Jamrach and the Bengal Tiger

As George Wombwell junior lurched from one loss to the next, and his animals fell victim to fire, snow, and disease, for a while it would seem from his account to the Daily Mail, that he simply and expensively replenished his stock, including according to his own account from that doyen of animal suppliers, Charles Jamrach.

The most famous story concerning Jamrach dates back to 26 October 1858 and the escape of a Bengal tiger from the London docks while en route to Jamrach’s shop. Most intelligent observers on that day, unused to seeing Bengal tigers strolling down the Ratcliff Road quickly chose to make themselves scarce, with the exception of one astonished and slightly less intelligent eight-year old boy who was intrigued enough to try and make a closer acquaintance. 

The story is continued on Geri Walton’s Blog: 

The boy’s stroke was returned with a playful tap. That tap “knocked the child upon his face stunned; and, picking him up by the loose part of the jacket” the animal was proceeding up the road with the boy when Jamrach discovered the tiger’s escape and sprang upon it. Jamrach was a powerful man and attacked the tiger from behind. He grasped its “throat with both hands, [and] drove his thumbs into the soft place behind the jaw,” which caused the tiger to choke and loosen its hold, letting the boy fall. Jamrach also delivered several heavy blows with a crowbar, which “cowed the great beast, who turned tail and meekly trotted back … into the lair prepared for him.”

Once Jamrach had paid off a handsome £50 to the boy’s family for damages, he did not take long to find a willing buyer for the tiger. Geri Walton reports that George Wombwell junior then paid £300 for the beast, and in true Wombwell style it went on tour advertised as “the tiger that had eaten a boy alive in Ratcliff-highway.” 

A likely story! Jamrach fighting the tiger. 

There was no such thing as bad publicity in the menagerie business, and never any need to stick to the literal truth. The episode of the escaped Bengal tiger is by no means unique, and it is an open question as to what extent such dramas were deliberately manufactured to create publicity. In the end however, the menagerie had acquired at no small expense, a highly dangerous predatory cat. Charles Jamrach on the other hand had turned over a profit of £250 and will not have been sorry, it may be taken, to see the tiger in question to depart with its new owner.

As for George Wombwell junior, if he were involved in the purchase, it was not for his own menagerie, and it suggests that after his bankruptcy he sought employment with those relatives who had inherited the other parts of the original menagerie, after the death of his uncle in 1850.