a large exhibition hall, lecture theatre and laboratories, and public attractions included working machines and models, scientific lectures and demonstrations, rides in a diving bell and, from 1839, demonstrations of photography. Prince Albert visited the institution in 1840, when he descended in the diving bell, and became a patron in 1841. The first public photographic portrait studio in Europe opened on the roof of the Polytechnic in March 1841.
In 1847, John Henry Pepper joined the Polytechnic and oversaw the introduction of evening lectures in engineering, applied science and technical subjects for young working Londoners. Pepper wrote several important science education book - one of which is regarded as a significant step towards the understanding of continental drift.
In 1848, a theatre was added to the building, purpose-built to accommodate the growing audiences for the Polytechnic's optical shows. These combined magic lantern images with live performances, music, ghosts and spectres, spreading the fame of what was arguably the world's first permanent projection theatre.
In 1862, inventor Henry Dircks developed the Dircksian Phantasmagoria, where it was seen by Pepper in a booth set up by Dircks at the Polytechnic. Pepper first showed the effect during a scene of Charles Dickens's novella The Haunted Man (1848) at the Regent Street theatre to great success. However, Pepper's implementation of the effect tied his name to it permanently. Though he tried many times to give credit to Dircks, the title "Pepper's ghost" has endured.
Under the chairmanship of Joseph Butterworth Owen, the Royal Polytechnic Institution increased its presence in formal classes for young men traditionally denied the opportunity of higher education in the United Kingdom during the nineteenth century. Expansion gradually gave way to financial difficulty, reflecting a long-standing tension between education and the need to run a successful business. A fatal accident on the premises in 1859 caused the first institution to be wound up …
