and he was allowed to take up his seat. His idea for the Great Globe had been many years in the formulation: a correspondent of Notes and Queries mentioned that as early as 1839, Wyld had broached the subject of a concave globe at a meeting to discuss an earlier giant globe project. Site Wyld had approached the organizing committee of the Great Exhibition with a plan to erect a giant globe within the exhibition hall. Although he presented it as an educational attraction, Wyld's ulterior motive was to use the globe to promote his map-making business. The size of the proposed exhibit and the organizers' decision that no commercial enterprises should use the exhibition as a platform to sell their goods or services led to the rejection of Wyld's plan. Undaunted, Wyld began to search for an alternate location for his project; the reason later given for not building within the Crystal Palace was purely the lack of space rather than any rejection by the organizing committee of the commercial aspect of the project. An article in The Builder on 30 November 1850 mentioned that negotiations were already underway to secure the gardens of Leicester Square. Described in Charles Dickens' Household Words as a "howling desert", the gardens were at that time an insalubrious area, "with broken railings, a receptacle for dead cats and every kind of abomination" and a meeting place for "ne'er well-to-do youths". Leicester Square had been Prince Albert's initial choice as a site for the Great Exhibition building, but the site was quickly dismissed as too small. Wyld made an agreement with the owner of the gardens, Pheobe Moxhay, to acquire the freehold for £3,000, but the Tulk family, who owned the buildings on three sides of the square and already had a judgement against Moxhay's late husband, Edward Moxhay, would have been able to prevent Wyld building. They used this hold over him to negotiate a favourable deal for themselves: they would allow Wyld to use the land for ten years from 25 April 1851, after which he would remove any buildings that he had erected within six months, and each branch of the Tulk family would have a one-year option to buy half the land for £500. Although Wyld and the Tulks attempted to negotiate with the owner of the buildings on the north side of the square, Henry Webb, they were not