ANIMALS

 

See Also: ANIMAL WELFARE; THE ARMY Hyde Park Barracks, Jacko; BEARS; BIRDS; A BOAT GOAT OF NOTE; CATS; DOGS; ELEPHANTS; HORSES; LIONS; MUSEUMS The Natural History Museum; PEOPLES & CULTURES The French, South Kensington, Lupine Dispatch; SQUIRRELS; TAXIDERMY; WHALES; WOMBATS; ZOOS; MENU

 

Aquaria

    The natural history that was practised within the Abbey's precincts during the Buckland era had a lasting impact upon the way in which people view some varieties of animals. However, while the dean may have helped to engender the environment for this advance, it was not he who made it.

    Anna Thynne was married to a Sub-Dean of Westminster Abbey. In 1846, while she was on holiday in Torquay, she collected some tentacled madrepores. She transported these back to her home in the precincts where she kept them in glass tanks. Through her efforts to keep them alive, she created, through a process of trial and error, the first artificial marine environment in Britain. Her success was such that the coral bred. In the spring of 1849 her drawing room received numerous natural historians who wished to inspect her achievement. As a result, aquaria became a craze among middle-class Victorians. They remain popular to this day throughout the world.¹

    Location: The Sanctuary, Westminster Precincts, SW1P 3PA (purple, yellow)

    See Also: THE CANNIBAL DEAN; GARDENS & PLANTS Orchids; GARDENS & PLANTS The Wardian Case; LAVATORIES Public Lavatories, Aquaria

¹. The Royal Aquarium (1876) was a palace of entertainment that opened on the other side of Broad Sanctuary from the Abbey. In part, its name may have been inspired by Mrs Thynne's achievement.

 

Cattle

    Cattle Markets

    See Also: FAIRS The May Fair; FAIRS St Bartholomew's Fair

   

Caledonian Market

    The Smithfield livestock market moved to Copenhagen Fields, a 30-acre site in Islington. This lay close to the goods yards of the Great North Eastern Railway and the North London Railway. The Fields were presided over by a clock tower.

    On the days when cattle were not being sold a general market operated. This became known as the Caledonian Market because of its proximity to the adjacent Caledonian Road. With time, the upstart mart became focused on second-hand goods and antiques. During the Second World War both markets were closed. After the war the market authorities permitted only the live cattle one to resume. Many of the antique dealers moved to Bermondsey, where the New Caledonian Market took place in Bermondsey Street. Others migrated to Portobello Road.

    In 1963 Caledonian Market closed. Part of the site had council housing built on it. The rest became a park and sports pitches.

    Location: Market Road, N7 9PW

    See Also: MEAT Smithfield Market; PORTOBELLO MARKET; STREET MARKETS Bermondsey Market

 

Foxes

    People irresponsible about disposing of food waste and unwanted food, therefore, rats and mice, therefore foxes.

    Railways lines provide a highway through the suburbs into the inner city.

    Cubs, especially before their snouts extend out, are adorable. Can be friendly and curious about people and domestic pets.

    Urban foxes larger, grey and die younger than rural ones.

    Became commonplace at the start of 21^stC. Vile sounds of calls. Can sometimes be seen in daylight.

    Scene of a couple of foxes dozing on grass cuttings: warmth of the Sun, their bodies against one another, and the grass decomposing beneath them.

    In 2008 the British fox population was estimated to be 240,000 adult foxes with 425,000 cubs being born annually. 425,000 foxes died each year, 75,000 being killed by gamekeepers. When fox hunting had been killed it had accounted for a further 16,000.

    In 2017 there were estimated to be eighteen foxes living in every square kilometre of London. This was a far higher density than in the countryside.

    Alpacas

    Alpacas are inclined to attack foxes

    In 2008 it was reported that the Prince of Wales had acquired four alpacas to protect his sheep on his Duchy Home Farm estate in Gloucestershire.

    See Also: RAILWAYS Wrong Kind Of

    Website: https://bas-uk.com (The British Alpaca Society)

 

Hamsters

    A Splenetic Dynasty

    Many of the Allied troops who served in southern Italy became afflicted by leishmaniasis, a parasitical disease that attacks the liver and the spleen.¹ The Wellcome Laboratories of Tropical Medicine assigned the protozoologist Leonard Goodwin (1915-2008) to work upon the problem.

    The researcher identified a drug that he thought might be able to treat the condition. However, before it could be used he needed to ascertain its chemotherapeutic index. Therefore, he needed hamster spleens that could be infected with the parasite. However, the European hamster had developed resistance to it.

    Goodwin had a colleague, who was based in Jerusalem. He asked him to send a pair of Syrian hamsters. These proved to be susceptible to the disease. Therefore, they were of use to the research programme. The pair became the ancestors of nearly all of the hamsters that were subsequently kept as pets.²

    Location: The Wellcome Laboratories, 215 Euston Road, NW1 2BE (red, blue)

¹. Also known as Delhi boils.

². There is a modern saw that men love women, women love children, children love hamsters, and hamsters love to sleep.

    Mr Starr's Diet

    Freddie Starr (1943-2019) was a Liverpudlian. In the 1960s he tried to become a pop musician but never became successful. He then became a comedian. He developed a manic stage-act that involved him doing manic impersonations of the likes of Elvis Presley, Max Wall, and Adolf Hitler (his mother was German Jewish). Much of his popular appeal lay in the possibility that he might go too far , however, within the entertainment he acquired a reputation for being mercurial. In 1980 he was sidelined from London Weekend Television s Variety Madhouse.

    In the early 1980s he consumed large quantities of cocaine and Valium.

    In 1986 the model Lea La Salle claimed that one night Starr had demanded that she cook some food for him, she had declined to do so and that he had then put her hamster Supersonic in a sandwich and eaten it. In fact, the comedian had been a vegetarian since childhood.

    In 2019 Starr died. The Sun newspaper's front page bore the headline Freddie Starr Joins His Hamster.

 

Hedgehog

    The muscle that creates a frown in humans in hedgehogs enables them to roll up into a ball.

 

Insects

    Bees

    In The Hound of The Baskevilles (1902), Conan Doyle made the villain an entomologist. However, in retirement he had Holmes write A Practical Handbook of Bee Culture, With Some Observations Upon The Segregation of The Queen.

   

The London Beekeepers Association

    London has flowers for far longer than the rest of the U.K.. Therefore, bees can collect for longer periods.

    Website: www.lbka.org.uk

   

North London Beekeepers

    North London Beekeepers's members reside in Islington, Camden, Haringer, Hackney, Westminster, and parts of Brent and South Barnet

    Website: www.beekeeping.org.uk

   

Urban Bees

    Website: www.urbanbees.co.uk

    Butterfly

    In 2007 it was reported that the Syon House was moving out of London. It moved to Lincolnshire.

    In 2011 a butterfly dome opened in Clissold Park.

    Location: Clissold Park, Green Lanes, N16 9HJ

    Website: https://clissold.com/facilities

   

Pannonica Rothschild

    Pannonica Rothschild spent most of adult life as a patron of New York City's jazz scene.¹ Her forename derived from the winged insect Mylabris pannonica, which was one of seven million specimens that her father and her uncle collected. She liked to claim that she had been named after a butterfly. However, her relatives were of the view that butterflies were moths with good P.R..

¹. Charlie Parker died in her hotel room.

    Mosquitoes

    It has been claimed that the mosquitoes that live in the Underground system have evolved into a new species. However, the weight of scientific opinion is that it is a form of Culex pipiens.

    Organisations

   

The Entomological Club

    The Entomological Club is the world's oldest entomological society. It restricts its membership at any one time to eight people.

    Website: http://entomologicalclub.org

   

The Royal Entomological Society

    The Royal Entomological Society. It was founded in 1933.

    Website: www.royensoc.co.uk

 

The Ludgate Hill Rhinoceros

    In 1684 a rhinoceros was imported into England. She was sold at auction for 2320. However, the bidder failed to produce the money. She was put on display at The Belle Savage Inn on Ludgate Hill.

    Location: 50 Ludgate Hill, EC4M 7JZ (orange, pink)

 

Rats

    Location: The island in Paddington Broadwater is reputed to have been known as Rat Island, W9 2PF.

    See Also: FOLK TRADITIONS Urban Legends, Shape-Shifting Rat

 

Snakes

    There is a colony of aesculapian snakes that live along The Regent's Canal. They are non-venomous. The largest animal that they can strangle is a rat.

    Location: Avenue Road, NW8 7PT (blue, red)

 

The Thames

    See Also: SUPPLIERS TO THE COUNTTHE THAMES

    Otter

    In 2006 a dead otter was found in the Thames at Wapping. This was hailed as being indicative of the degree to which the river's water quality had improved since the 1960s.

    See Also: CHILDREN's LITERATURE Gavin Maxwell; CHILDREN's LITERATURE Henry Williamson; PIRACY Execution Dock

    Website: www.cardiff.ac.uk/otter-project (Cardiff School of Biosciences Otter Project)

    Seahorses

    In 2008 the Zoological Society of London announced that colonies of short-snouted seahorse had been found in the Thames estuary.

    Seals

    Seals were hunted for their skins. In 1914 they became the first British mammal to be legally protected.

    At any given time several hundred grey seals and harbour seals live in the Thames estuary.

    In 1995 a grey seal was netted in the Thames at Petersham, Surrey, which is towards Greater London's western edge. Others have been seen in the river since.

 

Tortoise

    Archbishop Laud's tortoise was accidentally killed by a gardener in 1753. The animal was 120-years-old.

    Location: Lambeth Palace, Lambeth Palace Road, SE1 7JU (red, brown)

 

What Would You Do If?

    As a child, the future primatologist Jane Goodall was fascinated by animals. Through watching Tarzan movies and other influences, she developed a desire to work with them in Africa. Her mother did not try to dissuade her from this wish. Goodall chose not to go to university. Instead, she took a succession of jobs to earn money so that she could fulfil her intention.

    She made her way to Tanganyika. There, she met the palaeontologist Louis Leakey. Having assessed her abilities, he offered her a position as a primate researcher. The authorities refused to allow her to start her study unless she was chaperoned. Her mother went out and assumed the role. Mrs Goodall spent her time aiding the human communities in the area where her daughter was working. After a while, it was appreciated that the mother did not need to be present for the daughter to be able to do her research in safety. Mrs Goodall returned to London.

    Many years later, a complacent journalist asked the then 93-year-old Mrs Goodall whether she was proud of her daughter's achievements. With a mischievous glint in her eyes, the old lady replied What would you do if I said No!?

David Backhouse 2024