Charles Jamrach

Charles Jamrach originally set up business in the East of London at 164 Ratcliffe Highway. When he died in 1891, he left over 7000 pounds to his son Albert who continued to run the exotic animal business until 1919, when it closed down finally, presumably at least partially due to the damage done to the trade by the First World War.

Jamrach himself was born in Hamburg in 1815, and it was from there that the family brought their business to London and turned it into an emporium that was to be the main supplier of zoos, menageries, and circuses in the UK. The London operation had three premises, including a bird shop and museum on the Ratcliffe Highway, a menagerie in Betts street, and a warehouse in Old Gravel Lane.

Jamrach feeding his animals.  A daughter of Charles Jamrach was to marry into a branch of the Wombwell family.

Employing agents across the UK and abroad, Jamrach sought to corner the market for exotic wildlife imports, which could then be sold on to the likes of the Wombwells, and later, it would seem, also be used as raw material for wild animal themed furniture, or what became known as Wardian furniture. To exemplify, one later commentator advised that elephants' feet 'make fine footstools, liquor stands, or, if cut long in the leg, umbrella stands'.

Jamrach’s own version of the Bengal Tiger story was actually published in ‘The Boys’ Own Paper’ in 1879. In Jamrach’s version, the purchaser was not George Wombwell junior, but Mr Edmonds of the Wombwell Menagerie, and relative of George. This would have been James Edmonds, husband of Harriett Wombwell (note: not the Harriett Wombwell who was the daughter of Maria West) who had inherited from the original George, Menagerie Number Two. This would not of course though preclude George junior’s involvement in the transaction. 

It should be said though that distinguishing fact from fiction in the Wombwell story is a fool’s errand. Theirs was an operation that could have taken out a patent for Chinese whispers.

But here are Jamrach's own final words on the Bengal Tiger incident, together with some masterly comments from the presiding Judge, who had nothing but praise for the charismatic Jamrach for saving the boy's life, regardless of the minor detail that it was he who had been responsible for endangering it in the first place.  

The boy was taken to the hospital, but with the exception of a fright and a scratch, was very little hurt. I lost no time in making inquiry about him, and finding where his father was, I offered him £50 as some compensation for the alarm he had sustained. Nevertheless, the father, a tailor, brought an action against me for damages, and I had to pay £300, of which he had £60, and the lawyers the remaining £240. Of two counsel I employed, only one appeared ; the other, however, stuck to his fee right enough. At the trial the judge sympathised very much with me, saying that, instead of being made to pay, I ought to have been rewarded for saving the life of the boy, and perhaps that of a lot of other people. He, however, had to administer the law as he found it, and I was responsible for any dangerous consequences brought about in my business. He suggested, however, as there was not much hurt done to the boy, to put down the damages as low as possible. The jury named £50, the sum I had originally offered to the boy's father of my own good will. The costs were four times that amount. I was fortunate, however, to find a purchaser for my tiger a few days after the accident ; for Mr. Edmonds, proprietor of Wombwell's Menagerie, having read the report in the papers, came up to town post haste, and paid me £300 for the tiger. He exhibited him as the tiger that swallowed the child, and by all accounts made a small fortune with him.

All in all, quite an interesting little illustration of mid-Victorian values in action.