June 1865) was an English gardener, glasshouse designer, engineer and politician. He is best known as the designer of the Crystal Palace for the Great Exhibition of 1851, whose iron-and-glass roof transformed ideas about how large spaces could be enclosed.

Chatsworth

Paxton was offered the post of head gardener at Chatsworth when he was about 20. There he experimented with glasshouses. His Great Conservatory, begun in 1836, was about 69 m (227 ft) long.

In 1849 Paxton succeeded in making the giant waterlily Victoria regia flower at Chatsworth, about a month after receiving a seedling. He built a special lily house for it, with flat ridge-and-furrow glazing. He described the lily's ribbed leaves as an inspiration for his roof structures.

Ridge-and-furrow glazing

Paxton's roof system arranged glass in long folded rows, with ridges and valleys, carried on light supports. Rainwater ran into timber channels in the valleys, which doubled as rails for glazing trolleys. This channel became known as the "Paxton gutter".

The Crystal Palace

For the 1851 Great Exhibition, Paxton sketched an idea on blotting paper during a railway board meeting in Derby. The resulting building, of cast iron and about 293,000 glass panes, was built in Hyde Park and opened on 1 May 1851. Paxton, Fox and Cubitt, who were involved in delivering the building, were all knighted.

Later life

Paxton served as Liberal Member of Parliament for Coventry from 1854 until his death in 1865.

Legacy

Paxton showed that roofs could be made from standardised, factory-produced parts and erected quickly. His methods anticipated later prefabricated construction.