Joan Procter and Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell. Scandalous Rumours at London Zoo and Whipsnade in the 1920s

I was looking for information on somebody else entirely when I came across the passenger list of SS Highland Rover’s voyage from London to Argentina in 1925. The names that caught my eye on board this ship, which carried Argentinian beef as well as passengers on the return voyage, were Peter Mitchell, aged 60, and Joan Procter, aged 28, both giving their address as Zoological Society of London and their occupation as ‘Zoologist’. Peter Mitchell was better known as Sir Peter Chalmers Mitchell FRS (he was knighted in 1929), Secretary of the Society, or Chief Executive in modern terminology; he used the Scottish non-hyphenated form of double-barrelled surname, Chalmers Mitchell, even though, legally, his surname was Mitchell; Chalmers was his mother’s maiden name.

SS Highland Rover

Joan Procter’s story is very well-known*. In 1925 she was Curator of Reptiles at the Zoo. Illness had prevented her from taking up a Cambridge place, her all-consuming interest in reptiles led to her first assisting George Albert Boulenger FRS at the Natural History Museum then being given a paid place. She became an expert in herpetology and in display techniques. She was recruited to the Zoo by Chalmers Mitchell to take over the reptile collection from Edward George Boulenger, son of G.A., who moved to be Curator of the newly constructed aquarium. She designed the new reptile house, became an expert at all aspects of reptilian husbandry and was instrumental with Mitchell in pulling the Zoo into the 20th Century. She did all this while crippled with pain and while often confined to an electric bath chair.

Rumours that Mitchell, who was at least distant and perhaps estranged from his wife for a time, and Procter were lovers were rife in the 1920s and 1930s; indeed they persisted at least until the 1990s whenever his name came up in conversation with people to whom the story had been passed down the line from the 1920s. But were the rumours based on fact? In his entry on Mitchell for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, John Edwards wrote:

During the 1920s Chalmers Mitchell developed a close friendship with Joan Beauchamp Procter (1897–1931), curator of reptiles at London Zoo. Despite the distant relationship with his wife, and contemporary gossip, there is no evidence that she was his mistress—her poor health would probably have prevented the relationship from being other than platonic.

Well, perhaps, but there is no doubt that some events set tongues wagging. It is easy to imagine people putting two and two together and getting five—or four—during their weekend or her recuperative stays at Whipsnade when it was being transformed from farmland into a Zoo.

I can only imagine the rumour mill grinding with the news that the two were travelling together to Las Palmas, clearly for the Christmas period of 1925 (the ship sailed on 17 December) when Miss Procter had only been at the Zoo for two years. But in this did they-didn’t they story it is worth pointing out that Joan Procter travelled with a nurse, an Ann Carter, aged 35, a situation hardly conducive to goings-on of an amorous nature.

But given the parlous state of Miss Procter’s health I do find it surprising that between 1925 and her death in 1931 she made other voyages. I found three: SS Tanganyika (Hamburg America Line) to Malaga which left Southampton on 6 January 1928; P&O’s SS Rajputana to Marseille which departed on 12 August 1929; P&O’s SS Cathay, also to Marseille which departed on 7 July 1931. She must have returned to London from the latter trip only weeks before she died on 20 September 1931 at the age of 34. The significance for the present discussion of the trip to Malaga is that Mitchell had a house (Villa Santa Lucía) there which he first rented so that Joan Procter could convalesce after being taken very ill while on holiday in 1927.

It may—or may not—be significant that by 1935 Michell was travelling, to Gibraltar in the case recorded, with his wife again, although the wife is not mentioned in his book of the period, My House in Málaga (Faber & Faber, 1938).

There is a correction to some of the accounts of Joan Procter’s life—and death. In some it is stated that she died from cancer. However, it seemed to me that her illness(es) were too prolonged for that to be the case. At a dinner one night I spoke to two elderly London physicians who were familiar with the medical practitioners and practices of the inter-war years in London. They agreed. I then found her ODNB entry written by Howard Bailes, a teacher at St Paul’s Girl School where she was educated: chronic intestinal illness was how he described the condition that prevented her from going to Cambridge. Given that information I ordered a copy of her death certificate. The cause of death was: I(a) (i.e immediate condition) Heart failure, I(b) (i.e. due to condition) Toxic myocarditis, I(c) (i.e. other condition) Pyelo-cystitis. B. coli, II (i.e. contributing condition) Old pyloric ulcer, peritoneal adhesions, colitis. No P.M. (post mortem, autopsy).

There is no mention of the previous operations outlined in an obituary in The Times, probably written by Mitchell, that could have caused the adhesions and so much pain. It is perhaps not surprising in her condition, weakened by colitis, the ‘old’ ulcer and adhesions, that she fell victim to an infection (B. coli is now, of course, Escherichia coli) of the renal tract which according to the medical literature of the time may have been of long-standing, even congenital, which spread to the heart. We need no reminding that these were pre-antibiotic days.

Joan Procter is rightly remembered for her achievements—judged utterly remarkable for a woman at the time, especially by the news media who still seemed unwilling to believe women could do or would want to anything properly, let alone handle snakes or Komodo Dragons. Her marble bust sits high on the wall of her creation, the Reptile House at London Zoo—built to her precise design with the architect only adding the fancy bits on the outside. An appropriate addition to the memorial would be from Sir Christopher Wren’s epitaph on his tomb in St Paul’s Cathedral: Si monumentum requiris circumspice.

An iPhone shot of the memorial to Joan
Procter in the Reptile House at London Zoo

Sadly, few people notice her memorial and I do wonder what she would make of the uninterested feral parties of London schoolchildren rampaging through the Reptile House who with their completely incompetent teachers have ruined my now-rare last two visits there.

As to what was the relationship between Miss Procter and her boss (who he described as 'dear friend, ward and colleague'), was it a typical case of there must-be-something-in-it type of vicious rumour propagated by their staff? Or was Joan Procter treated as a daughter that Mitchell never had? Or...?

*The most complete biography is in Volume 2 of the series Contributions to the History of Herpetology, edited by Kraig Adler, Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. 2007. Also see  Bailes H. 2004 .Procter, Joan Beauchamp (1897–1931), herpetologist. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Edwards JC. 2004. Mitchell, Sir Peter Chalmers (1864–1945), zoologist. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Obituary: Miss Joan Procter. The Times, 21 September 1931.

Modified 6 May 2021