Menageries in Britain 1100-2000

Menageries in Britain 1100-2000 traces the history of menageries ('...a collection of wildanimals in cages or enclosures especially one kept for exhibition... inzoological gardens or a travelling show. Also the place…where they are kept…’)in five sections: Royal Menageries, Travelling and Commercial Menageries, PrivateMenageries and Aviaries, Dealers and the Twentieth Century. The book beginswith Royal Menageries and takes its starting point from the first recordedcollection of animals in England, that of Henry I. The history of subsequentroyal collections, held predominantly at the Tower of London, is followed,ending with the Windsor Menagerie being given to the Zoological Society ofLondon after Queen Victoria’s death. Travelling and Commercial Menageries,which started in the Seventeenth Century with the rapid increase in Britain’soverseas trading, developed from sideshows at inns and fairs into the largetravelling animal shows of the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries. They lingered on into the early Twentieth Century, usually associated with circuses. Another form of the Commercial Menagerie, the static, was also very popular inthe Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Wombwell’s, Ballards’s, Polito’s andBostock’s menageries were great public attractions based permanently in London,although they also provided animals for menageries that travelled in the summer. The development of large private menageries, the majority owned by enthusiasticaristocrats, is traced to its peak in the late Nineteenth Century and finisheswith the last example, that of Lord Rothschild, in the early Twentieth Century. The interactions of these private collections and the development of the scienceof Zoology, together with the establishment of scientific collections, are alsoconsidered. The rise of dealers to support the increased interest in animal collectingand their association with the major ports of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuriesis charted, as is their input to animal husbandry and science, particularlyscientific illustration. Many of Thomas Bewick’s wood engravings were made fromstudies of animals in dealers’ as well as travelling menageries.

Thebook concludes with an overview of the Twentieth Century and the changedattitudes to displaying and keeping animals, safari parks and the emphasis on conservationand not merely on entertainment.