George Wombwell Junior Timeline

Since this story of George Wombwell junior seems to have take numerous side-turnings and digressions including up the Yangtze River, the Duaro Valley and to Bedford, Virginia, here is a timeline that illustrates some of the main events in his long life:

14 Dec 1822	George is born in Stoke Newington, probably in Lordship Road, the son of Zachariah Wombwell and Mary Webb
19 Mar 1823	He is baptized in Stoke Newington
1832	He is adopted by his Uncle, George Wombwell, founder of Wombwell’s menagerie and heads off on the road.
1833	His father, Zachariah Wombwell, dies in Stoke Newington
1847	At the height of his career, he is a member of the party that meets Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Prince Edward at Windsor Castle
1849	His mother, Mary Webb, dies in Stoke Newington
7th Oct 1850	He marries Fanny Eliza Kienlen at the New Gravel Pit Meeting House, Paradise Fields, Hackney
1850	His Uncle George dies and leaves one part of his menagerie to George, namely Menagerie Number Three
30 Mar 1851	George is recorded as a Wild Beast Merchant of Wombwell’s Menagerie resident at 79 Corn Hill, Ipswich
1851	His daughter Ann Fanny Wombwell is born in Hackney, London. George’s servant, Thomas Burrows, is crushed by an elephant but survives the experience.
1855	A run of disasters leads to the decimation of George’s Menagerie stock
28 Apr 1855	George’s Menagerie Number Three is auctioned off for a pittance at Nova Scotia Gardens.
2 May 1855	The other Wombwells write to the Times disassociating their own Menageries from any involvement with George’s
18 June 1855	Bankrupted, George is removed from his caravan next to Cremorne Gardens to Whitecross Prison
30 July 1855	George appears in court. He may have been bailed out by members of the Wombwell family, and then worked for them as a hired hand.
26 Oct 1858	Jamrach’s famous Bengal Tiger escapes and wanders off down the Ratcliff Road. George may have been involved in its subsequent purchase.
7 April 1861	He is resident with his wife and daughter at 1 Grove Cottage, Poplar All Saints, and recorded as a photographer and artist.
6 Aug 1863	Death of his first wife, Fanny Eliza Kienlen in Hackney.
1866	Mrs Wombwell commissions George to bring an elephant back from Paris for her. After various disasters, George succeeds in bringing the elephant back to London, where it immediately dies.
22 Feb 1869	George marries Elizabeth Adella Cresey in Yarmouth, Norfolk. Born in 1849, Elizabeth is twenty-seven years younger than George.
1870	Their daughter, Amelia Gertrude Wombwell is born in South Shields, Durham.
2 Apr 1871	George is resident in Stockton, Durham, now a musician. His daughter Ann Fanny Wombwell is now living in Hampstead, London, with Mrs Wombwell, the partner of his Uncle George.
3 Apr 1881	George is living at 132 Provost Street, Shoreditch, Hoxton Town. George is still a musician, and his wife is working as a dressmaker.
11 Apr 1881	His first daughter, Ann Fanny Wombwell marries Herbert Sowerby in Shanghai, China. They are members of the China Inland Mission but shortly after join the American run Protestant Episcopal Mission.
Feb 1882	Ann Fanny Wombwell and Herbert Sowerby head up the Yangtze River to Wuhan and begin their work there.
5 Apr 1891	They are living at 107 Provost Street. His daughter Amelia has now become a shirtmaker.
1894	The marriage is recorded of Amelia Gertrude Wombwell and Jacob Valentine in the civil registration records. Jacob is a member of the Sephardic Jewish community and it is possible they went through a religious ceremony a few years earlier, since their first daughter seems to have been born in 1892. Ann Fanny Wombwell and Herbert Sowerby complete their missionary service in China and possibly return to England to discover that whilst they have been making conversions, George has been leaking them.
4 Jan 1897	The Daily Mail publishes a full-length profile of his life and sets up a subscription fund for him.
5 Mar 1897	The Daily Mail reports that its Subscription Fund has raised three pounds and fifteen shillings.
1897	His second wife, Elizabeth Adella Cresey dies in the Infirmary
Prob 1890s	George is visiting his Bradley relatives probably to get help in writing down memories for sale for publication. The full story of Peto the elephant is thus preserved.
1900	The entire family of Herbert Sowerby and Ann Fanny Wombwell are now settled in Virginia, USA, all to become naturalized American citizens.
31 Mar 1901	George, now a musician and widower, is living at 22 Ottoway Road, Hackney
3 Mar 1909	George’s obituary appears in the newspapers, reporting his death in Tottenham, Edmonton
1923	His first daughter, Ann Fanny Wombwell dies in Bedford, Virginia, USA
1958	His second daughter, Amelia Gertrude Wombwell dies in Shoreditch, London.

Amelia Gertrude Wombwell and Jacob Valentine

The Bevis Marks Synagogue in the City of London.
It has been holding services for over 300 years.

Amelia Gertrude Wombwell, the daughter of George Wombwell junior and Elizabeth Adella Cresey married Jacob Valentine, a tailor, in July 1894. Jacob was born in Bishopsgate in 1861, the son of Benjamin Valentine and Esther Hartell. 

These names cannot help but arouse some curiosity, and some further investigation reveals that Benjamin and Esther were married in 1847 at the Bevis Marks Synagogue in the City of London. 

Benjamin was the son of Emanuel (de Moses) Henriques Valentine (1769–1824) and Leah Rodrigues (1770-1844).  This  line of Valentines, were all born in London and married, generation by generation, at the Bevis Marks synagogue. The origins of the Valentine family in London are explored in considerable detail on the website of Ian Handricks.

So, George Wombwell junior's first daughter, to summarise all this, married Herbert Sowerby, a Protestant missionary to China. His second daughter, Amelia Gertrude Wombwell then married a Sephardic Jew from a family who would have escaped from the Spanish inquisition and made their way, hook or crook, to London, there to make their way within the growing Jewish community of the City.

The marriage of Amelia Gertrude Wombwell and Jacob Valentine took place in 1894, the very same year when Herbert Sowerby and Ann Fanny Wombwell terminated their involvement with the Protestant Episcopal Mission in China. 

Should Ann Fanny then have returned to England, as seems likely, along with Herbert Sowerby, it would have been to discover that her half-sister had now wedded into the Sephardic Jewish community of London. Along with the treatment they had suffered at the hands of certain members of their own Mission whilst striving to convert the Chinese to the true path of Christianity, it must have been yet another blow to discover that her perennially unreliable father had now succeeded in allowing her half-sister to marry into another faith entirely. Appalled? Disgusted? Scandalized? We have no idea. 

The Lion of Wombwell

On the 8th March, 2015 there was an auction in Derby of assorted Victorian and Edwardian items. The painting above was entitled The Lion of Wombwell and was a watercolour with the dimensions, 27cm x 37cm. The auctioneers put down an estimate of 70 to 100 pounds for the sale, suggesting that they did not value the painting very highly for either its artistic or historical value. It was dated - hardly very helpfully - as twentieth century. They were unable either to provide any information about the artist, beyond his name:
Herbert Sowerby.

The Children of Herbert Sowerby and Ann Fanny Wombwell

Offices of the North China Daily News in
Shanghai to whom Herbert Sowerby imprudently
sent his views on the the Shanghai Bishopric.
The newspaper was closed by the Chinese
Communist Party in 1951.

It should not be overlooked that whilst supporting Herbert Sowerby in his missionary endeavours and quarrels, and playing her own part in evangelizing Chinese females (who were for the most part strictly off-limits to male missionaries), Ann Fanny Wombwell gave birth to six children during the couple’s time in China. It was not a small family that left Shanghai in 1894, and given their connections with the American Protestant Episcopal Mission, it is also a possibility that they simply sailed straight to America.

Either way, their children were:

i. Dr. James Herbert Sowerby (1882-1948, born in Wuhan, China, died Bedford County, Virginia). He married Ellla Maria Schmidt (1892-1967).
ii. Grace Ai-ling (or Arling) Sowerby (1883-1975, born in Wuhan, China, died Hyattsville, Prince Georges, Maryland). She married Harold Curtiss Abbott (1886-1971). They had two children: Helen Abbott, and Ruth Ai-Ling Abbott. Of these two children, Ruth married Stephen Joseph O’Donald. They had five children.
iii. Eleanor Margaret Sowerby (1885-1965, born in Wuhan, China, died Bedford County, Virginia). She married Wyatt Lockett Watson. They had three children.
iv. George Seguier Sowerby (1887-1946, born in Wuhan, China, died Virginia). He married Rachel I. Roberson.
v. Frederick Henry Sowerby (1890-1965, born in Wuhan, China, died Bedford County, Virginia). He married Nellie Brett.
vi. Alice Amelia Sowerby (1893-1969, born in Wuhan, China, died Greensboro, Guilford, North Carolina). She married Carl Argle Barkley (1894-1967). They had two children.

These were the grandchildren of George Wombwell junior, and fourth cousins x1 removed of Hetty Jane Owen. Their children of whom there are many, and grandchildren, plenty of whom are also recorded, grew up as American citizens, fifth cousins of Hetty Jane and sixth cousins respectively of Harold and Olwen Eldridge.

The Sowerbys Depart for America

Although the facts state that Herbert Sowerby and Ann Fanny Wombwell concluded their service in China in 1894, we do not know their next move. It would have been strange indeed if they had not returned to England to see their respective families, including an elderly George Wombwell junior. In his 1897 interview with the Daily Mail however, George made no mention of Ann Fanny, and whilst on the one hand, he may have felt that his daughter should have provided him with some concrete rather than merely spiritual support, she, equally, may have been still harbouring resentment about his desertion of her after the death of her mother, Fanny Ann Kienlen, and his subsequent marriage to his much younger second wife. It is entirely possible that their relationship was damaged beyond repair. 

To what extent George was aware of, or even interested in, the dramas that had unfolded in China is yet another matter. The misfortunes of his pious daughter and her mercilessly abused husband may, for all we know, just have afforded the old man just a certain grim satisfaction. 

From the FindaGrave website

In either case, with six children in tow, the Sowerbys would hardly have been able to enjoy any extended stay with George, by now reduced to single room accommodation of an advisedly squalid character. It would have been to Herbert’s family that they would now have proceeded.

All this is admittedly hypothetical. The next firm records for the couple come from the 1900 USA census for Michigan. By 1910, they were permanently settled in Bedford, Virginia where they were to live out their days, and where their children were to grow up as American citizens. 

Ann Fanny Wombwell died in 1923 in Bedford, and Herbert three years later, in 1926. It had been a long journey for Ann Fanny. The grand-daughter of an Essex cow-keeper, Zacharias Wombwell, and the daughter of a failed menagerist who lost her mother at an early age and was effectively deserted by her father, she succeeded in climbing up the social ladder into a well-known Victorian family, only to find herself under the most bizarre circumstances running a girls’ school up the Yangtze river before becoming a naturalized citizen of the USA. 

But, like her father, she had certainly accumulated some memories to contemplate in the last years of her life.

Indefatigable Missionaries

See his Wikipedia Entry for more.

The indefatigable missionaries (including Herbert Sowerby's brother, Arthur) were not to be overly discouraged by outbreaks of carnage accompanied by mass beheadings, and soon resumed their activities.

It cannot or at least should not have come as a major surprise when trouble boiled over again in the shape of the Xinhai revolution of 1911 broke out, resentment boiled over again in Shashi. Naturalist, explorer, and also military man, Arthur de Carle Sowerby, Herbert Sowerby's nephew, headed into the area on an expedition to rescue as many foreign missionaries as could be managed. Against all odds, his expedition succeeded in struggling back to Beijing early in 1912.

The foreign missions continued to be active in China all the way through to 1953, when Mao Tse Tung, not finding himself with the time on his hands to examine the fine distinctions between the associated theologies and creeds of Catholics, Lutherans, Protestants, Baptists, Jesuits, Presbyterians, Methodists, and more, decided there was a much easier course of action. He decided to expel all of them, lock, stock and barrel, from China. 

Tragic Aftermath

Herbert was not in fact the only member of the Sowerby family in China at this time. His younger brother, Arthur Sowerby had also chosen the missionary path and married Louisa Clayton in 1883 in Shanghai. He too travelled up the Yangtze, as a member of the English Baptist society, and through the 1880s and 1890s was also in Shashi, as part of the Taiuyan Fu mission. 

Baptist Missionaries from the BMS website page about the Boxer Rebellion.

Arthur Sowerby was fortunate enough to be on leave in England when the Boxer rebellion broke out. For those missionaries remaining in Shashi, the rebellion was to have dreadful consequences. 

On July 9th 1900 in Taiuyan, Yuxian, the governor of the Shashi province commanded all the foreigners to be brought into his presence. According to Landor, and as quoted in Wikipedia, he then:

…enjoined the Europeans to prostrate themselves at his feet, accusing them of bringing vice, evil, and unhappiness in the Empire of Heaven. There was only one remedy for such evil, and that was to behead them all. The order was to be carried out in his presence.

Two Roman Catholic Bishops and three other missionaries were then led out, and were the first to be decapitated on the spot. Then one and all — men, women, and children — were mercilessly beheaded in the courtyard of the Yamen, in front of the hall in which they had been received in audience, and well in sight of the bloodthirsty official. [...] To satisfy their superstitious curiosity, the soldiers are said to have pounced on some of the bodies, still throbbing, of these unfortunates, and cut their hearts out for inspection by the bonzes and other learned men.

Insult — no greater could be given in China — was added to injury by taking the bodies outside the city walls and leaving them to the dogs instead of burying them.


By the end of the summer more foreigners and up to 2,000 Chinese Christians had been put to death. The Times reported that:

Out of the total of 91 China Inland missionaries in that province alone, when the trouble began 36 have escaped to the coast, 38 have been murdered, and 17 are still unaccounted for. Other missions have also suffered very severely, the American Board, the English Baptist Mission, and the Sheo-yang Mission having lost nearly all their Shansi Workers.

The Sowerbys had had a very narrow escape indeed. The family fascination with the Far East was not over though. Arthur himself returned to China, as did one of his children, Arthur de Carle Sowerby, who was to return to China not as a missionary, but rather following in the footsteps of his forebears as a naturalist and explorer. He survived internment by the Japanese in the second world war, and died in Washington in 1954. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical and Zoological Societies.

Mr Sayres Despairs

View from Golden Island, 2011. The Yangtze maintains to this day a majestic beauty.
It was into this remote wilderness and ancient culture that the Missionaries sought to bring
their Christian value set.  

One member of the mission, William Sayres meanwhile purported to be in despair and resorted to a statistical analysis to back up his diagnosis of the mismanagement of  the Protestant Episcopal Mission, settling on a one-to-one comparison with the achievements of the Mission with their Presbyterian rivals:

These are the figures last year:

Presbyterian Mission--
Missionaries 55, Native Preachers 16, Native Assistants 134, Communicants 3,302, Stations 10, Scholars 2,092, Expense of Mission $98,240.

Protestant Episcopal Mission--
Missionaries 13, Native Preachers . . . , Native Assistants . . ., Communicants 400 [Annual Report 1884 says 326.], Stations 2, Scholars Expense of Mission $44,000.

From the above you will notice the Presbyterian Mission have over four times more missionaries in the field than we have; five times the number of stations and the communicants exceeds by more than eight fold. Why is this? We were on the field three years in advance of the Presbyterians. What a showing ours is after nearly forty-nine years of labour and expense. 

All these complaints however were to no avail, and it was reported finally on October 29th 1884, that William Jones Boone had been consecrated in Shanghai with Herbert Sowerby in attendance. Boone was to die of tuberculosis just seven years later in 1891, by which point the mission of Herbert Sowerby and Ann Fanny Wombwell was entering its last chapter. Which, as it happened, was just as well for them. 

The Attacks Continue

Figurines on Golden Island on the Yangtze, 2011. Missionary attitudes towards Chinese culture and history varied wildly, and at their worst were racist and dismissive.

A chief mover in the assault on the Rev. W. J. Boone and his acolyte, Herbert Sowerby, was Ferdinand McKeige, a prolific and energetic contributor to the ongoing discussion, who never seemed to tire of singling out Herbert Sowerby for further criticism and invective:

I would like to state here, that in replying to Mr. Sowerby's letter, I had not the slightest intention of bringing Mr. B. prominently before the public, but simply to show Mr. Sowerby he could not write such a disingenuous letter without running the risk of being replied to. ..

The editorial in the Star in the East of June 6 (if its statements were untrue) ought to have brought forth an unequivocal denial from someone connected with the mission, thereby correcting what is the general impression and belief among missionaries, that ritualism does exist at St. John's and that the College is a poorly managed affair at the best. No attention, however, was given the article until June 11, when Mr. Sowerby, over the nom de plume of "A Member of the Mission," sent to the North-China Daily News for publication one of the most disingenuous letters I have ever seen… 

Every member of the Shanghai mission is aware of the fact that it is believed by outsiders that ritualism exists at St. John's. I have before me the entire correspondence in regard to this matter as it appeared in the Southern Churchman; there are eight letters and two editorials. 

This of itself is abundant proof that Mr. Sowerby knew that absurd reports were actually facts. If Mr. Sowerby's letter was not an attempt to dodge the truth, then I do not know what to call it... If Mr. Boone was not the originator of Mr. Sowerby's letter, he was a party to the statements it contained...

The accusations about Boone’s mission continued to mount: Gambling at the Mission School in Shanghai, drunken native staff, opium use, incoherent preaching by Mr Boone and physical fights between staff were just some of the accusations that now received a public airing. Another member of the mission, William Sayres concluded with a full-fronted personal assault on the Reverend Boone:

I shall not go here into further particulars regarding studies, further than to point out the absurdity of Mr. Boone's being in charge of what he knows so little about. His ignorance of the language is well-known in China, among both foreigners and natives. I do not believe he is able to read an ordinary Chinese book or newspaper, and I will venture to say that he does not even know by name the books used in the College, and could not give a list of them. Nay more, I believe that he could not give the name of any book used in the college. I mean, of course, Chinese book.

In response to this sensitive assessment of the prospective Bishop's virtues, another correspondent was inspired to pen the following generous and charitable assessment of the Chinese character more generally:

I am convinced, after a residence of six years in China, almost every day of which I have been brought in contact with Chinese in connection with business matters, and have had every opportunity to observe their traits of character--that they need very careful watching, the man that looks upon a Chinaman as a fool, is indeed a fool himself--it has been the great mistake of more than one Missionary in this land to accept the honesty and morality of a Chinaman upon a profession of faith, and this one thing has done much to retard the progress of the work. 

The missionaries, it seemed had a special term for locals who made false professions of faith in order to benefit from missionary largesse. They called them ‘rice Christians’. It is not entirely surprising in the light of all this that there were certain groups of Chinese who had decided that they had very much had their fill of the Missionary sense of humour, and indeed their presence more generally. 

The Knives Come Out

Approaching the Three Gorges Dam and Yichang, 2011, 

in the heart of the Missionary lands.

The next response to Herbert’s contribution showed just how vicious the missionaries could be when it suited them, as well as how the Protestant Episcopal Mission itself seemd to have degenerated into a state of civil war:

On the 13th of June last there appeared in the columns, of your paper a letter from "A Member of the Mission," in which, after giving Mr. Boone's pedigree, he goes on to say, "Whereas certain absurd reports are believed to be current as to ritualism at St. John's College, it may be well to add that Mr. Boone's election is not only satisfactory to the members of the mission, but is also spoken of in the leading Church paper." 

The above statements, coming as they do from one clergyman under the sanction of another, I have never seen excelled in point of disingenuousness. The writer has evidently sought to make the public believe that the reports which are current on the subject of ritualism were without foundation. "A Member" cannot be ignorant of the correspondence of members of the mission in regard to, this very matter, no less than five of its members having taken part in it. [Appleton, Graves, Sayres, Thomson, and Boone (through Mr. Kimber.)] 

How then can he write, "certain absurd reports are believed to be current"? 

This is easily understood when it is known that "A Member" is a candidate for priest's orders and his passing the necessary examination depends in a measure upon the leniency of the Bishop-designate. [Came to China (a Baptist by profession) a member of the China Inland Mission, after remaining in this mission about eighteen months, left and joined the American Bible Society, remained one month, and became connected with the P. E. Mission.] 

With this in view, one is forced (although unwillingly) to the conclusion that it was a diplomatic move, and not a wish to correct any false impressions…

I am prepared to state, and I do so advisedly, that "A. Member's" letter was submitted to the Rev. Wm. J. Boone for approval before its publication and its appearance in the columns of your paper is positive proof of Mr. Boone being a party to his own eulogy…

F. McKeige

The knives were well and truly out. And Herbert Sowerby’s transfer from the China Inland Mission to the Episcopal Mission, it is revealed had come via a short stay of a month with the American Bible Society. What was more, he was initially a Baptist. 

The implication is clear – Herbert was nothing more than a calculating denominational opportunist, interested only in climbing the church career ladder.