Now! Then! The London Zoological Society accepts the Yorkshire Philosophical Society’s offer of a mischievous bear, and suggests transport south by stagecoach

26 December 1831: The London Zoological Society accepts the Yorkshire Philosophical Society’s offer of a mischievous bear, and suggests transport south by stagecoach

Peter Davis. 2019. The Bear in the Museum. The Bear. Ed. Owen T. Nevin, Ian Convery, and Peter Davis. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press. Get it:

Excerpt

In 1830, following a proposal by a group of society members, a small menagerie was installed in the garden, the exhibits including a golden eagle, several monkeys and a bear. In 1831, the bear escaped from its cage and chased [the geologist John] Phillips and William Vernon Harcourt (1789–1871), first President of the YPS, into an outbuilding. Following this misdemeanour, it was offered to the Zoological Society of London, which agreed to take the bear. Transport, however, was an issue, but the zoo’s resourceful Secretary offered an interesting suggestion:

Zool. Soc. London, Dec. 26th 1831

Sirs,

We shall feel much pleased in taking your bear on the terms proposed in your letter of 21st.
The best mode I can conceive of forwarding him to us is by one of the York coaches, you booking him on as an outside Passenger, and promising the Guard a recompense on his delivering him safe in London. Be so good as to send us a line to inform us of the Coach by which the animal is to travel and the place and probable time of his arrival in town. You will also oblige me by stating to whom we shall pay the price of the animal.

I hope I shall have the opportunity of showing you our Garden and your old friend as a happy occupier of them.

[Pyrah 1988’s source is Oxford University Museum 1831/23]

Hence the bear travelled as a pillion passenger from York to London, accompanied by Henry Baines, an employee of the YPS. Sarah King (May 2018, pers comm) notes that Baines “worked for the YPS for another 20 years or so afterwards, so he must have got over it.” The responses of the bear’s fellow passengers are not known.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

“Exit bear, south,” comments John Bibby, who pointed me to this (Bibby 2022).

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Original

Zool. Soc. London, Dec. 26th 1831

Sirs,

We shall feel much pleased in taking your bear on the terms proposed in your letter of 21st.
The best mode I can conceive of forwarding him to us is by one of the York coaches, you booking him on as an outside Passenger, and promising the Guard a recompense on his delivering him safe in London. Be so good as to send us a line to inform us of the Coach by which the animal is to travel and the place and probable time of his arrival in town. You will also oblige me by stating to whom we shall pay the price of the animal.

I hope I shall have the opportunity of showing you our Garden and your old friend as a happy occupier of them.

(quoted in Pyrah 1988, 47)

Hence the bear travelled as a pillion passenger from York to London, accompanied by Henry Baines, an employee of the YPS. Sarah King (May 2018, pers comm) notes that Baines ‘worked for the YPS for another 20 years or so afterwards, so he must have got over it’. The responses of the bear’s fellow passengers are not known.

303 words.