People's Palace, an institution at Mile End Road, intended as a centre for amusement and recreation, and of association as well, for the inhabitants of the East End of London. It comprises a large hall, technical schools, art-galleries, concert-rooms, a library, reading and recreation rooms, swimming-bath, gymnasium, &c. It is the revival and development of an idea of the Beaumont Philosophical Institute; but the idea was first amplified and made really popular in Mr Besant's novel, All Sorts and Conditions of Men (1882). The buildings were inaugurated by the Queen, May 14, 1887, and work was begun on 3d October. The Queen's Hall, which is 130 feet long by 75 feet wide, can seat 2500 people. Around the hall are the statues of twenty-two queens, and a large organ at the north end. The technical and handicraft schools in 1890 were attended by 5000 pupils; they owe their foundation to the Drapers' Company of London, which has contributed in all about £60,000 to the People's Palace. Cheap concerts, at from 1d. to 3d. admission, have been well patronised, as also the picture exhibitions, swimming-bath, gymnasium, and dances. The evening classes attracted in 1898 an attendance of 950, for such subjects as elocution, physiology, drawing, machine construction, bookbinding, and tailors' cutting.
See Besant's All Sorts and Conditions of Men; Sir E. Hay Currie's Working of the People's Palace; Nineteenth Century, February, 1890; Century, June 1890.