The King’s Tibetan Mastiffs in 1820s London. An interesting paper in Archives of Natural History

Long gone are the days when a zoo would welcome an exotic breed of dog to exhibit. But that is what the then new London Zoo had to do in 1828; had to do twice in fact because the animals in question were given to the Zoo, then taken away again because, it was said, they were intended as a gift for King George IV, and then given back to the Zoo by the King. The dogs were a pair of Tibetan Mastiffs.

Having seen Tibetan Mastiffs guarding domestic yaks from wolves on the Tibetan Plateau in the midst of a snowstorm, and having been warned to give them a wide berth—a very wide berth—because of their size and ferocity, I can understand why the keepers of the King’s animals at Windsor were perhaps keen to pass them on to the Zoo.

Recently, David Lowther (Durham University), Ann Sylph (Librarian of the Zoological Society of London) and Mark Watson (Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh) published an account of the Tibetan Mastiffs in Archives of Natural History*. The dogs were part of a collection sent from Nepal by the famous diplomat/naturalist Brian Hodgson. Only the mastiffs arrived alive in Calcutta, and they, along with thousands of plant and some (dead) animal specimens were taken to London by Nathaniel Wallich (1785-1854). On 20 July 1828, he delivered the dogs to the Zoo. Three days later the dogs were returned to Wallich, ‘having been sent to the Society by mistake’.

The authors speculate as to whether it was Hodgson or Wallich who wanted the mastiffs delivered to the King. Hodgson was building a case for his election as a Corresponding Member of the Society (CMZS). Wallich, who was Superintendent of the East India Company’s botanical garden, had, by contrast, much to be gained by currying favour with the King, including gaining a royal patron and subscriber to his illustrated book on the plants of Asia.

Whatever the motive, the mastiffs were back at the Zoo four months later, this time presented ‘by His Majesty’. There they did not last long—both were dead by 9 January 1829. the highly contagious viral disease, canine distemper, spread rapidly through the Zoo’s dogs on numerous occasions, and this was one of them.

Hodgson had paintings of birds and mammals done by native artists in Nepal. From Lowther et al (see below)

Twenty-years later, a Tibetan Mastiff was given to Queen Victoria by the Governor-General of India. It lived in the kennels at Windsor Castle from 1847 until 1856. 

*Published by the Society for the History of Natural History https://shnh.otg.uk. Membership is highly recommended.

Lowther D, Sylph A, Watson MF. 2019. Brian Hodgson’s Tibetan Mastiffs: twice presented to the Zoological Society of London. Archives of Natural History 46, 220-229.