Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wombwell, George
WOMBWELL, GEORGE (1778–1850), founder of Wombwell's menageries, was born at Maldon in Essex in 1778, and as a young man kept a cordwainer's shop in Monmouth Street, Soho. About 1804 he bought as a speculation two boa-constrictors for 75l. In three weeks he more than cleared his expenses by exhibiting them, and next year he set to work to form a menagerie which he built up until it became by far the finest travelling collection in the kingdom. He travelled mainly from one large fair to another, and many stories are told of his rivalries with Atkins and other menagerie owners, especially in connection with Bartholomew Fair, of which moribund institution he was one of the last upholders. Much interest was excited in July 1825 by a ‘match’ arranged at Warwick between Wombwell's large lion Nero and six dogs of the bull-and-mastiff breed; but ‘the lovers of brutal sports were disappointed of their banquet,’ for Nero refused to fight, and when he was replaced by a smaller lion, Wallace, the dogs who survived the first few seconds of the encounter could not be induced to face their enemy again (Wade, Brit. Chronology, s.a. 1825, 26 July); Wombwell displayed ‘a disgusting picture of the fight outside his show.’ At Croydon one year Wombwell startled the frequenters of the fair by announcing the exhibition of a ‘bonassus,’ which turned out to be a bison; the pride of the show in 1830 was the ‘Elephant of Siam.’ He was very successful in breeding carnivorous animals, and became the proprietor of over twenty lions. His caravans are stated to have numbered forty, and he had a fine stud of 120 drayhorses. The cost of maintenance of his three ‘monstre menageries’ was estimated at over 100l. a day, the payment for turnpike tolls alone forming a heavy item of expenditure. Wombwell died of bronchitis on 16 Nov. 1850 at Northallerton, where his show (which he followed to the last in a special travelling carriage) was then exhibiting. His remains were conveyed to his house in the Commercial Road, London, and buried at Highgate in the presence of an enormous concourse of people. He left a widow and a daughter, Mrs. Barnescombe, wife of an army accoutrement maker, who had long taken a part in the business, and who took over his No. 1 menagerie; a second went to his nephew, George Wombwell, junior, and a third to his niece, Mrs. Edmonds.
Wombwell took the keenest interest in the welfare of the animals. ‘No one probably did more,’ said the ‘Times,’ ‘to forward practically the study of natural history among the masses.’ Hone severely delineates him in the ‘Table Book’ as ‘undersized in mind as well as in form, a weazen, sharp-faced man, with a skin reddened by more than natural spirits.’ A portrait of George Wombwell was engraved for Chambers's ‘Book of Days’ (ii. 586).
[Gent. Mag. 1851 i. 320; Men of the Reign; Times, 27 Nov. 1850; Era, 1 Dec. 1850; Frost's Circus Life and Celebrities, 1875; Morley's Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair, p. 383; D. P. Miller's Life of a Showman, 1849, p. 44; Verses addressed to Mr. Wombwell, the great menagerist, at Weldon Fair, 1838 (Brit. Mus.).]