Mrs Wombwell Takes Charge

To review: By the time the 1851 census was held on 30th March, 1851, George Wombwell junior must have just come into possession of Menagerie Number Three. He was on the road and lodging in Ipswich along with his servant Thomas Burrows from Barbados, who was probably looking after the needs of the pregnant Fanny Eliza Kienlen, whilst himself recovering from being crushed by one of George's elephants.

It does not come as a surprise to record the absence of Thomas Burrows from the 1861 census record, the census in which George, now living at 1 Grove Cottage, Poplar, describes himself as a photographer and artist. Just two years later, Fanny Eliza died, and George was left in charge of Ann Fanny Wombwell, aged just twelve. 

By the time of the 1871 census, George had been reduced to blowing into his cornet in Stockton, Durham, and had married again, to a woman of half his age. Ann Fanny Wombwell, his daughter, was not attending to her father on that day of the 2nd April 1871. Instead, she was in the far more comfortable environs of Belsize Road, Hampstead: 

This record takes us right back into the mainstream of the original menagerie family. Having lost her mother in 1863, and with her father now up north with his new wife, the Wombwell aristocracy, in the person of Mrs Wombwell, partner of the original founder himself, had taken the nineteen-year-old Ann Fanny under their wing. If they had learned anything by now, it was that George junior could not be relied on for very little, least of all care of  elephants, wives, or daughters.