George Wombwell Junior: His Obituary

The final George Wombwell junior clipping from the Harold Eldridge family boxfile is his obituary, published on March 3rd 1909, and summarizing his somewhat chequered career:

Mr George Wombwell was found dead in bed on Friday at his residence in Edmonton. Mr Wombwell was the son of Zacharias Wombwell, and was born about 1817. When ten years old he went to live with his uncle, the founder of the famous traveling menagerie.

The original Wombwell died in 1850, and was then the owner of three menageries. One, dispersed in 1872, was left to his widow; another to his niece, afterwards Mrs Edmonds, whose sister was the mother of E.H. Bostock, proprietor of the Scottish Zoo and Glasgow Hippodrome; and the third to his nephew, whose experiences as a showman on his own account were short. His stock was decimated by disease; and from a paragraph in The Times of April 30, 1855, it is clear that what was known as “George Wombwell’s Show” was sold by auction on Friday, April 27, at the Nova Scotia gardens, Hackney – the last place where it was exhibited. Then there were only five vans, and the stock consisted of a jaguar, a leopard and leopardess, a nylgau, a hyena, a jackal, six monkeys, an Alpino wolf, a raccoon, baboon, civet cat, some birds, a Russian bear, and two dogs. Including tilts, banners, paintings and usual paraphernalia, the sale did not realize 200 pounds. Some fear was entertained by Mrs Wombwell and her friends lest her menagerie, with which she was then traveling in Devonshire, should be confounded with that of her nephew, and a letter from “A Son-in-law of Mr Wombwell”, stating the facts of the case, appeared in our issue of May 2, 1855.

In other words, not only did George’s career as an independent menagerist last a mere five years, his companion menagerists and relatives felt compelled to publicly disassociate themselves from his enterprise.

The obituary concludes:

It is generally believed that Mr. George Wombwell exhibited the first gorilla known to have been brought alive to this country as a black chimpanzee. This belief is supported by a categorical statement of Waterton, into whose possession the body undoubtedly passed. Another account makes Mrs. Wombwell the owner of this animal, the skin of which, mounted by Waterton as a grotesque monster, is now at Alston Hall, near Preston. After the dispersal of his stock Mr Wombwell ceased to be a showman, and gained his living as a bandsman till illness and age compelled him to seek the refuge of the infirmary. When his unfortunate case was made public, he was placed in a home by the kindness of Mr E.H. Bostock, whose wishes were carried out by the Rev. T. Horne, chaplain to the Showman’s Guild.

Representation of Jenny the Gorilla. The young gorilla briefly travelled with Wombwell's menagerie.
The gorilla was not kept with the other animals but dressed in
human clothes and had a 'governess' rather than a keeper. This was in 1855.
The life of the extraordinary taxidermist Charles Waterton,
who mounted the gorilla is another tale in itself.
The Rev. T.Horne was an ex-showman himself,
turned priest, who maintained his contacts with the showmen fraternity. 

It is on this melancholy note that the life of George Wombwell junior comes to a ignominious close, dependent finally on family charity through his Bostock relatives, by then running what had become known as the Bostock and Wombwell Travelling Menagerie.