Victoriansshow how it's done

It was a mere footnote to last week's appointment of the eminent engineer Sir Denis Rooke to the Order of Merit: Sir Denis, it emerged, is also chairman of the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition of 1851, writes Mark Rowe.

Few people had even heard of the Commission's existence until the announcement. But, 146 years after the great Victorian Hyde Park exhibition, it is still going strong - and provides a timely example to those building the Millennium Dome of how to make a project successful in the long term.

Thanks to a tidy profit from the 1851 exhibition and subsequent wise investments, Britain's oldest royal commission now has assets of around pounds 25m and spends up to pounds 1m a year on educational grants.

The Commission, set up in 1850, is now based in an office at London's Imperial College. It is staffed by just three people: secretary Rear Admiral Patrick Middleton, his assistant and a part-time accountant. The modest office displays little of the grandeur and prestige of the Commission's history.

The key to the Commission's success is that the Crystal Palace of 1851 made a profit of pounds 186,000, equivalent to some pounds 8m in today's money. "It's not such a surprise," said Rear Admiral Middleton. "It was a trade show and Victorian manufacturing was at the height of its powers."

The original exhibition building was moved to south London - where both the structure and the surrounding area became known as Crystal Palace - but burnt down in 1936. Meanwhile, the Royal Commission for the Great Exhibition needed to look no further than its own doorstep to secure its future.

"The great thing is that the Commission used the profit and a bit borrowed from the Government to buy 86 acres of farmland in South Kensington," said Rear Admiral Middleton. The Commission enabled the land to be used as the site for Britain's grandest buildings: the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Victoria and Albert, the Royal Academy of Music and Imperial College.

Most of the land deeds have been handed back to the Government, but the Commission still owns 100 red-brick flats in South Kensington, which provide an annual income of around pounds 340,000. "The other money has been invested wisely," said Rear Admiral Middleton. The Commission awards up to 20 fellowships every year, worth around pounds 15,000 each, "to enable researchers to study their incredibly obscure subjects".

Rear Admiral Middleton feels there is one lesson those planning the Millennium Exhibition could draw from 1851. "It may be a bit late now, but in 1851 the organisers knew what they wanted to put in the building before they built it. That doesn't seem to have been the case this time."