Victorian zoo slides go on sale
EXTRAORDINARY colour slides thought to feature the earliest images of animals at London Zoo have emerged after almost 150 years.
The rare set of so-called Magic Lantern slides is to be auctioned next week. It includes Jumbo, once the world’s most famous elephant, and animals now extinct like the quagga – a type of zebra that had stripes only on the front of its body.
There are also images of Obaysch the hippopotamus, whose obituary appeared in The Times when he died in 1878. It was the first hippo seen in Europe since Roman times.
The hand-painted slides, taken in 1870, give a fascinating insight into times when animals were kept in conditions now considered cruel.
A chimpanzee is pictured in a velvet jacket while images also show lions and tigers in small cages, a chained white-handed gibbon and a chained monkey smoking a pipe.
Another slide shows Jumbo giving rides to stern-faced children, while one brave zoo worker sits with a boa constrictor around his neck.
The archive, only recently uncovered, was taken by photographer Frederick York.
The images were transferred on to glass plates and hand-painted to add colour.
Fragile
Mimi Connell-Lay, from the auctioneers, said: “Magic Lantern slides were a sort of precursor to modern cinema. They were for public display. Someone would buy them and go around village halls doing lectures and people would pay to see it.
“They were printed on glass plates, which were small and fragile, so although many sets would have been made, most haven’t survived.”
London Zoo opened in April 1828 but it was not until 1847 that the public were allowed in.
The most famous picture featured is Jumbo the elephant – whose name became an adjective.
The orphaned African elephant was hugely popular after arriving at the zoo in 1865. Queen Victoria’s children were among those who would ride on his back.
There was a huge public outcry when Jumbo was bought for a circus by legendary showman PT Barnum in 1882 for £2,000.
Around 100,000 schoolchildren wrote to Queen Victoria begging for him not to be sold.
Barnum took Jumbo to the US, earning enough in three weeks to recoup the money he spent.
Poor Jumbo, who inspired the Disney favourite Dumbo, was mown down by a freight train in a Canadian railway yard in 1885.
The slides, expected to fetch £3,000, will be sold by David Lay in Penzance, Cornwall, next Thursday.