Thomas Pitt Robinson

The Naval Biographical Dictionary has the following to say about Thomas Pitt Robinson, who certainly did fight at the Battle of Trafalgar:

Thomas Pitt Robinson, born 19 June, 1792, is only son of the late Mark Robinson, Esq., Admiral of the White; [1] grandson of the late Rear-Admiral Mark Robinson;[2] nephew of the present Commander Chas. Robinson, R.N.; and first-cousin of Capt. Chas. Robinson Miller, R.M., and First-Lieut. Henry Miller, R.M., sons of the late Major-General John Miller, R.M.

This officer entered the Navy, in 1804, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Swiftsure 74, commanded by his father, at first as flag-ship to Sir John Orde off Cadiz, and afterwards as part of the Mediterranean fleet under Lord Nelson. In May, 1805, he removed with his father, in the capacity of Midshipman, to the Royal Sovereign 100; in which ship, commanded also by Capts. John Conn, Edw. Rotherara, and Fras. Pender, he fought under the flag of Vice-Admiral Collingwood in the action off Cape Trafalgar, 21 Oct. 1805. From March, 1806, until July, 1811, he was actively employed off Cadiz and in various parts of the Mediterranean in the Ocean 98, Capt. F. Pender, Queen 98, bearing the flag of Rear-Admirals John Child Purvis, John Knight, and Geo. Martin, and Success 32, Capt. John Ayscough. While attached to the Success he was often engaged with the enemy on the coast of Italy, served in the boats at the capture of several privateers, assisted at the reduction of the islands of Ischia and Procida, and contributed to the defence of Sicily when threatened with an invasion by Joachim Murat at the head of 40,000 troops. 

The day after Trafalgar, the Victory under canvas endeavouring to clear the land, the Royal Sovereign disabled and in tow by the Euryalus, in the collection of the National Maritime Museum; Nicholas Pocock; 19th century. Copied from the Wikipedia entry for the ship.

On 12 Feb. 1812, a few weeks after he had joined, on promotion, the Dragon 74, bearing the flag of Sir Fras. Laforey in the West Indies, he was nominated Acting-Lieutenant of that ship. He was confirmed, 21 March, 1812, into the Peruvian 18, Capts. Dickinson and Amos Freeman Westropp, also in the West Indies, whence he returned in the following Aug.; and he was subsequently appointed – 16 Oct. 1813 and 22 Sept. 1815, to the Tigris36, Capt. Robt. Henderson, and Tonnant 80, flag-ship of Sir Benj. Hallowell, both on the Irish station, where he remained until paid off in Nov. 1818 – and 14 Oct. 1825, as Second-Lieutenant, to the Genoa 74, Capts. Walter Bathurst and Hon. Chas. Leonard Irby. In the latter ship, which was put out of commission in Dec. 1827, he served on the Lisbon station, and enacted a part at the battle of Navarin. 

In consideration of the “long, active, and faithful services” of his father and grandfather, he was advanced, 26 Aug. 1828, to the rank of Commander. His last appointment was to the Coast Guard, in which he remained from 29 March, 1837, until April, 1840.

Commander Robinson married, 23 April, 1818, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of the late Capt. Thos. Andrews, of H.M. 84th Regt.

This entry also helpfully confirms that Mark Robinson junior had a brother, also in naval service, named Charles Robinson, who is not, it should be immediately added, to be confused with the Charles Robinson who married Harriett Wombwell, or indeed his mariner father and namesake.

The Will of Charles Robinson senior

The purchaser of  the Morning Advertiser newspaper of 1794, and indeed the Trafalgar newspaper of 1805 was most likely the father of Charles John Robinson, Charles Robinson senior, mariner of Farmer Street, Shadwell, and husband, very possibly, of Mary Powell.

It is a shame that more cannot be unearthed about him that might categorically prove why his family kept these two particular newspapers.

There is however an extant will dated 31st December, 1807  for a Charles Robinson of Ratcliffe Highway, off which Farmer Street branched. The will was made 'considering the perils and dangers of the seas and other dangers of this transitory life' and in the will Charles simply left all his worldly goods and possessions to his beloved wife, Mary. The will was proved just a few days later, meaning that Charles must have composed it on his death bed, and it comes accompanied by a corroborating statement from an acquaintance referring to Charles as a master mariner and owner of a merchant ship. The excerpt below appears to name the ship concerned, in the third line, should anyone be able to make it out:

  
If this should be the father of Charles John Robinson, he was then a man with enough means to have become owner of his own ship, and enough expertise to captain it, and therefore quite credibly related to other Robinson mariners in the Royal Navy. 

Captain Mark Robinson Junior

The copy of the 1805 Times was not however the only old newspaper taking up space in Harold Eldridge’s boxfile. There was also an original copy of the Morning Advertiser for Saturday February 8th, 1794. 

Scouring this newspaper for items of family significance revealed only the following short item of news for February 6th in Portsmouth:

Sailed out of harbour, the Niger of 32 guns, Captain Legge, and Brilliant, of 28 guns, Captain Robinson, to Spithead.

This was Captain Mark Robinson (1754-1834). The obituary of Mark tells us that:

From the 1799 Naval Chronicle

Admiral Mark Robinson attained the rank of Commander prior to the conclusion of the first American war; and after serving in that capacity on board the Trimmersloop was advanced to Post-rank 21 Sept. 1790. He commanded the Brilliant frigate at the reduction of Calvi, in Corsica, in 1794; the Arethusa 38, in Sir John Borlase Warren’s expedition against Quiberon in 1795; the Swiftsure 74, alluded to in our Memoir of his son; the Royal Sovereign 100, as Flag-Captain to Sir Rich. Bickerton in the Mediterranean during Lord Nelson’s pursuit of the combined squadrons to the West Indies; and subsequently the Gibraltar 80. He became a Rear-Admiral 28 April, 1808, a Vice-Admiral 12 Aug. 1818, and a full Admiral 27 May, 1825. He died 21 Feb. 1834, at Freshfield, near Bath, aged 80.

It was at Calvi in August 1794, that Nelson was to lose one of his eyes. Mark meanwhile, as the obituary reports, had an illustrious career which ended with his appointment as a full admiral. He had just one son, Thomas Pitt Robinson.

Was this then, a relative of the Robinsons of Farmer Street, Shadwell, and that brief snippet of information in the Morning Advertiser the reason the paper was so carefully folded up and kept?

The Trafalgar Roll

The Trafalgar Roll lists a quite extraordinary seventy-six Robinsons who were engaged in the battle. Working through this list, the involvement of either Charles senior or junior can be discounted. The most likely candidate for a relative involved in the battle is a James Robinson, since:

• A son of William and Eleanor Robinson (note that Charles senior and Mary named one of their children, Eleanor) named James was born in Shadwell in 1788. 
• A boatswain named James Robinson was on HMS Minotaur aged sixteen during the battle.
• The same James Robinson is listed as one of the wounded on the front page of the Times Newspaper that was kept by the family.


If this is correct, the reason for the family so carefully archiving the newspaper would be explained, and James - son of William Robinson and Eleanor - would probably be a close Shadwell cousin of Charles John Robinson.

The Minotaur

The Minotaur was captained in the Trafalgar engagement by a Captain Mansfield and along with the Spartiate helped defend the badly damaged HMS Victory, and fend off the enemy counter-attack, capturing in the process the Spanish ship Neptuno. Twenty of the Minotaur crew were wounded, including James Robinson, and three others lost their lives. 

There was also a Richard Robinson on the very same ship, aged thirty-one and also from London. It is not inconceivable that James and Richard might also have been related, and that there were therefore, not one, but actually two members of the Robinson family fending off Napoleonic attentions during the course of that famous battle.

Robinsons and Powells

All we really know for certain of the father of Charles, Charles Robinson senior and his wife, Mary is that they had at least four children born in Farmer Street, Shadwell. These four children were:

i. Charles John Robinson (1790-1868)
ii. Mary Robinson (1792-????)
iii. John Robinson (1794-????)
iv. Eleanor Robinson (1796-????)

It should be noted though that Charles John Robinson and Harriett Wombwell were to name their second son, George Powell Robinson. Now although Eleanor, their daughter, was to subsequently marry a George Powell in 1818, and George may have been named after him, this would have been quite contrary to the normal naming conventions of the time, in which the second son was named after the maternal grandfather. 

We will entertain the possibility therefore that Mary was in fact Mary Powell, and, again, following the common naming convention, the daughter of a George Powell. The baptism of a Mary Powell, daughter of George Powell and Mary in St. Leonard's Shoreditch in 1769 seems to fit this bill quite closely.

St Leonard's, Shoreditch. From:
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol8/plate-10

As for Eleanor, she may therefore in turn have married a first cousin from the Powell line. There is some limited evidence to back this up from the 1841 census for Upper Mile End Old Town, where Eleanor Powell, as she was then called, was living with three daughters, Ellen, aged around 20, and Mary Ann and Georgiana, aged around 15. Also together with the Powells was a Mary Robinson, aged around 70, and therefore the perfect age to be the husband of Charles, and mother of Charles John Robinson. 

An Interesting Choice of Church

The venue chosen for the wedding of Charles Robinson and Harriett Wombwell is in itself a slightly curious one, since it took the couple outside their normal frames of reference in Shadwell and Stoke Newington, and into the City of London itself. St Mary’s Abchurch was designed by Christopher Wren and looks like it was a somewhat more prestigious location for the marriage than might have been expected. 

Perhaps, as indicated before, Charles Robinson had a slightly better pedigree than we have assumed. But perhaps also, given that he was to present himself to the presiding officials as a widower, he thought it advisable to put a little distance between the wedding and the West India Docks, where the happy occasion might just have come to the attention of those who were aware of the real story. 

The church itself has not changed very much from the day the couple married, requiring only some minor reconstruction from the Second World War, when Hitler inconsiderately chose to blow out the windows.

Charles Robinson 'Remarries'

Resuming his career in Docklands, Charles Robinson must have somehow come into contact with one or other of the Wombwell clan. 

George Wombwell would certainly have hired agents in the shipping community to locate wildlife specimens, and perhaps Charles was prepared to conduct some discreet freelancing on his behalf. Or he may have more simply been purchasing goods from Richard Wombwell’s chandler’s and grocer's shop. In either case, acting on the basis that Mary Weston was either dead or at least by rights should be bloody well dead, he thought it reasonable, regardless of legal niceties, to remarry, and to pronounce himself officially as a 'widower'. 

The Great-grandparents of Hetty Jane Owen. Note the alternate spelling ‘Robenson’ that the family sometimes used at this time, and the presence of Harriett’s elder sister, Sophia Wombwell.

And so, on the 25th of February, 1824, with both Sophia Wombwell and Richard Wombwell as witnesses, he married Harriett Wombwell at St. Mary Abchurch, just off Cannon Street. It may be assumed that Maria West, Harriett's mother was also in attendance.

The Slave Trade Bites Back?

The next adventure of Charles Robinson has already been mentioned earlier in this tale, and comes, as we know, in two different versions. The first, as reported to the London courts in 1865, was that on his return from France, Charles could find no trace of his wife, Mary Weston, and from then on presumed her dead, a presumption that the presiding judge apparently found rather reasonable.

The second version - from Blackwood, reports that Charles found that Mary in his absence had acquired ‘three dark children’, - ‘whereupon he left her, and never more heard of her’. 

Or to put it another way, he decided that it would be entirely fitting to treat her as if she were dead and to act accordingly. Having endured five years of confinement in France, to then discover that his wife had lost little time in entering a new relationship that broke new boundaries in contemporary attitudes to race, culture and colour – well, let’s just say it can have done nothing for his general temper and mood. Thus it was that the slave trade took a gentle but none too pleasant revenge on Charles, for there must be every chance that Mary Weston had taken up with one of the recently freed slaves from the West India Dock trade. 

Map of Shadwell with Farmer Street at the top right. St. George in the East at the top was the birthplace of Harriett Wombwell. George Wombwell junior’s first marriage took place at the New Gravel Pit Meeting House, Paradise Fields, close to to New Gravel Lane (running parallel to Farmer Street) 

Imprisonment in France

The experiences of the English prisoners in Napoleon’s France have been discussed at length by J. David Markham. According to Markham, captured merchant seamen occupied a kind of middle ground in the hierarchy. One such seaman, like Charles Robinson, a ‘master’, went by the name of Bussell: 

As Master of a ship, Bussell was given substantially more freedom of movement and of sleeping arrangements than common prisoners of war were afforded. He was often allowed to live in the town near whatever prison he was assigned…As Bussell traveled to various locations, usually on foot with a cart for luggage or infirm men, he was often able to buy his way into more private quarters and better beds. While he had some of his own money with him, the French also paid him a certain amount of “marching” money. Later, when he was staying at more permanent locations, he, like many British prisoners, was sent money from Lloyds Patriotic Fund, which was funded in England by subscription. He was able to use this money for better lodgings, improved food, and wine… While Bussell was often kept apart from the prisons, he was sometimes required to stay within their confines. While so confined, he tells of very poor conditions, of extreme cold, and lack of provisions. 

This at least gives some flavour of the life of Charles Robinson until he was finally able to return to England in 1814.

Charles Robinson was to marry Harriett Wombwell here after his return From from France

The Slave Trade

The Royal Museum of Greenwich website reports that:

Between 1662 and 1807 British and British colonial ships purchased an estimated 3,415,500 Africans. Of this number, 2,964,800 survived the 'middle passage' and were sold into slavery in the Americas. The transatlantic slave trade was the largest forced migration in human history and completely changed Africa, the Americas and Europe. Only Portugal/Brazil transported more Africans across the Atlantic than Britain. Until the 1730s, London dominated the British trade in enslaved people. It continued to send ships to West Africa until the end of the trade in 1807. Because of the sheer size of London and the scale of the port’s activities, it is often forgotten that the capital was a major slaving centre. Between 1699 and 1807, British and British colonial ports mounted 12,103 slaving voyages - with 3,351 setting out from London. 

Docklands in 2017

The trade was peaking in the 1780s, just before Charles was born, but was abolished after extensive campaigning, in 1807. It was not until 1833 however that the use of slave labour on plantations in the colonies was similarly forbidden. Thus the economy continued to benefit in real terms from this execrable source of free labour. None of the slaves were ever to be compensated for their treatment, unlike their owners who were to receive payments for their 'losses', amounting to billions of pounds in today’s terms. 

There is then a direct connection between John Potter and the lands of County Down that he bought up and which subsequently made their way to Maria West and to Harriett Wombwell, and the Caribbean slave trade. As for Charles Robinson, he was born early enough to be able to witness this human cargo being disembarked into the London docks and sold off to the highest bidders. By the looks of it, he was also to receive a very nasty sting back from the trade, once the slaves had been freed, and these early English African and Caribbean migrants began to disperse around the capital and further afield.

Alternative Explanations

The Mariners’ Church – St. Paul’s Shadwell, taken from the River, just beneath. Charles Robinson was baptized here.

With Charles Robinson now detained in France then, a short digression is in order, which may perhaps illustrate some of the general hazards as well as insights that this kind of genealogical enterprise brings to light. It is all too easy to transpose the narrative of one time onto another. The horrific descriptions of the docklands and East End of the later Victorian commentators, Charles Dickens, amongst them, cannot help but set up images in the imagination that are then transferred backwards through time into previous eras. It is important therefore to pause and contemplate further the Farmer Street of the late eighteenth century, a street where mariners, shipwrights, and shipowners were all prepared to both live and work, right next to the river that was the source of their livelihood, and in some cases, vast profits. 

At this point, and perhaps this contradicts the flow of this story to date, certain elements start to take on a different colour. What would Maria West, the Irish exile have been doing circulating around the London Docks in the late eighteenth century? Well, very possibly, making contacts with maritime business folk of a slightly higher status than might have been imagined earlier. Business and trade with the West Indies and Caribbean was booming, and the infrastructure of the London docks was struggling to cope with the demand. 

In the previous generation, let it not be forgotten, John Potter was buying up lands in County Down from the profits made in illegally importing sugar, rum and other Caribbean products directly into Ireland. John may though also have had his own London contacts that would explain Maria’s presence in Docklands.

In the same way, the migration of Richard Wombwell from Essex to East London, there to set up his chandler’s business, then looks less like an act of adventurism, and more like a thoroughly clued-in move, based on an assessment that an economic boom was just around the corner. Taking this on board is to consider the possibility that certain branches of the Wombwell family were just a little higher in the Essex pecking order than we might have thought, and had resources enough to invest in a brand new and opportunity-rich environment. 

It was in this period, as Charles was growing up, that the West India Docks were in fact built, and formally opened in 1802, stimulated by the need to process more quickly and efficiently the vast amounts of produce now coming into London, not the least of which were sugar, rum, and coffee. It needs only one further step into the historical context to realize that this immense business thrived and profited through the slave plantations and slave trade more generally.   

Captured by Napoleon

Walking through St. Paul's Church, Shadwell, a pathway and steps lead straight down to the Thames. Looking up this smartly-paved jogging route is to look at the exit point from the long since gone Farmer Street from which Charles Robinson would have walked down to the Docks. 

As the nineteenth century commenced, the young Charles John Robinson, seemed to be doing rather well. By the age of twenty, he was already a master mariner. What though does this tell us in the context of the time? 

This is less clear, but putting sources together, Charles had enough knowledge, skills, and character to be entrusted, more or less, with captaining a sea-going vessel of some type. This would have required management skills, meaning delegation, discipline, and punishment, as well as navigational know-how, including use of the nautical instruments of the day and maps. It seems sensible to presume that Charles was literate, capable to a degree, and from a family that was, at least, not at the very lower end of the Farmer Street socio-economic hierarchy.

What happened then? Who was this Mary Weston, this questionable ‘performer’ noted by the disapproving Reginald Blackwood generations later from his desk in Belfast, this woman who Charles chose to marry? Well, at a wild guess, and drawing on what little we know, in the free-mixing, socially and economically diverse Docklands region, for the up-and-coming young master mariner, Charles Robinson, a flirtation with a performing artiste of the locality with a liberal and free persuasion may just have proved too much for him to resist. 

Whatever the explanation however, disaster now struck. In 1809, just shortly after his marriage to Mary, his merchant ship was captured by the French (as seminal as Trafalgar may have seemed, it did not bring the Napoleonic wars to a conclusion). Charles was now to be detained in France at the pleasure of Monsieur Bonarparte until 1814.

The Birth of Charles John Robinson

Charles John Robinson was born in Farmer Street, Shadwell in 1790. His father, also Charles, was a mariner, and his mother was called Mary, possibly Mary Powell. Charles John followed in his father’s footsteps and became a mariner as well - in the merchant service. In 1809, he married Mary Weston, who according to Reginald Blackwood, continuing diligently to trace the West family from his desk at the Linen Hall Library in Belfast, was a ‘public performer’. 

August 31, 1790 baptism record for Charles John Robinson from St. Paul, Shadwell, the mariners’ church.

St Paul’s, Shadwell is marked by an arrow, as is Shakespeare’s Walk to the left. Farmer Street runs parallel. To the very far left of the map is Betts Street, where Charles Jamrach ran his menagerie business. Harriett Wombwell was baptized at St. George in the East, just close by.

But, at the same time, as the docks expanded, Shadwell was also the home for the mariners, explorers, shipowners, shipwrights, and all the ancillary businesses of the time, such as Richard Wombwell’s chandlers’ store. It was thus also a centre of Georgian and Victorian endeavour and capitalism, and its ill-repute as a den of vice and iniquity should not lead to the assumption that it was merely a slum quarter inhabited only by the low-life of the time, and that anyone with an address in the area was by definition an impoverished illiterate flailing away for survival along with the bottom-end dregs of the society of the time.  

Keeping this in mind may even perhaps provide some glimmers of insight into not only the origins of Charles Robinson, but also Richard Wombwell, and, even more so, the independent and detached Maria West from Downpatrick, who on the surface, had no business of any desirable nature to be pursued in the docks of East London.

Trafalgar Mysteries

On Thursday November 7th, 1805, one of Hetty Jane Owen’s ancestors strolled down to his local news kiosk and purchased a copy of the Times. The newspaper was kept, and travelled down the generations, fading somewhat until it joined various Wombwell and Bradley oddments in Harold Eldridge’s box file.

The main story in The Times that day was somewhat sensational. The English fleet under the command of Admiral Horatio Nelson had, after an exhaustive pursuit that had taken them to the West Indies and back, finally caught up with the combined French and Spanish fleet just off the coast of Spain. Nelson’s strategy was bold and unconventional, and rested on speed. It was also utterly decisive, and delivered a knockout blow to any ideas Napoleon might have had for invading England, whilst assuring the sea superiority so essential for a maritime empire. 

The nation celebrated and mourned at the same time. Nelson’s body was on its way back to England, along with the wounded commander of the French fleet, Villeneuve, who was to be accorded the dubious privilege of attending Nelson’s state funeral before being allowed to return to France to die the following year, either by suicide, or murdered by Napoleon, depending on which story you prefer to believe.

It was a story of massive historical and national significance, but it still doesn’t quite explain why the newspaper in question was so carefully kept by the generations that followed. 

Circus Hours

A Bostock production from 1928, illustrating that the menagerie had become, in truth, a circus.


This brings to an end this brief glimpse into the days of the Wombwell and Bostock menagerie. It is a remarkable story, and as far as Hetty Jane Owen’s ancestral roots are concerned, the whole connection was sparked by an apparently chance meeting in the late eighteenth century between a simple Essex farmer and a girl from Downpatrick of far more distinguished origins but intent on escaping something in her recent Irish past. 

Settled in Stoke Newington, the couple raised their two children and played an ancillary role most likely in the logistics management of the menagerie enterprise. Richard Wombwell, the first cousin of George Wombwell, died in 1833, too late probably to benefit from the incomes that his wife Maria West was about to receive from her newly acquired Irish fee-farm rentals. Comfortably off by this point, Maria would not have needed to concern herself too much more with elephants and tigers and boa constrictors and the like.

She lived on in Stoke Newington until 1846, long enough to see the birth of most, if not all, of the nine grandchildren that were to emerge from the marriage of Harriett Wombwell and Charles Robinson.

And a century and a half-later, when their descendants had lost track of their Irish origins, and much else besides, they were still talking about the Wombwells and their menagerie.

Coda

William Huggins (1824-1910) frequently visited the Wombwell menagerie to use the animals as model for his paintings. Maria West may have had one of his early works hanging in her Stoke Newington living room.


The story of Wombwell’s menagerie is to some extent a story of empire and the proprietorial attitudes of Great Britain and other imperial powers to the countries they colonised. Just as the great nations of the time thought nothing of bringing back the archaeological treasures of their colonies and other foreign countries to develop some of the most outstanding museums in the world, so their naturalists explored and categorised the flora and fauna of the same distant regions. 

It took one starry-eyed romantic dreamer however with a passion for animals but a ruthless and hard-headed business mind to transform these erudite pursuits into a mass entertainment phenomenon. 

In browsing the many resources now available regarding the menagerie, there are many other stories, and it cannot be denied that the menagerie business was an attritional enterprise with high casualty rates for both animals and also people. In a correspondence on the web, David Lampard of the Ipswich museum, reports that the museum has at least 29 specimens from the menagerie acquired between 1847 and 1852, and a further 14 donated by Edward Henry Bostock. It is his belief that the Wombwells distributed lists of dead animals for purchase to the museums of the day. This is certainly more likely than the report of a local newspaper of the period, complaining that the menagerie simply dumped the dead animals on the museum doorstep as a regular practice. George was too good a businessman for that. And for all what would be considered cruelty and negligence from our perspective today, it was not in the interests of the menageries to allow their animals simply to die off on a regular basis. They were, in their own way, dedicated to the natural world. 

The menagerists were not however equally knowledgeable, competent or skilled in their understanding of the animals, and a thin grey line seems to have been crossed at some point, when it was no longer enough to display the animals simply as they were. More action and entertainment was required than this, and consequently the boundaries between menageries and circuses start to get more than a little blurred. And this, in turn, must have impacted on the treatment of the animals, since the question of proper care then had to balanced against the issue of training. 

In a way, nothing became Edward Bostock better than his recognition that the time had come to bring down the curtain and move on. 

The Last Journey

It was not quite over though. After the final sale had been completed, many of the animals departed from Newcastle to Glasgow along with the Menagerie band for a short residence at Kelvin Hall. The last show was on 16th January, 1932. The next day, the animals began their final journey on seventeen trucks, bound down south to be the nucleus of the collection at the brand newly established Whipsnade Zoo. They arrived in Dunstable early Monday morning on the 18th January, 1932.

On the day the menagerie closed, Hetty Jane Owen was forty-eight years old, and living in Islington. Her daughter Olwen Eldridge was sixteen, and her son Harold, not far off celebrating his twelfth birthday. To what extent, they were aware and taking note of events down in Dunstable cannot be told. But perhaps Hetty’s mother, Maria Rosetta Bradley, aged seventy-two as the menagerie folded, would have known more, and might perhaps have reached into her folder of old family papers to look once more at the story of Peto the elephant, and her George Wombwell junior cuttings. Indeed, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the elephant letter was written out by Maria Rosetta herself, sometime in the 1880s or 90s when George was trying to eke out a living by selling his menagerie stories.

Liquidation

Days of Glory

Francis Bostock was a son of Henry Bostock who in turn was a brother of James Bostock.  It was this Francis – little Frank – who oversaw the final days of the menagerie. 

Edward Henry Bostock had already unsuccessfully tried to offer the menagerie animals to Glasgow Corporation in 1930 to no avail and eventually decided he could wait no longer. The menagerie was to be liquidated and its final show was slated in for the last week of November, 1931, in Newcastle with all the menagerie contents and accessories to be auctioned off on the final day. 

Little Frank Bostock was there, but not Edward Henry who had left for an extended vacation in Cape Town at the beginning of the month, perhaps keen to absent himself from the emotional rollercoaster of the final denouement. 

The Last Wombwell

Before proceeding to the final closure of the menagerie, perhaps a short parenthesis should be opened for ‘Captain’ Frederick Wombwell, who was perhaps the last of the Wombwells to ply his trade in the menagerie. 

From CircusNoSpin

According to Dr Middlemiss, Fred was the grandson of Charles Wombwell, Emma’s older brother. He was born in 1877 in Essex and died in 1942 in Uxbridge, and started off in the business as a wagon boy for his grandfather, before taking over the lions, bears and wolves in the Bostock version of the menagerie. It seems he also almost became the final Wombwell menagerie victim. In an incident in Leicester in 1927, he was mauled by yet another lion named Wallace, but saved by the intervention of a concerned lioness. This is as reported. Fred saw out his days taking money as a fairground dodgems operator, a rather melancholic postscript for a man whom a contemporary paid tribute to with the following description: 

The most popular and best known trainer of my day was Captain Wombwell, who worked the lions for Mr E.H Bostock. He was a heavily built man, about 5ft. 8 in. in height, with fair hair, a long waxed moustache, and the largest hands I ever saw.

He was attired in a crimson plush jacket with gold braiding and frogs - evidently made before he became so stout, as it would not meet anywhere. It was emblazoned with many medals presented to him to record special deeds of valour - in the menagerie and not on the battlefield.

Armed only with a twisted willow whip stock and rawhide thong, he would climb slowly up the steps leading to the door of the cage. With his hands on the door-catch and his eye on the position of the animals, he would at the right moment open the door, and with extraordinary agility for such a heavy man, be inside with the door slammed behind him in a split second. Then the fun began.

The five big lions would start bounding round the 6ft-wide cage, with Wombwell unconcernedly standing in the centre. After the first mad rush round, the usual jumping and posing took place and then, to my mind, the most exciting moment arrived when the trainer had to leave the cage. Again, the exact moment had to be gauged for a hasty exit backwards, which was accompanied by a mad rush at the door by two or three of the lions.

The Man Chimp

Story and image come from:

http://anunnaturalhistory.tumblr.com/post/53128216190/bostock-s-consul-the-chimpanzee

In New York, in 1893, Frank Bostock had pulled off another typical Wombwell stunt, staging the escape of yet another lion to promote his American venture. However, according to a story in the Northern Echo, published in 2014, Bostock’s most celebrated exhibit in New York was Consul the Man Chimp. The Echo’s report showed that the newspapers also had not lost their attraction to improbable menagerie stories and related that:

Consul, last seen dressed as a chauffeur and driving a car down Fleet Street to a newspaper office, was a chimp much-loved for his aping of human behaviour.

Dressed to impress, Consul walked upright, drank wine, smoked and only travelled first class – once occupying a suite of rooms at the Paris Hotel Continental where his neighbours included heads of states and rich adventurers. He was insured for £20,000 and lay in state at the Paris Hippodrome following his tragic death.

Such was the success of Consul, that after his death, Frank trained up successor chimpanzees, also named Consul. The death of the original Consul in 1904 merited the following obituary in the Capricornian:

The performing chimpanzee Consul, which was regarded as the smartest monkey in the world, has died in Berlin. The chimpanzee was insured for £20,000. [An English paper has the following with reference to the chimpanzee: — “A living argument for Darwin’s theory is to be found in America in Consul, the chimpanzee, which is one of the central attractions of Bostock’s Animal Arena. This queer little man-like money lives like a gentleman. He rises at the sound of the gong at ten o'clock in the morning. After he has discarded his light blue silk pyjamas he takes his morning tub… Just before be retires at 11.30 pm he takes a pint of hot chocolate for a nightcap. Consul’s nearness to the human family is shown in his appreciation of stimulants and his fondness for cigars and cigarettes. He would sell his birthright if he had the opportunity, for a bottle of whisky. The very sight of it brings forth a grin from ear to ear. A full account of Consul’s daily doings would be a mere catalogue of all the things that other gentlemen do. He sleeps in a bed, stretches and yawns. He brushes his teeth and combs his hair, carefully parting it in the middle. He dresses and undresses himself and shows partiality for certain combinations of dress. He also mends his clothes, washes them, and   hangs them out to dry. He plays football, boxes like Fitzimmons and can carry a 30 lb weight while walking erect. Consul rides a bicycle. He is the only animal known who has succeeded in getting on and retaining the momentum of the bicycle. He is an expert chauffeur, and owns a handsome electric motor car.  He uses a typewriter and writes his name boldly.  His intelligence is marvellously suggestive”.] 

It is particular interesting that Consul’s fondness for cigars and whisky was taken as compelling evidence by the media of the day of Darwinian theory in practice. It would seem also that there was still a school of thought that felt this kind of exhibitionism had some kind of profound educational purpose. Such stories do however give a flavour of how Frank made his own fame and fortune, and carried on the Wombwell tradition.

The Animal King

Frank Charles Bostock was one of Edward Henry Bostock’s brothers and became known as ‘The Animal King’. He briefly ran his own menagerie (Bostock, Wombwell and Baileys) before selling it on to Edward Henry. He married Susanna Ethel Bailey and they had six children. He died in London in 1912 but by then had succeeded in bringing the Menagerie concept to the USA, exhibiting with great success over many years in Coney Island. On his return to England, he toured ‘Bostock’s Arena and Jungle’ and together with his other interests achieved enough fame that when he died the World’s Fair Newspaper mourned the passing of 'England's Greatest Showman'. His funeral took place at Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington. 

See: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/nfca/projects/frankbostockbio for an extended biography.

One of Frank’s most memorable adventures took place in 1889 and showed that the spirit of George Wombwell was still alive and well. Whilst the menagerie was in Birmingham, much to the horror of all, one of the menagerie lions escaped from a tent and wandered off to pay a visit to Birmingham city centre, eventually disappearing into the city’s sewer system. As panic ensued, and all involved pondered their next move, Frank paraded another lion in public view, and announced the recapture of the escaped animal. 

The next day, he confessed the truth to the astonished police, and sought their assistance in tracking down the missing animal, and retrieving it from under the city.

(see: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-39799098) for the story and image, originally from the Graphic Newspaper).

The Children of Edward Henry Bostock and Elizabeth Bostock

Bostock Bandwagon

The children of Edward Henry Bostock and Elizabeth Bostock, and all fifth cousins of Hetty Jane Owen were:

i. Edward Henry Augustus Bostock (1882-1943)
ii. Francis Bostock (1883-1887)
iii. Alexander Gordon Bostock (1884-1919)
iv. Arthur Douglas Fairgrieve Bostock (1886-1963)
v. John Reginald Wombwell Bostock (1888-1920)
vi. Violet Hilda Bostock (1891-1976)
vii. Lucy Constance Jackson Bostock (1894-1977)
viii.  Elizabeth Frances Cameron Bostock (1900-????)

John Reginald Wombwell Bostock was the early car crash victim referred to above. His brother Arthur Douglas Fairgrieve Bostock was a champion motor speedway rider, lived for ten years in Singapore and also did a stint running the Royal Italian circus, which was also a Bostock production. There are many descendants of these lines, distant cousins all of Hetty Jane Owen and her family.


Edward Henry Bostock died in Glasgow in 1940.

Edward Henry Bostock

From Bostock.Net

It was Edward Henry Bostock, the fourth child of Emma and James, who now imposed his considerable presence on the menagerie. It is said that he joined the original menagerie aged fifteen, and immediately made an impression by rescuing Harriett Wombwell from an attack by an aggrieved hyena. He bought up the menagerie in 1889, but this was only to be one part of a growing entertainment empire, which was to incorporate circuses, theatres, cinemas and rinks (as reported by Dr. Middlemiss in ‘A Zoo on Wheels’, from which much of the information about the Bostocks and the last phases of the menagerie is sourced).

Edward Henry acquired hippodromes in Glasgow, London, Norwich and Ipswich, where there is to this day a Bostock road, named in his honour.  He was a member of the Glasgow City Council between 1908 and 1911, and a fellow of the Royal Zoological Society.  He married his cousin, Elizabeth Bostock and they had eight children. Bostock, when not travelling, tended to spend a lot of his time in Glasgow, and located part of the menagerie there on the New City Road in permanent residence at the ‘Zoo Building’. This building was later to be commandeered in the first world war and subsequently demolished. 

In 1920, he handed the menagerie over to his son, Jack. Unfortunately Jack, in a somewhat symbolic collision of newer and older technologies, managed in December 1920 to run his car into the back of the menagerie road train, and died of his injuries. 

Edward took the menagerie over once more, and temporarily leased it to his brother-in-law, and then to his cousin, ‘Little Frank’ Bostock who stayed with the menagerie right until its end in December 1931. In Edward’s time, the menagerie toured extensively not only in Britain but across Europe also. 

Of course, the times really were a-changing. Not only did the menagerie have to face the lengthy interregnum of the First World War, but all the implications and consequences of mechanisation. In the first instance, this led to the relatively simple decision to use steam engines to transport the menagerie across the country, but as the road system developed, hauling an extensive zoo up and down the country was always going to become less and less of a realistic option. And of course, modern transportation and advanced technology were changing the face of the entertainment world in any case. No longer were the towns of Britain ticking off the days of their calendars in eager anticipation of the next visit of the menagerie. A whole host of other entertainments now beckoned, and as Bostock himself recognised very early in the next era, the onus would be on people to visit the zoo, and not the zoo to visit the people.

The Children of Emma Wombwell and James Bostock

From Bostock.Net

The children of Emma Wombwell and James Bostock were:

i. Arthur James Wombwell Bostock (1853-1854)
ii. James William Bostock (1855-1919)
iii. George Henry Bostock (1857-1858)
iv. Edward Henry Bostock (1858-1940)
v. Amelia Ann Bostock (1861-1864)
vi. Emma Wombwell Bostock (1864-1878)
vii. Frank Charles Bostock (1866-1912)
viii. Fanny Wombwell Bostock (1874-1933)

They are all x1 removed fourth cousins of Hetty Jane Owen. 

Emma Wombwell and James Bostock

Originally from A Zoo on Wheels
by J.L. Middlemiss. Also at the Bostock website

Emma Wombwell was the last of William’s daughters, born much later than Harriett, in 1834. In 1852, she married James William Bostock, and thus was set in motion what would be the last but lengthy chapter of the menagerie saga. James himself was initially a waggoner in the Harriett Wombwell menagerie, and worked his way up to become a contract and advertising manager. He left in 1867 to set up his own menagerie. He died in 1878. At the time of their marriage James was thirty-eight, and Emma just eighteen. 

In 1866, that strange year when George Wombwell junior was unsuccessfully trying to convey a live and healthy elephant back to the menagerie, and Harriett’s husband, James Edmonds was being convicted for ill-treatment of a camel, Emma gave birth to Frank Bostock, very possibly whilst the menagerie was in Darlington. 

Frank was one of eight children, all x1 removed fourth cousins of Hetty Jane Owen, and through Frank’s elder brother, Edward, what was basically about to happen was a merger between the two branches of the family, and the creation of a new brand for the menagerie, from then on to be known as Bostock and Wombwell’s menagerie.

Harriett Wombwell and James Edmonds

This Harriett Wombwell is not to be confused with Harriett, the daughter of Maria West. 


Rather, she is the second daughter of William Wombwell, and grand-daughter of George’s elder brother, Samuel. Harriett was born in 1815 in Braintree. She married James Edmonds. It was to this Harriett that George Wombwell was to bequeath Menagerie Number Two in his final will. 

And so under new management, the caravan wheels rolled on, the census returns scattered over the atlas of Britain, women giving birth on the road, and - in this strangely egalitarian community - assuming roles from the bottom to the top of the organization. 

Below in the 1881 census, is Harriett, aged sixty-six on the road in Grantham, Lincolnshire.

James himself had worked his way up through the menagerie hierarchy. There is a report concerning him from 1866, albeit not of a particularly impressive nature:


This was the very same year that George Wombwell junior had been dispatched to Paris to replace one of the menagerie elephants that had just died, and the very same James Edmonds who had purchased Jamrach's famous Bengal tiger, the tiger that 'ate the boy on the Ratcliffe Road'. 

In 1884, the management of the menagerie passed to the son of James and Harriett, James Charles Edmonds, Coincidentally, James Charles had married, in 1879, Albertina Jamrach, daughter of Charles Jamrach, properly, Johann Christian Carl Jamrach, for the owner of the famous East London animal emporium was in fact an immigrant from Hamburg, Germany.

The Passing of George Wombwell

http://www.wardsbookofdays.com/16november.htm

By 1850 however, and regardless of the disasters that had occurred the previous year, the Wombwell operation was so successful that the menagerie had been divided into three parts, and had become a phenomenon of its time. 

For George Wombwell though, the end was to come on 16th November, at Northallerton in Yorkshire, after a bout of bronchitis. A report of his death in the Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 30 November stated that:

It was an often expressed wish of the deceased that as he had lived so long with his collection, he should be permitted to die with it, and with this view he had caused to be fitted up some short time since a new travelling bed carriage, in which he expired on the evening of the day mentioned, in his 73rd year. His menagerie was being exhibited at the time in the market-place, at Northallerton, and an announcement of his death was made by his own request to the spectators; after which, the band played the "Dead March" in Saul, the animals were fed, and the exhibition closed for the evening.

The year ended for the menagerie down in Norwich, the Norfolk News reporting that: 

On Wednesday night, about a quarter before twelve, (being the last night in the year 1850,) the band connected with Mr. Wombwell's menagerie, now exhibiting on the Castle meadow, assembled in the market-place for the purpose of playing the old year out and the new year in. when the band commenced playing there were comparatively few persons near, but ere the first tune was finished, several hundred persons had assembled. The band after playing several beautiful pieces, concluded with "God save the Queen." St. Peter's bells also greeted the new year by a merry peal. The band afterwards played in Exchange Street, opposite the Artist's Room, where a giant, dwarf, &c., are now being exhibited; and, although it was nearly one o'clock, the doors having been opened, a great many persons paid their money to see the exhibition.

(Reports copied from: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cmtilbury/ttm/ttm_tree_uk_wombwell.htmlhttp://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cmtilbury/ttm/ttm_tree_uk_wombwell.html)

Excuses and More Excuses

As noted, there were always excuses for Menagerie accidents.

The attack on a Wombwell keeper in 1823 by a Bengal tiger that mangled his arm was, for example, blamed on spectators who ‘irritated’ the animal. 

The fate of Andrew Broadfoot in 1826, whose clothes and flesh were torn apart by a leopard, was similarly ascribed to his own carelessness, in resting his elbow in front of the den. The media report of the day concluded that ‘…This ought to serve as a caution to those who go to view these deceitful animals to be on their guard.’ , thus finding a character fault in the caged animals themselves.

‘Escape of a young Tiger from Mr. Wombwell’s Caravan.’
(engraving: Pickering, London, 1827)
See: Footlight Notes for the Story

When in 1829, the residents around Tredegar Terrace just off the Commercial Road, had had their fill of the roaring, trumpeting, screeching, and all-round sonic chaos of the menagerie, and applied to the courts for action, the principle of private property came into play. The courts did not want to interfere with George’s rights to exercise his individual freedoms on his own property.

The 1839 excursion of a Bengal Tiger down the Ratcliffe Road was due to one of George’s servants, who was fired for his negligence, and as for the Irish coal-whipper who had his cheek torn open, and belly lacerated by this docile beast, this was really his own fault for getting ‘too near’ the animal.

In 1842, in Staffordshire, a Mr. John Martin ended up having an arm amputated after putting his hand into the den of the tigress. The report summarised the event as follows: ‘The dreadful occurrence is solely attributable to his own madness, the keepers are quite blameless.’

As can be seen, health and safety regulations were not very high on the agenda of the time, and accidents and mishaps seemed to be attributed to the immediate source, allowing the proprietor to walk away unscarred, and even with useful accolades and free publicity in hand. Rarely indeed did the buck stop at the top. And George Wombwell seemed to get away with everything.

Fearful Accident: Four Lives Lost.

The following report is dated, 1835 and describes how a lion and tigress escaped from the caravan at Worksworth. It was reported that three sheep, one cow, a man, a woman and her child, an eleven-year old boy all died as a result. From this, the conclusion was apparently drawn that: ‘Too much praise cannot be given to Mr. Wombwell for the promptness he displayed on hearing the melancholy accident. He expressed the utmost concern, ordered the funerals of the sufferers to take place at his expense, and promised to make good all damages arising from the melancholy event.’ 

Questions have also been raised as to whether the carnage described ever took place. And as to how likely the story of the kangaroo tucking itself up into the spare bed of an old woman is to be entirely true... who knows - but it must have made for fabulous press at the time.

Some Cynical Reporting

The sad ends of Ellen Blight and William Wombwell, not to mention the earlier death of Thomas Soaper to a rattlesnake bite, were not unfortunately the only incidents to be reported by the nineteenth century press. Indeed the New Sporting Magazine estimated that Wombwell menagerie ‘accidents’ seemed to occur on a half-yearly basis. 

The New Sporting Magazine, 1839. Note the cynicism.

They were not the only observers however to raise a quizzical eyebrow at the regularity of newsworthy events that seemed to spill out of the menagerie public relations office. George had long since learned that any publicity was good publicity, and when disasters were not forthcoming, they could always be either quietly manufactured, or, at a pinch, just invented. According to Shaun Everett, the term ‘Wombwellisms’ was even coined to describe these sleights of the marketing hand. 

What is even more interesting in this exploration of nineteenth century values is how George Wombwell seemed to glide almost untouched through crises that would have led to absolute ruin in our own day. Whatever the nature of the catastrophe, there was always someone more blameworthy than the menagerie hierarchy.

The Death of William Wombwell

The Coventry Herald continued its report into the incident with the evidence provided by the surgeon:

Mr. Laxom, surgeon, was then examined – Being sent for to see the deceased on Sunday afternoon, between three and four o’clock, I went and found him in the caravan where he lived. On seeing the nature of the wound, I recommended that he should be taken to the Hospital, or to private lodgings; and deceased preferring the latter, he was brought to Mt. Johnson’s.

The principal wound was in the left groin. The tusk of the elephant (which was somewhat blunted and rough, from having been broken,) had penetrated through the thigh, separating the muscles, and exposing the large arteries. There was also extensive laceration, (too shocking to describe,) and the other thigh was wounded, though less severely.

I attended him up to the time of his death; he was much bruised about the thighs, but there was no apparent wound on the body, though probably the bowels might have been injured. Assisted by Mr. Barton and Mr. Dewes, I dressed, and to some extent sewed up the wounds; but deceased never rallied in the slightest degree from the first moment, and died about one o’clock this morning, (Tuesday,) of the wounds I have described.

It was stated to be just twelve months, on the 9th inst., since deceased was attacked and seriously wounded by a lion at Stafford.

On Wednesday afternoon, the deceased William Wombwell was buried in the Cemetery of this City, being followed to the grave by his kindred, and personal friends, in two mourning coaches, and eighteen couples of other individuals to whom he was known, who availed themselves of this sad occasion to show their attachment to him. The funeral service of the Church was read by Rev. Dr. Davis, in the presence of several thousand spectators.

Copied from: http://www.familyresearcher.co.uk/Disappearing-Coventry/Coventry-elephant.html

http://www.familyhistorydiggers.com/single-post/564e30360cf2867955403348

And so William Wombwell departed the world, another stark reminder put in place that for all the glamour and romance and glitz of the menagerie, life on the road with the Wombwells could be a perilous occupation. The jury complacently recorded a verdict of ‘accidental death’, and the Menagerie went on its way. The tombstone in Coventry was however shortly to have another inscription added, for it was not to be long before the family took the decision that it would be appropriate if William was joined in his grave by what remained of the Lion Queen, Ellen Blight. 

It is said that George always feared such eventualities, and never hired another Lion Queen. Apparently though, the tiger responsible for her death remained on board, now advertised as the 'Tiger that killed the Lion Queen.' It had not taken so very long for Ellen Blight to make the smooth transition from memorial to marketing slogan. 

George Wombwell Provides Testimony

William Wombwell discovered the consequences of getting
on the wrong side of such an animal. Photo copied from
Terrence Ruffle's blog.

As June 1849 came round, the Wombwells were about to endure something of an extended annus horribilis. George himself was to catch pneumonia and die in Northallerton, Yorkshire in November 1850. Ellen Blight had shown that though she may have been a lion queen, she was no tiger queen the previous December, and prior to that, William Wombwell, a lion-tamer, and son of William and Hannah Gibson, had demonstrated equally conclusively on June 12th, 1849 in Coventry that he was no elephant-tamer. The Coventry Herald reported what happened:

A most unfortunate occurrence took place on Sunday last, at Mr. Wombwell’s menagerie, in this City, which has proved fatal to a young married man, William Wombwell, nephew to the proprietor; and who has fallen a victim to the momentary anger of one of the elephants. An Inquest was held on the body before E. H. Jackson, Esq., Deputy Coroner, on Tuesday evening last, at Mr. Johnson’s, the Railway Tavern, Hertford-street, when the following evidence was taken :-

Mr. George Wombwell, being examined, said – I am the proprietor of the menagerie now at Coventry. When in London, I live in the Commercial-road. We came into Coventry on Sunday morning last. Deceased William Wombwell was keeper of the lions, but not of the elephants. He was about 25 years of age. He used to tell then names of the animals to the company. I saw the accident, which occurred last Sunday afternoon, between three and four o’clock; he was sitting on some straw, in the booth, when we heard the elephants fighting. Only myself and another man, besides the deceased, were there.

He was scraping his shoes with a knife in his hand, and it is my belief he went into the den with the knife in his hand. They were two male elephants; one was larger than the other, and both are in the same den. I believe he went to prick him with the knife as keepers sometimes do, when I heard him knocked down, and the elephant had taken his knife from him and crushed it to pieces.

The elephant had got him up in the corner of the den, and was boring at him with its tusks, and I cried out immediately, “for God’s sake come, for he is killing William,” and deceased at the same time was crying for help. The young man and I got a ladder, which had spikes at the bottom, put it into the den, and poked the elephant with it so as to get him away .-[The knife which had been picked up in the den, was here produced. It was a good-sized pocket knife, but the bone had been torn from the handle, the casing bent, the spring broken, and it was rendered entirely useless.]-From the time that deceased went into the den till we got him away, it was not more than three minutes.

He could just walk out, but I saw he was bleeding very much, and we were obliged to carry him immediately. It is usually a very quiet and tractable creature, and walked last year in the procession at Coventry; it has also performed at Astley’s; it is nearly seven feet high. The deceased has known it for six years, and has always shown it, and been in the habit of giving him his bread at night; but on this occasion I don’t think the elephant knew him when he first entered the den, which he did through a small door, and not by the way it usually entered.

I never had any accident with this elephant before. There is one particular season in the year, which lasts for about six weeks, when they are more prone to quarrel than at any other time, and it is the season now. The man whose particular duty it is to look after the elephants was lying drunk in another carriage. At the time when I cried out, and we went to rescue deceased, the elephant was just going to kneel on him; and had he done so he must have crushed him immediately.

Apart from providing us with a unique opportunity into allowing us to hear George Wombwell address us in his own voice, the inquest provided yet another example of the harsh realities of life on the road, as well as the peculiar exemption from culpability that the menagerie owners seemed to possess in the eyes of both the law and for that matter themselves. In this particular case, the elephant-keeper was drunk, and as far as responsibility went for what then ensued, there was no need to look any further.