George Wombwell

George Wombwell ( born December 24, 1777 Wendon Lofts, Essex, † November 16, 1850 in Northallerton ) was a famous animal acts in the UK and the founder of Wombwell 's Travelling Menagerie, a traveling animal show.

Life and work

George Wombwell left his native town in 1800 and went to London. From 1804 he worked as a shoemaker in Soho. He bought it for £ 75 two Boas, who had landed on a ship from South America in the docks. He put the reptiles from a fee in the taverns. With the profit Wombwell bought more exotic animals in the port of London and put them first in Soho on Old Compton Street to show.

In 1810 he founded Wombwell 's Travelling Menagerie, and they moved all over the country about the year markets. In 1839, he needed already 16 cars to transport its enlarging collection. While the remaining years he increased his company to a total of three traveling menageries. He performed a total of five times at the British royal court, are three times before Queen Victoria. Wombwells animal shows exhibited alongside monkeys not only the big cats species, but also giraffes, elephants and kangaroos; a gorilla and a rhinoceros were also part of his menagerie. His considerable animal losses he marketed by selling the carcasses to taxidermists. Even animal fights had occasionally heard his program until the British government banned these events in 1835.

George Wombwell moved on also even wild animals. So when it grew the first in the UK captive-bred lion approach, which he named in honor of William Wallace Wallace. The animal was dissected after his death and has since been at Saffron Walden Museum. George Wombwell died in 1850; his grave in Highgate close to the final resting place of Karl Marx adorns the sculpture of his favorite tame lion Nero.