Bankruptcy Proceedings

It seems then that George Wombwell junior was now to languish at the pleasure of a majesty who not a decade earlier had hosted him at Windsor Castle. His involuntary stay at Whitecross Prison may not have been too protracted though, for the Gazette recorded the date of his court appearance as July 30th, 1855, less than a couple of months after his initial incarceration: 

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/21745/page/2730/data.pdf

There is no information as to what happened next. But, at a guess, those Wombwells who were still very much engaged in operating two major menageries cannot have been thrilled with the fact that the namesake and nephew of the extremely famous founder of the menagerie was now generating extremely unfavourable publicity as an indigent and bankrupt.  It would have made sound business sense, as well as showing extended family loyalty to bail him out, and put his skills and experience into play as an employee in their own enterprises.

It is not altogether surprising that this humiliating sequence of events did not emerge in the Daily Mail reportage of 1897. Poor George Wombwell junior was a wounded man, and there were certain things that he very much preferred to keep to himself.