From Bad to Worse

In reporting his run of bad luck to the Daily Mail in 1897, there were one or two minor details that George Wombwell junior omitted to mention about the events surrounding the sale of Menagerie Number Three in Novia Scotia Gardens.

The auctioning off the menagerie for a ‘trifle’ as the Standard Newspaper reported on April 28th, 1855, did not in any way alleviate George’s financial problems. By now his debts must have been significant indeed, and his creditors were homing in.

On June 18th 1855, The Gazette, as it was accustomed to doing, published a full list of court decisions relating to the insolvent. The relevant portions for our purposes read as follows:

COURT FOR RELIEF OF INSOLVENT DEBTORS. The 18th day of June, 1855. ORDERS have been made, vesting in the Provisional Assignee the Estates and Effects of the following Persons:

George Wombwell, late residing in a travelling van, within a yard adjacent to Cremorne Gardens, Chelsea, Middlesex, Feeder to a Menagerie of Trained Animals – In the Debtors Prison for London and Middlesex.

'Relief' in mid-nineteenth century judicial practice apparently comprised a stay in the London and Middlesex Debtors' prison, or Whitecross Prison as it was more commonly known. And that is where George Wombwell junior now found himself.

The images below are 1843 illustrations of Whitecross Prison from the Getty Collection.

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