A Victorian dinner party is held inside a life-size model of an Iguanodon - December 31st, 1853

On this day in 1853, natural history artist and sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins hosted a New Year’s Eve dinner party inside a full-scale model of an Iguanodon.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show for those interested in the big and bizarre
moments of history. I'm Gay Bluzier and in this episode
we're talking about the dinner party to end all dinner parties,

(00:21):
the only one on record to be held inside of
a thirty ton dinosaur. The day was December thirty one,
eighteen fifty three. Natural history artist and sculptor Benjamin Waterhouse

(00:41):
Hawkins hosted a New Year's Eve dinner party inside a
full scale model of an iquanadn. The event was attended
by twenty one high profile guests, including leading scientists, businessmen
and journalists. It was held as a publicity stunt to
advertised hawkins latest upcoming project, a display of the world's

(01:04):
first dinosaur sculptures at the Crystal Palace Park in London.
The Iguanodon was chosen as the site of the meal
because it was the largest of the thirty three concrete
dinosaur models that had been commissioned one year earlier. Like
the animal it was based on, the sculpture measured approximately
two point seven meters or nine feet high and ten

(01:28):
meters or thirty three feet long. The dinners guest of
honor was Professor Richard Owen, a trained doctor and celebrated
paleontologist who spent much of his life studying fossilized remains.
In fact, Owen was the one who first coined the
term dinosaur, which means terrible lizard, and he did so

(01:50):
just eleven years before hawkins party. He's also the researcher
who advised Hawkins on the design of his dinosaur models,
including the Iguanodon. Owen provided estimates on the general size
and shape of the animals, and then supervised the sculpting
process to make sure Hawkins captured the key details of

(02:10):
each species. That said, it's worth noting that the models
represented the knowledge of the time and are no longer
considered scientifically accurate. As for why the dinosaur sculptures were
made at all, they were commissioned by the Crystal Palace
Company as a way to celebrate the venue's reopening. The

(02:31):
Crystal Palace was a huge, glass, steel and iron structure
that had been built to house the exhibits of the
First World's Fair, also known as the Great Exhibition of
eighteen fifty one. When that exhibition ended, the Crystal Palace
was meticulously disassembled and moved to a new permanent location

(02:52):
nine miles away. Hawkins dinosaur models were meant to be
one of the new premier attractions when the palace re
opened in June of eighteen fifty four. At the time,
the public had only seen illustrations of dinosaurs, or maybe
an incomplete skeleton. It was hard to get a sense
of the animal's true scale, and as a result, dinosaurs

(03:15):
weren't a subject of public fascination like they are today. However,
the Crystal Palace company saw the potential. It wagered that
life size replicas would be enough to capture the public's
interest and draw a big crowd for the palaces opening day.
Hawkins New Year's Eve dinner was a way to build

(03:36):
excitement for the upcoming exhibit, and so what the public's
appetite for big concrete dinosaurs. There are some details we
know for certain about the famous dinner, including the guest
list and the menu, which consisted of eight courses including
mock turtle soup, mutton cutlets, and partridge stew. But there

(03:57):
are also some things we don't know about the evening.
For example, it's unclear whether the guests sat inside the
actual concrete model or inside the mold that the concrete
was later poured into. Either way, many of the guests
were seated inside the iguanodon's open back cavity. We don't

(04:17):
know the exact arrangement of the tables and chairs, but
a drawing published in the Illustrated London News a week
later does provide some clues. The most likely scenario is
that eleven guests were seated in a row inside the belly,
and the rest were seated at a perpendicular table just
behind the iguanodon, creating a T shaped table setting. The

(04:41):
drawing also shows the model surrounded by a high, elevated stage,
which enabled the guests and the waite staff to climb
inside the chamber more easily. To recognize his role as
the brains behind the project, Richard Owen was seated at
the head of the table, which happened to coincide with
the head of the iguanodon. Hawkins, as host, was seated

(05:04):
in the center. He reportedly gave a short speech at dinner,
and Owen followed it with a brief presentation about the sculptures.
According to a later report written by Hawkins, the dinner
got pretty rowdy as the night went on, or, as
he put it, quote, the roaring chorus was so fierce
and enthusiastic as almost to lead to the belief that

(05:27):
a herd of iguanodons were bellowing. As you might expect,
the boisteroust guests stayed well past midnight, meaning they were
lucky enough to ring in the new year from inside
a massive, hollowed out dinosaur. Talk about life goals, It
should go without saying, but the dinner was a huge success.

(05:49):
The press got into the holiday spirit and gave the
events some lighthearted coverage. For instance, the popular humor magazine
Punch joked that the dinner showed just how far humans
had come as a species. It said, quote, we congratulate
the company on the era in which they live, for

(06:10):
if it had been an early geological period, they might
perhaps have occupied the iguanodons inside without having any dinner there.
The press report's stoked excitement for the exhibits debut. Has
it been the plan? And when the big day finally came,
the public didn't disappoint, and neither did the dinosaurs. The

(06:31):
lifelike recreations helped make dinosaurs a subject of mainstream interest.
For the first time, visitors took home dinosaur posters and figurines,
and for the next half century, more than a million
people came to see the models every year. Sadly, the
original Crystal Palace burned to the ground in nineteen thirty six,

(06:54):
but the good news is that Hawkins concrete statues were
durable enough to survive the fire. Most of the replicas
still stand in the Crystal Palace Park to this day,
and thanks to recent refurbishments, they now look better than ever.
They're still not the most accurate depictions of prehistoric life,
but without them, the public may have never fallen in

(07:17):
love with dinosaurs, and really, who would want to live
in a world like that? I'm Gabe Lousier and hopefully
you now know a little more about history today than
you did yesterday. You can learn even more about history
by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at T

(07:37):
D i HC. Show. You can also leave us a
review on Apple Podcasts, and you can write to us
at this day at I heart media dot com. I'd
love to know which species of dinosaur you'd most like
to dine inside of for a dinner party. My pick
would probably be a stegosaurus so that we wouldn't have

(07:58):
to worry about running out of lates. Thanks to Chandler
Mays for producing the show, and thanks to you for listening.
I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another New
Year in History class. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,

(08:22):
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.