Walworth’s Zoo
Albert Cops with his menagerie in the Tower of London was not the only entrepreneur to pander to the public’s desire to see exotic animals. Perhaps London’s strangest menagerie was to be found, bizarrely, on the rickety upper floor of Essex Exchange, on the northern side of the Strand. Founded in 1773 by the Pidcock family, initially as the winter quarters for the animals in their travelling circus, it soon proved a popular tourist attraction.
Running around the room in front of walls daubed with exotic scenery was a series of caged dens containing lions, tigers, jaguars, tapirs, and even, testing the strength of the floorboards to their maximum, several pachyderms. Higher up the walls were enclosures for birds and monkeys. The roars of the animals could be heard in the Strand, often startling the passing horses.
Edward Landseer and Jacques-Laurent Agasse painted the animals while Lord Byron was charmed by the menagerie’s elephant, Chunee. It “took and gave me my money again”, he noted in his diary for November 14, 1813, “took off my hat – opened a door – trunked a whip – and behaved so well, that I wish he was my butler”. While the panther, he opined, was the “handsomest animal on earth”, the “poor antelopes were dead”.
It was renamed the Royal Grand National Menagerie when Edward Cross acquired it in 1814, and, in a clear nod to the rival establishment at the Tower, he employed a doorman dressed as a Yeoman of the Guard. Admission was a shilling, group tickets a florin, while admittance to feeding time, at nine in the evening sharp, cost half a crown.
Chunee, was the star attraction, taking up residency in 1809 and regularly parading on the streets and appearing on the stage, including a forty-night stint at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. However, there is only so much an elephant can bear and on February 26, 1826, Chunee went berserk, killing his keeper. It took three days, a civilian firing squad, soldiers from Somerset House, a small cannon and 152 balls of ammunition to put him out of his misery.
Chunee’s demise led to public outrage, attendances plummeted, and, to add to Cross’ woes, the Essex Exchange was demolished in 1829 as part of the redevelopment of the Strand. He moved his menagerie to King’s Mews, now the site of the National Gallery, sold some of his animals to London Zoo and the rest, in 1831, to the Surrey Literary, Scientific, and Zoological Society, which he had founded, for £3,500.
The Society, under his direction, created Surrey Gardens on eighteen acres of parkland in Walworth. It boasted promenades, spectacular gardens, laid out by Henry Phillips, firework displays, balloon rides, and re-enactments of historical events such as the eruption of Vesuvius and the Great Fire of London. At its height upwards of 8,000 people attended a day, happy to pay their shilling admission. Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, and their children visited in 1848.
Surrey Gardens also housed a zoo, now long forgotten, which in its pomp was home to 170 species. At its centre was a large, circular, domed, glass conservatory, a precursor to the Crystal Palace, in which exotic fish, birds, and animals were displayed. Feeding time was a particular draw, and the keepers were not averse to teasing the animals to guarantee “a good show”. It was also the home to five giraffes, the first to be publicly displayed in Britain, which were transported from Africa in 1843 and walked from the docks to Walworth at night so that residents were not disturbed by “these strange horses”.
Cross’ death in 1854 hastened the Garden’s end. The animals were sold off in 1855 to fund the building of a 12,000-seater music hall which burnt down in 1861, and the park was sold to property developers in 1877. The ghostly cries of the animals, it is said, can still be heard today.
