Yorkshire Fine Arts and Industrial Exhibition : opened July 1866 : Rt. Hon. James Meek, Lord Mayor of York, President.

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The first Yorkshire Fine Art and Industrial Exhibition (24 July to 31 October, 1866) was held at a site in the grounds of the Bootham Asylum, York. It proved a considerable success, with over 400,000 visitors yielding a significant profit for the sponsoring committee--so much so that the committee continued in office in order to ensure that the surplus could be used to provide a permanent building devoted to the encouragement of art and industry. It was part of the industrial exhibitions movement that flourished in Britain during the 1860s and 1870s; participants were primarily artisans, mechanics, workers, service providers, shopkeepers, housewives and even children--all members of the urban working-and lower-middle classes.
A woven picture, machine-embroidered on silk. On white silk in red, purple, green, black, and gold.
Godden, G.A. Stevengraphs and other Victorian silk pictures, 821
Stevengraph bookmark commemorating the Yorkshire Fine Arts and Industrial Exhibition, 1866. The item was apparently woven at the exhibition and depicts the Rt. Hon. James Meek, the Lord Mayor of York. The newly built exhibition hall is shown at the top, with the Multangular Tower pictured at the bottom. Though not clearly visible in this depiction, the hall was ornately decorated in a Medieval style, illustrated with the heraldic arms of its numerous noble patrons, including Lord Scarborough, Earl Fitzwilliam, Earl de Grey and Ripon, Earl Feversham, Earl Zetland, Lord Cavendish, Lord Halifax, Lord Milton, Lord Neville, the Bishop of Ripon, Lord Stourton, Lord Herries, Lord Hawke, Lord Grantley, Lord Muncaster, Lord Teignmouth, Lord Feversham, Lord Wenlock, Lord de Lisle, Lord Londesborough, Lord Houghton and Lord John Hay. On the wings of the building were the arms of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh.