stuff of legend

A female association with stuffed animals has a long history in this country as well as overseas. Indeed, the earliest stuffed bird believed to be in existence in this country belonged to a woman: Frances Teresa Stewart, Duchess of Richmond and Lennox (1647-1702). Famed for her beauty and her silliness in almost equal measures, she was the model for the idealised, female Britannia that continued to appear on coinage until decimalisation in 1971. She proved impervious to the charms of Charles II, who had contemplated becoming the first monarch to divorce since Henry VIII, and who remained besotted even after smallpox had wreaked havoc with her once legendary features. The king duly dispatched her husband overseas and, in his place, Frances kept an African grey parrot as a pet for 40 years. It died soon after she did and was stuffed and mounted, and can be found in the Westminster Abbey Museum, next to her

wax effigy.

One of the founders of modern taxidermy was an American woman, Martha Maxwell (1831-1881). An artist and naturalist as well, she paved the way for other seminal, male figures in the taxidermy world, such as William

Temple Hornaday and Carl Akeley, using pioneering techniques in terms of preservation and setting. Using plaster moulds and iron frames under the skin, rather than simply sewing and stuffing, and creating natural habitats for displays, she laid the foundations of

taxidermy as we recognise it today.