GEORGE WOMBWELL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 December 1940, Page 6

GEORGE WOMBWELL

FORTUNE FROM EXHIBITING ANIMALS. There was once a boy who was exceedingly fond of keeping rabbits and birds, dogs and cats and other animals. He was George Wombwell. Born at Maldon in Essex, he was at first a shoemaker, his shop being in Soho in London. There he plied his hammer and beat his last till one day, as a young man. he strolled down to the docks and saw two huge boa-con-strictors, among the first brought to England. He bought them for £75, and soon made much more than that sum by exhibiting them. That was the beginning of his menageries. England in his day had nothing to compare with Wombwell’s three trav-, oiling shows. They cost him at least a hundred pounds a day. and ho was often losing animals or birds which meant hundreds of pounds to him. But he was a born showman. He loved animals, knew how to care for them, controlled those who trained them, and kept a watchful eye on expenses and box-office receipts. Year after year he travelled up and down the land. He was always on the move, and though he amassed a great fortune, he never retired, lying suddenly at Northallerton in Yorkshire, and being buried at Highgate, where, one day in 1850, a great concourse of people to pay their last respects to a unique man. “The Times” paid a tribute to him. It may be said that he did more than anyone else up to his time to familiarise England with the birds and beasts of other lands