Abstract
In September 1823, an anonymous correspondent addressed a letter to the editor of the Morning Chronicle emphasising the urgent need for a zoological garden in London. The correspondent, who gave his initials as ‘C.T.’, hoped that his letter would draw public attention to ‘a subject which other nations have not thought beneath their notice’. A national zoological collection, C.T. explained, would be of benefit to Britain, both socially and scientifically, and would raise its international image. Now, moreover, was an ideal moment to found a zoo, since a project of this nature was well suited to ‘these times of peace and general improvement’.
Is it not strange that one of the coldest animals in the Zoological Gardens is the otter? (Ipswich Journal, 11 February 1837)
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Notes
William Bullock, A Concise and Easy Method of Preserving Objects of Natural History (London, 1818), p.35. For a more detailed account on Bullock’s display techniques see Susan Pearce, ‘William Bullock: Collections and Exhibitions at the Egyptian Hall, London, 1816–25’, Journal of the History of Collections 21:1 (2008), pp.17–35.
For a detailed discussion of the aims, membership and divisions within the Zoological Society in the 1820s, see Adrian Desmond, ‘The Making of Institutional Zoology in London, Part II’, History of Science 23:3 (1985), pp.153–185.
Punch, 31 August 1850; The Northern Star and National Trades’ Journal, 17 August 1850; Louis Saint Mars, The Hippopotamus Polka (London: Charles Jefferys, 1851).
Bell’s Life in London, 25 August 1850. For an analysis of the hippopotamus’s reception see Andrew Flack, ‘“The Illustrious Stranger”: Hippomania and the Nature of the Exotic’, Anthrozoos 26:1 (2013), pp.43–59.
Robert Jones, ‘“The Sight of Creatures Strange to our Clime”: London Zoo and the Consumption of the Exotic’, Journal of Victorian Culture 2:1 (1997), pp.5–6.
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© 2014 Helen Cowie
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Cowie, H. (2014). The Lions of London. In: Exhibiting Animals in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137384447_2
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