Breeding and Health

The Times obituary of 1850 also reports on the many animal fatalities that occurred in the menagerie:

Wombwell, of late years, had been very successful in breeding, and possessed at the time of his death more than twenty lions and five elephants, in addition to an unrivalled collection of other wild animals. Some time since, and it is the only instance on record, one of his lionesses had a litter of two white cubs.

The proprietors of menageries experience a great loss from disease, mortality, and accident; and Wombwell calculated that he had lost, from first to last, a fortune of at least from 12,000 to 15,000 pounds by mortality among his wild beasts, birds and animals. Not many years since, a fine ostrich, worth 200 pounds, which could have picked crumbs from a ceiling twelve feet high, thrust his bill between the bars of his cage, gave it an unlucky twist, and in attempting to withdraw it literally broke his neck. Monkeys become exceedingly delicate when imported into England. They are soon affected by cold, and when they begin to cough very generally fall into consumption, and exhibit all the symptoms of human beings labouring under the same complaint.

From Shaun Everett's George Wombwell site. Note the date given
for the founding of the menagerie.

For conservationists of the twenty-first century, the Wombwell operation looks on the surface may look like an undiluted horror story of ill-treatment of animals that had been torn from their natural environment to provide some highly profitable titillation of the nineteenth century public. The evidence and data we have however are largely anecdotal. We have little to go on in terms of survival rates or life expectancies. However, it should be noted that for the menagerie business to flourish, the animal stock needed to be looked after properly. It was not in the interest of the likes of George Wombwell to mistreat their stock, or to do anything but than discover the best possible ways of ensuring the health and happiness of their animals. Such skills as were required for this needed to be developed, and investments made accordingly. In their own way, successful menagerists loved and cared for their animals. It made no sense to do otherwise.

When George Wombwell's nephew, George junior inherited Menagerie Number Three from his uncle, we are presented with an object lesson in how ignorance of business realities combined with failure to look after stock properly ended in very short time indeed in bankruptcy and ignominy. George Wombwell senior looked after his business, and as far as was possible in those days and under those conditions, this meant that he had to look after his animals. By extension, he needed to have a hands-on approach to management, and a grasp of detail of his operation from bottom to top. Failure of any links in the chain could lead to disaster.