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.

Final Days on the Road for Menagerie Number One

The 1871 census below records the family, both Fairgrieves and Blights camped out in Kingston-upon-Thames, their days on the road fast approaching their end. It is a sobering thought that when the menagerie was sold, there were to be a lot of ex-Wombwell personnel faced with the difficult task of finding employment elsewhere.

Elizabeth Wombwell, Ann’s younger sister, who also travelled with the menagerie, died in 1870.

The End of Menagerie Number One

Of the other children of Elizabeth Wombwell, mention must be made of Harriet Blight, who was born in London in 1836 and died in Edinburgh in 1908. In 1862, she married Alexander Fairgrieve (1836-1906). It was to Alexander that Menagerie Number One made its way once Ann Wombwell finally decided to retire to the quiet, leafy, tiger-free environment of Hampstead in around 1865.

Alexander continue to run the menagerie until April 1872, when he decided to auction off the entire collection at the old Waverly Market in Edinburgh. An article from The Scotsman Newspaper tells us more:

Waverly Market, Edinburgh. 

The auction of the menagerie animals was such a novel event that a large audience gathered in Princes Street to see the last appearance of the elephants, camels and other animals as part of Wombwell’s Menagerie. The sale had ‘excited considerable international attention’ and the capacity crowd in the Waverley Market included ‘well-known naturalists, circus proprietors, and representatives of zoos in Britain, America and France’. The animals offered for sale included various breeds of monkey and baboon, a wombat, porcupines, hyenas, a gnu, boa constrictors, zebras, a variety of bears, two elephants, eleven lions, a Bengal tiger, seven camels and three ‘beautiful glossy’ leopards. Cockatoo sold for £8 The sale started with the monkeys, which were recommended as ‘lively, frisky, intelligent and clean pets’, and competition was brisk for some of the rarer species. The vultures, pelicans, emu and condor were sold to dealers while the parrots and cockatoos ‘provided lively interest amongst local bird fanciers’. One cockatoo fetched £8 due to its excellent talking abilities. The Earl of Rosebery bought a racoon for £1, and the Tasmanian Devil was sold for 65 shillings. Auction raised £250,000. There was fierce competition among dealers for the larger animals such as the polar and Tibetan bears and the performing elephant. ‘Hannibal’, a black-maned lion, the ‘handsomest and largest specimen in Britain’, was purchased for £270 by Bristol Zoo. As a testament to the excited caused by the auction, many of the animals were sold for considerably more than their usual market value. The total amount raised for the auctions 90 unusual lots was £2,900 – roughly £250,000 in today’s money.

From: http://www.scotsman.com/heritage/people-places/lost-edinburgh-wombwell-s-royal-menagerie-auction-1-3317481

Unlike George junior, Alexander had cashed in handsomely. And that was the end of Menagerie Number One.

The Inquest Concludes

One of the medical gentlemen in attendance on that fatal day in Chatham was probably Richard Cooper Todd, a Royal Artillery surgeon who was present at the scene. The inquest report stated that:

He saw the deceased enter and going in the tiger did not appear to be very friendly with her; she struck him on going in and he laid down. She then proceeded to her performance with the lion and afterwards turned round and again struck the tiger. It appeared angry and immediately seemed to turn upon the deceased; rearing upon his hind legs and seizing her by the neck, she fell on her back and the tiger crouching over her, he [the surgeon] saw no more of her until removed from the den, when he hastened to her assistance. She was perfectly insensible and had lost a great deal of blood and her face and lips were very pale. She was still alive, the heart was beating, but she was perfectly unconscious. Witness placed his hand on the wound in the neck to stop the bleeding and administered some brandy to deceased, but she was unable to swallow it and in a very few minutes her heart ceased to beat. There were four wounds on the left side of the neck, a slight wound on the right leg and another on the chin, caused by the teeth of the tiger, the under jaw of the animal having caused a very large wound under the chin, which aided by the shock her system had sustained, produced death.

The jury returned a verdict to the effect that deceased was killed by a male tiger whilst
exhibiting in its den and expressed a strong opinion against the practice of allowing persons to perform in a den with animals.

38 Daily News (London, England) Monday, January 14, 1850; Issue 1135
Copied from: http://www.georgewombwell.com/articles/TheLionQueens.pdf

Ellen Blight was just seventeen at the time. George Wombwell died almost exactly a year after this incident. And Ann, as we have seen from the censuses, from then on kept the Blight family close to her as the menagerie continued to criss-cross the country. There must have been some very raw and guilty consciences in the higher echelons of the menagerie management.

Wombwell Menagerie, 1847. From http://vichist.blogspot.com.cy/2012/03/travelling-menageries.html

Death of the Lion Queen

Figurine of the The Death of The Lion Queen in Guildhall Museum, Rochester. Copied from: http://wanderingwords.org.uk/writing/the-lion-queens-deadly-performance/

In November 1849, the menagerie reached Chatham in Kent, and it was here that disaster struck as reported by the Daily New, when the inquest took place the following January:

Stephen King, the first witness examined, said he had been in the employ of Mr Wombwell as keeper for the last six years. The deceased was a niece of Mr Wombwell's and daughter of John Bright [Blight], a bugle player in the band. It was the business of the deceased to go into the dens and perform with the beasts, which she had been in the habit of doing several times daily for the last twelve months. On Friday evening, shortly after nine o'clock, she went into the den in which a lion and tiger were kept, for the purpose of performing, as usual; the tricks played by her being principally with the former animal. She had only been in two or three minutes, but had gone through the main part of the performance, excepting that of making the lion sit down in a particular part of the cage, when the tiger being in her way, the deceased struck it slightly with a small whip which she carried in her hand. The beast growled as if in anger and crouching close to the bottom of the den stretched out its paw, as if at her leg or dress causing the deceased to fall sideways against the cage, the animal at the same moment springing at her and seizing her furiously by the neck, inserting the teeth of the upper jaw in her chin and in closing his mouth, inflicting frightful injury in the throat by his fangs. He then appeared to change his position, making a second grip across the throat of his victim. A keeper who was standing on the step of the den armed with a whip, immediately rushed to her assistance, but the animal did not loose its hold until struck over the nose violently with an iron bar and whilst King held the animal, the unfortunate female was removed from the cage bleeding profusely and life all but extinct. She was taken into one of the caravans where she was immediately attended by two medical gentlemen who happened to be present at the time of the occurrence.

Such were the margins involved between entertaining the public and loss of life.

Elizabeth Wombwell and the Blight Family

Another daughter of Samuel Wombwell was Elizabeth,  a younger sister of Ann Wombwell, born in 1796 and dying in 1870. She married John Joseph Thomas Blight in 1821 in Holborn, and as we have already seen, the Blight family almost as a whole, were menagerie regulars. One Blight in particular though succeeded in indelibly marking herself into the history books. This was Ellen Blight, otherwise known as ‘The Lion Queen’. 

For sure, Ellen must have been one of the feistier of the Blight children, and when George’s first ‘lion queen’, Ellen Chapman moved on to join Sanger’s circus and indeed marry its proprietor, casting around for a replacement, the Wombwell eye fell on young Ellen. The outcome was tragic.

The death of Ellen Blight, x2 removed third cousin of Hetty Jane Owen.
From: http://vichist.blogspot.com.cy/2012_03_01_archive.html

Ann Wombwell Carries On

To return to Ann Wombwell: She would seem to have been a formidable operator, and when George left her Menagerie Number One in his will, she proved well capable of taking the business forward. Nor was this merely a matter of efficient desk-bound delegation. The menagerie required hands-on management and this meant heading off on the road in the touring caravans and supervising the operation in person. In the 1861 census, Ann was in Doncaster, aged 73, aboard the menagerie caravans, and with a full complement of the Blight family accompanying her. The Blights, as we shall see, were also relatives, with one member in particular having a very special claim for fame. She did not pause for breath too long either after the death of the founder, George Wombwell, in 1850. In the 1851 census, she is again to be located on the road, this time in Lancashire. The census image is indistinct, but reveals enough:

Ann and her Blight relatives were living in adjacent caravans in Wardleworth, Rochdale, the Menagerie Number One show very much on the road. 

Photo from the SleepingGardensBlog

Ann did finally retire however, passed her menagerie on to a relative, and lived out her days in Hampstead in Belsize Park Road. She died in 1876, aged eighty-eight. Just in case it has not been noticed, if nothing else the Wombwells were for their time, an exceptionally long-lived family. Her memorial inscription is also to be found beneath Nero the sleeping lion in Highgate Cemetery.