I read with great interest but with some disagreement a recent paper in Archives of Natural History. The Patron’s Review is written by invitation of the Society for the History of Natural History to an outstanding young scholar. The author, Eleanor Larsson, has written on the acquisition of animals by London Zoo between 1870 and 1910 and in particular the practice of animals being ‘on deposit’.
Over the period in question the death rate of animals at the Zoo was extremely high; on average around 30% died each year (but see below). Therefore at least 1,000 animals were needed every year to replace those which had died. These were obtained by donation, purchase, breeding or exchange. In addition animals belonging to other people were placed in the zoo ‘on deposit’ for short or long periods.
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| Data extracted from the zoo records by Eleanor Larsson (2021) |
Animals ‘on deposit’ could range from those presented to members of the royal family by foreign potentates to those from exotic pet keepers who could not quite bear to give their monkey away even though it had grown up and started to bite people. It is on two categories of depositor that Larsson has concentrated her attention: commercial animal dealers and Walter Rothschild who operated on such a scale that he becomes a category as a single individual.
Animal dealers, including the famous Charles Jamrach, based in the East End of London near the docks, William Cross of Liverpool and even Carl Hagenbeck in Hamburg frequently deposited animals at London Zoo while trying to find a customer. The Zoo benefitted because it could use the opportunity to see the health and condition of the animal at close hand before making an offer to buy. The Zoo also benefitted because it kept the place well stocked and with a turnover and degree of novelty that the Great British Public demanded—and still does demand—without having to shell out for an animal. The dealers benefitted because the Zoo provided a show-case for their wares (sometimes fellows the the society who had private menageries), free accommodation for large animals unsuited to their premises and, with Cross and Hagenbeck, for example, as a holding place for their London purchases while they waited shipment to their final owner.
Rothschild, by contrast, had no commercial interest but was responsible for the peak in numbers of animals on deposit between 1903 and 1907. For his museum and for his own study collectors throughout the world sent specimens. He also bought live animals from the London dealers. Many of his live animals were kept on the family estate at Tring. However, after a cassowary—birds of particular interest to Rothschild—attacked his father, he had to reduce the size of his living collection, became a fellow of the zoological society and transferred animals to London Zoo on deposit. It is obvious that over the years he came to regard the Zoo as part of his personal fiefdom, issuing instructions directly to junior staff even after his particular plan had been blocked by those more senior in the hierarchy. However, the Zoo again benefitted because Rothschild provided financial support for the care of his deposits, as well as donating some of the animals in which he had no further interest. One example Larsson quotes is his funding the construction of a house for 50 Galapagos tortoises he acquired from an expedition in 1897-98. In 1900, Larsson calculated, a quarter of the animals at London Zoo were on deposit from Rothschild. On average Rothschild deposited an average of 700 animals per year. That all came to an end in 1907 as financial problems supervened. The story of his being blackmailed by a peeress over many years is now well known.
For the private depositor of animals at the Zoo, the animal remained his or her property—in death as in life. For many such owners the Zoo was an intermediate stage in getting the animal stuffed and mounted for exhibition in their houses. Rothschild had animals sent directly from the Zoo to his preferred taxonomist for the type of animal in question. Sometimes, he did not wait for the animals to die. In order to work on his monograph on cassowaries he had one ‘killed by order’ and sent to a taxidermist in Cambridge.
Did the policy of holding animals on deposit backfire? Larsson argues that it did. Firstly, the Zoo had no control over when the depositor might remove the animal. Secondly, ‘the Society was often compelled by obligation to put the needs, wants and desire of the depositors above its own’. Thirdly, because the depositors, but not the dealers in this case, had their dead animal sent to a taxidermist, the Society missed the opportunity of determining the cause of death by autopsy and therefore ‘prevented the Society from expanding its knowledge about animal disease and by extension, the care that might be provided to animals in life to reduce the occurrence of disease and death’.
It is on this last point—the main thrust of Larsson’s article—that I disagree with the author. The main rôle of the Society’s Prosector in the decades at the end of the 19th century was the study of comparative anatomy but not pathology. Efforts were made to determine the cause of death, especially earlier in that century by the undiplomatic and irascible first Prosector, James Murie (1832-1925) who held the post for around 5 years until 1870, but a pathologist in addition to the prosector was not appointed until 1903. Therefore, if any of the Society’s activities suffered as a result of not having deposited animals available for dissection it was comparative anatomy. Given the overall death rate though there was plenty of material to keep the Prosector occupied.
I also question whether the failure to determine the cause of death of animals on deposit had any material effect on efforts to decrease the annual mortality and morbidity. It is one thing to determine the cause of death, with the attendant difficulties of distinguishing ‘dying of’ from ‘dying with’, and another to be able to do anything about it. Tuberculosis—a common cause of death—could not be cured. Common infections were often the result of poor nutrition, stress and inappropriate housing but very little could be done about those because the knowledge to do something simply did not exist. Vitamins, for example, had not been thought of, let alone characterised.
In essence I found Larsson’s essay a very useful addition to the history of the Zoological Society of London at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries but I cannot agree with her main point that the policy of accepting animals for exhibition ‘on deposit’ inhibited attempts to decrease the death rate at London Zoo.
Chalmers Mitchell, in his Centenary History, and who became Secretary of the society in 1903, does not mention any particular problems associated with the ‘on deposit’ policy although he clearly had a few problems with Rothschild’s demands in his early years in office. Mitchell never missed the opportunity of having a pop at the regime of this predecessor, Philip Lutley Sclater, and so I am reassured that as far as he was concerned the problem of high rates of sickness and death of the animals was a more general problem, not helped until 1903 by a lack of pathological expertise, and not materially affected by the ‘on deposit’ scheme.
The death rate of around 30%, incidentally, does not accord with the figures obtained by Eric Ashton and Gwynne Vevers in their survey published in 1959. Average annual mortality between 1883 and 1904 was 42%. After the First World War, there was some improvement but even in 1957 it was 28%.
Although not in the period of Larsson’s essay, holding animals ‘on deposit’ was continued for many decades beyond 1910 but not on the scale of the peak caused by Rothschild’s activities. In the 1950s and 1960s—and perhaps beyond—labels on cages would bear the inscription ‘deposited by’ with the owner’s name. Animal collectors—not just those employed by the Society—lodged their animals at London Zoo while buyers were found or stock sorted. For example, the bird collector Wilfred Frost, stored his animals there as late as 1957.
Larsson E. 2021. “On Deposit”: animal acquisition at the Zoological Society of London, 1870–1910 (Patron's review). Archives of Natural History. 48, 1-21 doi.org/10.3366/anh.2021.0685
Ashton EH, Vevers HG. 1959. The numbers of exhibits, births and deaths in the menagerie at Regent’s Park: 1835-1957, and in Whipsnade Park 1931-1957. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1959, 489-514.
Mitchell PC. 1929. Centenary History of the Zoological Society of London. London: Zoological Society of London
Ellis M. 2010. W.J.C. (Wilfred) Frost: An incomplete biography. Avicultural Magazine 116, 158-183.
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