On April 23, 1903, the royal commission of King Edward VII was issued at Whitehall under His Majesty’s royal sign, appointing the following commissioners to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition: 

The Prince of Wales; Arthur Wellesley, Viscount Peel; Victor Albert
George, Earl of Jersey; Richard George Penn, Earl Howe; Bernard Edward
Barnaby, Baron Castletown; George Arbuthnot, Baron Inverclyde; Richard
Barnaby, Baron Alverstone; John, Baron Avebury; Horace Cruzon Plunkett;
Charles Napier Lawrence; Sir Charles William Fremantle; Sir George
Hayter Chubb; Sir Edward John Poynter; Sir Charles Rivers Wilson; Sir
Edward Maunde Thompson; Sir William Henry Preece; Sir William Turner
Thiselton-Deyer; Sir Herbert Jekyll; Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema; Sir
Caspar Purdon Clarke; Sir George Thomas Livesey; Henry Hardinge; Samuel
Cunyghame; Edward Austin Abbey; Charles Vernon Boys; Thomas Brock;
George Donaldson; Clement Le Neve Foster; John Clarke Hawkshaw; Thomas
Graham Jackson; William Henry Maw; Francis Grant Ogilvie; William
Quiller Orchardson; Boverton Redwood; Alfred Gordon Salamon; Joseph
Wilson Swan; Jethro Justinian Harris; Teall, and Francis William Webb.

Col.  Charles Moore Watson was appointed secretary to the commission.  Subsequently, on the 6th of June, 1903, Sir John Benjamin Stone, M.P., was appointed additional commissioner.

At the first meeting of the royal commission, held at Marlborough House on the 28th of April, 1903, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, K. G., made a speech showing the interest that was felt in the exposition generally throughout Great Britain.

The interest taken in the exposition by Great Britain was exemplified strikingly in the amount of space which she occupied in the various exhibition buildings, amounting in the aggregate to no less than 206,642 superficial feet, of which only 8,000 feet was occupied by the Royal Pavilion.  An idea of the vast scope of the exhibit may be learned from the following table, which gives the amount of space in each of the various exhibit palaces occupied by Great Britain’s display: 

Superficial feet. 
Education ......................   6,500
Social economy .................     810
-------   7,310
Art ....................................  20,872
Liberal arts ...........................  35,500
Manufactures ...........................  58,000
Electricity ............................   5,960
Transportation .........................  33,500
Agriculture ............................  20,400
Horticulture ...........................     500
Forestry, Fish, and Game ...............   3,900
Mines and Metallurgy ...................  11,700
Physical Culture .......................   1,000

In making choice of an interesting type to be followed in the British Royal Pavilion at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, it was felt that the Orangery of the Royal Palace of Kensington would be representative of English