Discussion Post: The Creeping Man
Jul. 16th, 2017 08:01 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
scfrankles.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
sherlock60This week, the canon story we’re looking at is The Creeping Man and the chosen topic is Dogs and Other Domesticated Animals.
A few facts:
🐶 Cambridge academic Dr Philip Howell argues that it was the Victorians who sealed the fate of the dog as a household pet and gave it a much-cherished, but also contentious, role at the heart of the family.
In At Home and Astray: The Domestic Dog in Victorian London (published on 30 April 2015 by University of Virginia Press), Howell suggests that the family dog as we know it today was ‘invented’ in the London of the 19th century.
As a cultural geographer, Howell is particularly interested in space, and the ways in which people and animals share space. The key boundary line lay between the private and public zones of the city. The dog became properly private – as a pet – but only at the expense of being expelled from the public realm – as a stray. The dog was portrayed as an animal that naturally loved the family, and suffered as a ‘homeless’ vagrant on the streets.
The second half of the 19th century was an era when London’s population boomed. The newly affluent middle classes became increasingly focused on the creation of the home as an oasis of domestic bliss. At the same time, Londoners became increasingly ‘unmoored’ from the natural world as many animals (with the notable exception of horses) disappeared from view.
As London grew, sanitation regulations were imposed. The herds of dairy cows needed to supply the capital with milk migrated away from the centre of the city. Abattoirs and livestock markets were shifted to outlying districts. From the mid-19th century, sheep and cattle, pigs and geese were no longer driven through the streets of central London. Even dog carts were banned.
Howell argues that, as other animals disappeared from the streets, the pet dog filled a vacuum. Dogs (or at least certain ‘polite’ dogs) were invited in from the cold of the backyard, or kennel, to join the family at the fireside…
The rise in popularity of the dog and a concern for the fate of animals in the streets was also accompanied by the emergence of the first homes for street dogs. A ‘Temporary Home for Lost and Starving dogs’ opened in Holloway in 1860: moving south, it became the famous Battersea Dogs Home...
The problem of strays was certainly acute: in 1869 it was reported of London that “during the five months of the police raid against wandering curs, 12,465 dogs were taken into the ‘Home’ where a gentle quietus was administered to the halt, blind, maimed and diseased; and the rest were either restored to their owners or placed with new ones”.
The description ‘home’, suggests Howell, is also highly significant: ‘a good home’ was what a dog needed in order to find salvation from wickedness – and it was analogous to the homes set up to offer shelter and a better life to fallen women. Battersea Dogs Home provided a route to salvation for some lucky dogs – but also put down the strays that could not be ‘rehomed’. [University of Cambridge]
🐶 Believe it or not, but the majority of dog breeds today can only be traced back about 150 years to Victorian Era England.
In the Victorian Era, the idea of a dog’s “breed” had more to do with the work they performed rather than their appearance. Dogs were categorized based on their propensity to hunt, to pull carts, to do farm work, and other such jobs. While there may have been some similarity in the appearance of the dogs in each category, there was no distinct “breeds”.
During the mid-19th century… hygiene reforms were instated that required farm animals to be relocated from the city. When choosing which animals to relocate, dogs were one of the lucky species that were invited to stay. It was this decision that changed our relationships with dogs forever.
After the farm animals had left the city, the dog’s place in society flipped. No longer were they just working animals meant to live outside with the other farm animals; they were invited inside the homes of their owners as pets…
Overtime our relationships with dogs became more personal; they began to be seen as something that could be molded by humans to display specific traits. This resulted in “designing” dogs to become a popular hobby. As dogs began to be bred to display these selective traits, kennel clubs started to be established to oversee the dog shows that presented these newly designed dogs… [Tori Holmes]
🐶 In the rapidly modernizing world of Victorian England, designing dogs became a hobby of the middle and upper classes… Kennel clubs were established to oversee the dog shows presenting the selectively bred specimens, and stud books were developed for each breeds. (A stud book is a registry of animals whose parents are known to be of a specific breed, and they serve as a database of all the breeding animals of a certain breed.)
Many of [the] breeds we know today came out of this bookkeeping craze, and prominent British aristocratic families developed quite a few of the dogs, like the Golden Retriever and English Setter. [Sean Kane]
🐶 The first modern dog show, on 28–29 June 1859 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was an added attraction to the annual cattle show...
Across the country, shows were established by local enthusiasts, often with particular characteristics… Events were of variable quality and more importantly repute, and such was the unease among elite dog fanciers, that, under the leadership of Sewallis Evelyn Shirley, MP, the Kennel Club was founded in London in April 1873 to regularise shows… The first show organised by the club was at Crystal Palace in 1873, which became their favoured venue, along with a second London show at the Alexandra Palace…
...Charles Cruft… entered the world of the Dog Fancy from his position as general manager of Spratt’s Patent Limited. Through selling dog biscuits to aristocratic owners with packs of hounds, and association with the specialist breed clubs that grew up among fanciers, Cruft saw the potential of dog shows to promote the business further. The first show that he organised was in Paris, as part of the L’Exposition Universelle de 1878, followed by events in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Brussels.
Cruft’s strengths were first as a publicist, using the press effectively with advertisements and stories, and second in organisation and innovation; for example, he designed special railway carriages to help ensure national entries. His first London venture was the Great Terrier Show in 1886, though it was not until 1891 that the all-breed show that still bears his name was established. By then, there were over 40 shows licensed by the Kennel Club each year, along with many smaller local and single breed shows.
Before 1900, Cruft’s shows were looked down upon by the Kennel Club and leading breeders. They were said to be about the quantity of dogs on show rather than breed quality, to offer poor facilities to owners and animals, and to be associated with commercialism and sharp practice…
Commentators observed that the early shows had been patronised by ‘extremes’: by ‘toffs’ with their aggressive sporting dogs and by ‘roughs’ with their terriers, with both more likely to kick than stroke their animal. Over time these types had been squeezed out, so that by the 1890s shows were patronised by all classes, from royalty, through the middle classes, to the respectable working class. At the same time, the increased number of breeds ensured that there were show classes for all tastes and pockets.
The balance of entries shifted and non-sporting breeds dominated, with ‘Toy’ classes being particularly popular with women…
Dog shows were a phenomenon of the Victorian era, which spread from Britain around the world. Paris held its first show in 1863 and the premiere American event began in 1877. Shows appealed to the public as entertainment and became symbols of progressive canine breeding and ownership. Viewing and showing dogs crossed boundaries of gender and class, and allowed all to join in polite competition.
Of course, the shows changed the lives of dogs. They initiated the public preference for pedigree over mongrel dogs, hence, dividing ‘Dogdom’ into hierarchies and classes that mirrored Victorian social structure. They made dog owning fashionable, accelerating the trend towards dogs becoming well-treated, domestic companions across British society. [Neil Pemberton and Michael Worboys]
🐶 For a fashionable woman in Victorian England a pet miniature dog was as indispensable as an opera box or presentation at court. She was nobody without her pet who accompanied her wherever she went, and was fed and housed, according to canine requirements, as daintily as the heir to the title and estates. In spite of the devotion of mistresses to their dogs, however, it must be admitted that they were extremely fickle in their attachments, as the fashion in lapdogs changed as rapidly as that in gowns and bonnets. [Victoriana Magazine, edited from article by Olive Thorne Miller - Harper’s Bazaar, 1893]
🐶 The Victorians adored dogs, which were by far the most popular domestic pet of the era, and perhaps no breed was more beloved than the Newfoundland, a frequent subject of artists such as Sir Edwin Landseer, Arthur Batt, George Earl, Samuel West, John Emms, and George Stubbs. Generally depicted with great sentimentality, the breed featured in countless paintings, songs, and poems. [Kristan Tetens]
🐶 In the 1860s… cats were regarded by the average Victorian as scruffy, mewling rat-catchers who weren’t welcome in well-appointed rooms. Then came one man who, with his unabashed adoration of his feline friends, shook up the cat world for good: Harrison Weir, organizer of England’s first cat show [in 1871].
Before Weir united cats and aristocrats, kitties were considered street animals. Cats provided a useful service—rodent extermination—but were not generally valued for their cuteness, cuddliness, or companionship...
Weir’s view of the cat as “an object of increasing interest, admiration, and cultured beauty” led him to develop a whole new form of competitive entertainment: the cat show. To give the whole thing an air of legitimacy and attract an upper-class crowd, Weir drafted a set of points and standards by which the cats, divided by breed and size, would be judged.
The cat-lover appointed himself as an adjudicator, along with his brother John and a priest named Reverend Macdona. With the help of his newly appointed show manager, F. Wilson, Weir then approached cat-owning acquaintances and rounded up “a goodly number” of animals to be evaluated...
When Weir… arrived at Crystal Palace… he discovered to his delight that the show was to be a great success…
That first show at Crystal Palace certainly had an impact on the perception of cats, who gradually became more welcome in homes. More cat shows were mounted around the nation, and cat appreciation clubs began to form. In 1887, Weir founded the National Cat Club and, as president, helmed its first official show, again at Crystal Palace. Over 320 cats were entered into the competition...
Though cats in general were no longer considered dirty and wicked, class issues and snobbery continued to pervade cat shows…
The less-than-egalitarian nature of cat shows didn’t stop the animals from securing a more general affection. ”[T]he cat is gradually creeping into the affections of mankind, even in this busy work-a-day world,” wrote Frances Simpson in 1903’s Book of the Cat. Simpson singled out Weir as a difference-maker… [Ella Morton]
🐶 ...back in the Victorian era, London’s felines received daily, hand-delivered skewers or packages of meat from a peddler known as the “cat’s meat man...” A cat’s meat man sold chopped meat (usually horse scraps from local slaughterhouses) to cat owners… They had regular routes and clients, just like a milkman, and were a fixture of London street life: hundreds, if not thousands of vendors serviced London’s estimated 300,000 cats… [Caitlin Schneider]
🐶 If you think the notion to slap cutesy epigrams on top of photographs of kittens originated with the internet, think again. Deranged cat pictures have been around since the early days of photography. Once humans got their hands on cameras, the dignity of the domesticated feline was forever doomed.
Probably the progenitor of shameless cat pictures was English photog Harry Pointer (1822-1889), who snapped approximately 200 photos of his perplexed albeit jovial "Brighton Cats." Pointer began his career shooting naturalistic photos of cats, but he realized in the 1870s that coaxing felines into ludicrous poses was an exercise in delicious absurdity. Explains vintage photography site Sussex PhotoHistory of his method:
Pointer often arranged his cats in unusual poses that mimicked human activities - a cat riding a tricycle, cats roller-skating and even a cat taking a photograph with a camera [...] Harry Pointer soon realised that even a relatively straight-forward cat photograph could be turned into an amusing or appealing image by adding a written caption. Pointer increased the commercial potential of his cat pictures by adding a written greeting such as "A Happy New Year" or "Very many happy returns of the day." [Cyriaque Lamar]
🐶 Throughout most of the 19th century, it was not at all uncommon for a family to keep a monkey as a household pet. Monkeys were playful, mischievous, and adept at mimicry. In short, they were amusing. They were also human-like enough to be regarded by some affectionate owners as no more than naughty children…
Those who expected monkeys to behave like domesticated pets or mischievous little children were often unpleasantly surprised to learn that monkeys exhibited the exact same traits as their relatives still living in the wild. They were prone to aggression and tended to be destructive in the extreme…
There are various accounts of monkeys biting their owners or attacking the cats, dogs, or birds with whom they shared their home. As a result, the majority of pet monkeys were kept caged or chained… [Mimi Matthews]
🐶 The continued domestication of rabbits was a very middle class pursuit. By the Victorian era, new breeds were emerging and rabbits were bred not for their meat, wool, fur, or laboratory use, they were being exhibited as show animals.
The Fancy - was the breeding of ‘fancy’ animals as pets and curiosity. The term ‘fancy’ was originally applied to long eared ‘lop’ rabbits, as the lop rabbits were the first rabbits bred for exhibition. They were first admitted to agricultural shows in England in the 1820s.
As the rabbit fancy developed, rabbit fanciers began to sponsor rabbit exhibitions and fairs in Western Europe and the United States. Breeds were created and modified for the added purpose of exhibition.
The rabbit's emergence as a household pet began during the Victorian era… People of English nobility kept rabbits as pets and bred them to show all over the country. Also from a wealthy, upper middle class family, Beatrix Potter rose to fame with her animal tales in the 1900s. Among over 23 published books, she wrote The Tales of Peter Rabbit in 1902, inspired by her pet rabbit Benjamin. [Just Rabbits]
🐶 Among fashionable Victorians, there was no parlor ornament so elegant—nor so diverting—as a clear glass globe filled with glittering goldfish. It was considered to be educational for children who, according to author Charles Nash Page in his 1898 book Aquaria, could learn more in a few hours of observing the goldfish than in “many days spent with books.” It was also believed to be beneficial for invalids since watching the goldfish swim was “health restoring” and “restful to the mind.” By the middle of the 19th century, goldfish globes had become so popular that an entire class of street-sellers had risen up to fill the demand. Operating in both London and the English countryside, these “goldfish-hawkers” were a common sight—especially in the vicinity of the homes of the wealthy and the well-to-do, where they preferred to ply their trade...
The goldfish-hawkers in London purchased their stock from wholesalers, generally preferring the heartier English-bred goldfish raised in Essex. They displayed them in glass globes which, as Mayhew reports, were about twelve inches in diameter and contained “about a dozen occupants.” They did not feed them, believing that “animalcules” or “minute insects” in the water would suffice for their sustenance. To this end, the goldfish-hawker changed the water in the globe twice each day, using rain or “Thames water.”
The Victorian era belief that goldfish did not need to be fed was actually quite common. An article in the 1859 edition of the Wellington Journal addresses this misconception in severe tones, stating:
“Whenever you meet with folks who keep goldfishes in the old-fashioned glass globes, you will be sure to hear the melancholy complaint that they will die in spite of every care taken to preserve them. The water is changed most regularly, the glass kept beautifully clean, the vessel shaded from the sunshine; yet, alas! alas! death is always busy amongst them. Is it internal disease? Is it external fungi? No; the cause is starvation. Every other pet is expected to eat, but these gold-carp are expected to subsist on—nothing!”
By the late 19th century, books on goldfish were advising that owners feed their pets a diet of dried ant eggs. Fortunately these were available commercially… Goldfish globes remained favorite parlor ornaments throughout the Victorian era and into the 20th century. I will not claim that goldfish as pets ever reached the heights of popularity achieved by Victorian Dogs or Victorian cats, but as an elegant fixture in the 19th century home, the goldfish globe cannot be overlooked. [Mimi Matthews]
🐶 JAMES GREENWOOD’S 1874 book The Wilds of London reports on the poorer areas of London and the ways of life of their inhabitants…
The third chapter of the The Wilds of London is titled Sunday evening with the ‘Fancy’ and in it Greenwood provides a glimpse of an East End fraternity based around an interest in cage birds and terriers. The sounds of birdsong form a central theme. His description begins with a walk along Hare Street off Brick Lane:
But, before all, Hare Street is strongest in singing birds. Not so much for sale seemingly, as brought out for an airing. There they were, not here and there one, but by dozens and hundreds – goldfinches and chaffinches chiefly, the cages that contain them tied in handkerchiefs, silk and cotton, and carried swinging in the hand, and jostling amongst the rude mob, as though they were of no more account than parcels of most ordinary merchandise. But the most amazing part of the business was, that not only did the imprisoned and much-hustled finches continue to exist under such circumstances, but they retained perches and equanimity in the most perfect manner, and sang as they were carried...
Greenwood then visits a pub on Brick Lane which he doesn’t name. It turns out to be a meeting-place for the bird-fanciers of the East End:
The conversation was strictly birdy. One person was bragging of him ‘slamming’ goldfinch, and there was a dispute as to how many ‘slams’ it could execute within a given time. Another individual button-holed a friend, and told him all about his ‘greypates,’ while a third was learned on the subject of linnets, and recited that able bird’s sixty-four distinct notes, but of which the only sentence I could make out was ‘Tollic, tollic, tollic, chew-chew-tew-wit-joey,’ and as the man had a very gruff voice and gave the recitation with a strong nasal twang, I am afraid that my ideas of the linnet’s song were not exalted by the lesson.
There was presently some talk about chaffinches and ‘chaffinch matches,’ and then I began to glean a little real information. I learned that in the very house we were then in the ‘muffin man’ had sung his bird against another songster the property of a gentleman whom the company spoke of as ‘More-Antique,’ on the previous Thursday, for £3 a side, and that More-Antique had lost by three chalks. The terms of the said match appeared to be that each man hung up his bird against the wall, in the position he best fancied, and that the finch that uttered the greatest number of perfect notes within the space of fifteen minutes – an impartial person sitting at a table, and chalking down the notes as they were delivered – should be the winner. A ‘perfect note,’ as described by the gentleman who was so great in linnets, was ‘toll-loll-loll chuck weedo,’ and if in its utterance the bird abated a single syllable of the note it didn’t count in the scoring...
The tradition of keeping songbirds in cages is often ascribed to Flemish weavers, who settled in significant numbers in Spitalfields and elsewhere in England, notably Norwich, where they introduced canaries as pets. It seems likely that the birds were kept to make a pleasant sound to ameliorate the repetitive work of weaving, filling the same role as the tradesman’s radio.
But what Greenwood describes is different: an informal men’s club meeting outside the workplace for socialising and rules-bound competition... [IMR]
🐶 [In] the 18th and 19th centuries there was a huge upsurge in pet keeping and activities such as visiting the zoo. By 1851 over half the population of England lived in cities, and yet this was a time when people were still strongly connected to animals… But the role of animals was changing from being beasts of burden or livestock, to something altogether more social. The new phenomenon of keeping animals as pets was catching on. Indeed, visiting zoos became hugely popular, where the exhibits were regarded as public pets and objects of scientific interest.
However, keeping pets was more complicated than having a cozy companion to snuggle on your lap. The Victorians, being Victorians, believed that an animal’s behavior was a reflection of their owner. Therefore the lapdog, caged parrot, or house cat became a symbol for the morals of their owner. Indeed, the human – animal bond became an expression of many of the inequalities of Victorian society such as social hierarchy and class, and your gender or ethnic origins. [Grace Elliot]
🐶 On the theme of pet-keeping in Victorian times, let’s take a look at the pets of the poor. Whilst the middle classes and better off people treated pets as creatures in need of a civilizing influence, the poor valued them as they were as companions.
An example of this is the middle classes who went on holiday and put their house cat out onto the street to fend for herself. The early animal welfare lobby objected to turning domesticated creatures with few hunting skills onto the street where they starved.
However, the reason for this was not what you might suspect. Their objection was the loss of a the owner’s influence forced the animal to act in a more bestial – and therefore less civilized- manner. It had little to do with the cruelty of withdrawing food and shelter from a dependent animal, and much to do with the cat’s poor morality living on the street reflecting badly on the owner.
This is contrasted with an ex-sailor living in Houndsditch. He scandalized his neighbours by refusing to go to church on Sundays. The reason for his absence was he refused to leave his pet squirrel alone. As Jack explained:
“How is he to know I be comin’ back? He give’ himself to my care, and I must be true to my charge.”
Indeed the sailors was right to be hesitant. He allowed himself to be persuaded to go to church, but disaster! On returning he found the squirrel had escaped. Four hours later he found his pet…and never went back to church. [Grace Elliot]
🐶 It was a surprise victory, to say the least. All the smart money had been on the eventual losers. Only a reckless few backed the team that ultimately triumphed. So there was consternation at the finishing line, that day in 1888. An eager crowd had craned their necks to see the first of the competitors head for home, but instead of the pigeon everyone expected to be out in front, the field was led by a bee.
The race with a strong claim to the title of the most outlandish match in the history of sport reportedly happened in the village of Hamme, in Westphalia, Germany. A pigeon-fancier and a beekeeper had somehow talked themselves into staging a cross-species showdown to answer the question precisely no-one else was troubled by - which creature was the fastest.
The question they actually seem to have settled was which creature was the least likely to be distracted along the way. The first bee came in 25 seconds before the first bird and three other bees before the second. At that point, the race officials appear to have grown weary of their record-keeping, and the rest of the results went unlogged.
A resounding triumph for insectkind, then. And perhaps the bees would have done better still, if they hadn't been rolled in flour before the start of the three-and-a-half mile race. "It was very difficult to identify them," explained the London Daily News, "and though rolling them in flour before they started on their course made them easily recognisable on their arrival, it must have somewhat retarded their flight." [Magazine Monitor]
🐶 Queen Victoria and her close family kept numerous pet animals, including:
Alma – a Shetland pony given by King Victor Emmanuel
Dandie – a Skye terrier
Dash – a King Charles spaniel
Eos – a greyhound which Prince Albert brought from Germany
Flora – a Shetland pony given by King Victor Emmanuel
Goats – The Shah of Persia presented Queen Victoria with a pair of Tibetan goats upon her accession to the throne. From these, a royal goat herd was established at Windsor. Goats from this herd were then used as regimental mascots by regiments such as the Royal Welch Fusiliers.
Nero – a greyhound
Islay – a Skye terrier
Jacquot – a donkey
Unknown name – a lory
Marco – a small spitz which was the first of her many Pomeranians.
Hector – a deerhound
Noble – the Queen's favourite collie.[1] A statue by Princess Louise is in Osborne House.
Picco – a Sardinian pony
Sharp – a collie
Turi – a Pomeranian who lay on her deathbed at her request
Coco- An African grey parrot [Wikipedia]
Some useful resources:
How the dog found a place in the family home – from the Victorian age to ours Review of ‘At Home and Astray: The Domestic Dog in Victorian London by Philip Howell’, on University of Cambridge website.
Most dog breeds emerged from a shockingly recent moment in history By Sean Kane, on Business Insider.
150 Years Ago Your Dog’s “Breed” Didn’t Even Exist By Tori Holmes, on BarkPost.
The surprising history of Victorian dog shows By Neil Pemberton and Michael Worboys, on HistoryExtra.
Pets in the Victorian Home - Miniature Dogs Edited from article by Olive Thorne - Harper’s Bazaar, 1893. On Victoriana Magazine.
What the Victorians Did for Dogs By David Hancock, on his own website.
Posts Tagged ‘Dogs in the 19th Century’ ‘Pugalicious: The Pug in Mansfield Park and the 19th Century’ and ‘The 19th Century Dog: Occupying High and Low and, Yes, Even Cruel Places’. On Jane Austen’s World.
"A Wonderful Dog" By Kristan Tetens, on The Victorian Peeper.
What Is The Point Of A Pug–and 19 Other Dog Breeds? By Dan Nosowitz, on Atlas Obscura.
Victorian Dogs Photographs of (Montreal) Victorian dogs. By Anyès Kadowaki Busby, on The Dusty Victorian.
Sporting Cats in the 19th Century By Mimi Matthews, on her own website.
In the Victorian Era, You Could Get a Job Delivering Meat to Cats By Caitlin Schneider, on Mental Floss.
How England’s First Feline Show Countered Victorian Snobbery About Cats By Ella Morton, on Atlas Obscura.
Cats in the 19th century (Part 1 - Background) By LA Vocelle, on The Great Cat.
The Madness and Artistry of a Victorian-era Illustrator of Anthropomorphic Cats By Kristy Arbuckle Lommen, on Human Parts.
Here's How Victorian 'Science' Explained Cat Ladies By Mimi Matthews, on Bust.
Even in the 1870s, humans were obsessed with ridiculous photos of cats By Cyriaque Lamar, on io9.
The Plight of the Pet Monkey in 19th century Literature and History By Mimi Matthews, on her website.
Tales of Monkeys as Pets in the 18th Century and 19th Century By Geri Walton, on her own website.
A Brief History of Victorian Goldfish Globes and Goldfish-Hawkers By Mimi Matthews. on her website.
Rabbit History On Just Rabbits.
Victorian cage-bird fanciers of Brick Lane By IMR, on The London Sound Survey Blog.
Victorian Strangeness: The parrot that started a fight By Magazine Monitor, on the BBC website.
The Pet Parrot: As Depicted in 18th and 19th Century Art, Literature, & History By Mimi Matthews, on her own website.
Parrots as Pets in the 1700 and 1800s By Geri Walton, on her own website.
The Victorian Pet Links to various Victorian articles, on Victorian Voices.
Victorian Strangeness: Seven singular sports from the Victorian era By Magazine Monitor, on the BBC website.
Queen Victoria's pets On Wikipedia.
Queen Victoria’s Animals On A Victorian. Photographs, drawings and paintings.
The Pet Cemetery of Hyde Park On London-In-Sight Blog.
The Victorian Pet Cemetery of Hyde Park By Matt Gedge, on Fun London Tours.
Victorian era sarcophagus - for a pet bird! Wild Vintage shared The Thanatos Archive's photo. On Facebook.
Cat Funerals in the Victorian Era By Mimi Matthews, on her website.
In Victorian England, a Sheep Wasn’t Just a Sheep By Andy Wright, on Modern Farmer.
The Representations of Animals in the Victorian era By Katie Taveira, on Reframing the Victorians.
The Importance of Pets to the Victorians By Grace Elliot, on her blog.
Pets of the Poor in Victorian London By Grace Elliot, on her blog.
Pets From the Past By Kate Edenborg, on VolumeOne.
Victorian Artist Charles Burton Barber Captures the Special Bond Between Children and Pets By David James, on Five Minute History.
3D Stereoscopic Photographs of Cats in the Victorian Era (1800's) On YouTube: 3 minutes, 25 seconds. Posted by Chubachus.
3D Stereoscopic Photographs of Dogs and Cats in the Victorian Era (1800's) On YouTube: 5 minutes, 19 seconds. Posted by Chubachus.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
A few facts:
🐶 Cambridge academic Dr Philip Howell argues that it was the Victorians who sealed the fate of the dog as a household pet and gave it a much-cherished, but also contentious, role at the heart of the family.
In At Home and Astray: The Domestic Dog in Victorian London (published on 30 April 2015 by University of Virginia Press), Howell suggests that the family dog as we know it today was ‘invented’ in the London of the 19th century.
As a cultural geographer, Howell is particularly interested in space, and the ways in which people and animals share space. The key boundary line lay between the private and public zones of the city. The dog became properly private – as a pet – but only at the expense of being expelled from the public realm – as a stray. The dog was portrayed as an animal that naturally loved the family, and suffered as a ‘homeless’ vagrant on the streets.
The second half of the 19th century was an era when London’s population boomed. The newly affluent middle classes became increasingly focused on the creation of the home as an oasis of domestic bliss. At the same time, Londoners became increasingly ‘unmoored’ from the natural world as many animals (with the notable exception of horses) disappeared from view.
As London grew, sanitation regulations were imposed. The herds of dairy cows needed to supply the capital with milk migrated away from the centre of the city. Abattoirs and livestock markets were shifted to outlying districts. From the mid-19th century, sheep and cattle, pigs and geese were no longer driven through the streets of central London. Even dog carts were banned.
Howell argues that, as other animals disappeared from the streets, the pet dog filled a vacuum. Dogs (or at least certain ‘polite’ dogs) were invited in from the cold of the backyard, or kennel, to join the family at the fireside…
The rise in popularity of the dog and a concern for the fate of animals in the streets was also accompanied by the emergence of the first homes for street dogs. A ‘Temporary Home for Lost and Starving dogs’ opened in Holloway in 1860: moving south, it became the famous Battersea Dogs Home...
The problem of strays was certainly acute: in 1869 it was reported of London that “during the five months of the police raid against wandering curs, 12,465 dogs were taken into the ‘Home’ where a gentle quietus was administered to the halt, blind, maimed and diseased; and the rest were either restored to their owners or placed with new ones”.
The description ‘home’, suggests Howell, is also highly significant: ‘a good home’ was what a dog needed in order to find salvation from wickedness – and it was analogous to the homes set up to offer shelter and a better life to fallen women. Battersea Dogs Home provided a route to salvation for some lucky dogs – but also put down the strays that could not be ‘rehomed’. [University of Cambridge]
🐶 Believe it or not, but the majority of dog breeds today can only be traced back about 150 years to Victorian Era England.
In the Victorian Era, the idea of a dog’s “breed” had more to do with the work they performed rather than their appearance. Dogs were categorized based on their propensity to hunt, to pull carts, to do farm work, and other such jobs. While there may have been some similarity in the appearance of the dogs in each category, there was no distinct “breeds”.
During the mid-19th century… hygiene reforms were instated that required farm animals to be relocated from the city. When choosing which animals to relocate, dogs were one of the lucky species that were invited to stay. It was this decision that changed our relationships with dogs forever.
After the farm animals had left the city, the dog’s place in society flipped. No longer were they just working animals meant to live outside with the other farm animals; they were invited inside the homes of their owners as pets…
Overtime our relationships with dogs became more personal; they began to be seen as something that could be molded by humans to display specific traits. This resulted in “designing” dogs to become a popular hobby. As dogs began to be bred to display these selective traits, kennel clubs started to be established to oversee the dog shows that presented these newly designed dogs… [Tori Holmes]
🐶 In the rapidly modernizing world of Victorian England, designing dogs became a hobby of the middle and upper classes… Kennel clubs were established to oversee the dog shows presenting the selectively bred specimens, and stud books were developed for each breeds. (A stud book is a registry of animals whose parents are known to be of a specific breed, and they serve as a database of all the breeding animals of a certain breed.)
Many of [the] breeds we know today came out of this bookkeeping craze, and prominent British aristocratic families developed quite a few of the dogs, like the Golden Retriever and English Setter. [Sean Kane]
🐶 The first modern dog show, on 28–29 June 1859 in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, was an added attraction to the annual cattle show...
Across the country, shows were established by local enthusiasts, often with particular characteristics… Events were of variable quality and more importantly repute, and such was the unease among elite dog fanciers, that, under the leadership of Sewallis Evelyn Shirley, MP, the Kennel Club was founded in London in April 1873 to regularise shows… The first show organised by the club was at Crystal Palace in 1873, which became their favoured venue, along with a second London show at the Alexandra Palace…
...Charles Cruft… entered the world of the Dog Fancy from his position as general manager of Spratt’s Patent Limited. Through selling dog biscuits to aristocratic owners with packs of hounds, and association with the specialist breed clubs that grew up among fanciers, Cruft saw the potential of dog shows to promote the business further. The first show that he organised was in Paris, as part of the L’Exposition Universelle de 1878, followed by events in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Brussels.
Cruft’s strengths were first as a publicist, using the press effectively with advertisements and stories, and second in organisation and innovation; for example, he designed special railway carriages to help ensure national entries. His first London venture was the Great Terrier Show in 1886, though it was not until 1891 that the all-breed show that still bears his name was established. By then, there were over 40 shows licensed by the Kennel Club each year, along with many smaller local and single breed shows.
Before 1900, Cruft’s shows were looked down upon by the Kennel Club and leading breeders. They were said to be about the quantity of dogs on show rather than breed quality, to offer poor facilities to owners and animals, and to be associated with commercialism and sharp practice…
Commentators observed that the early shows had been patronised by ‘extremes’: by ‘toffs’ with their aggressive sporting dogs and by ‘roughs’ with their terriers, with both more likely to kick than stroke their animal. Over time these types had been squeezed out, so that by the 1890s shows were patronised by all classes, from royalty, through the middle classes, to the respectable working class. At the same time, the increased number of breeds ensured that there were show classes for all tastes and pockets.
The balance of entries shifted and non-sporting breeds dominated, with ‘Toy’ classes being particularly popular with women…
Dog shows were a phenomenon of the Victorian era, which spread from Britain around the world. Paris held its first show in 1863 and the premiere American event began in 1877. Shows appealed to the public as entertainment and became symbols of progressive canine breeding and ownership. Viewing and showing dogs crossed boundaries of gender and class, and allowed all to join in polite competition.
Of course, the shows changed the lives of dogs. They initiated the public preference for pedigree over mongrel dogs, hence, dividing ‘Dogdom’ into hierarchies and classes that mirrored Victorian social structure. They made dog owning fashionable, accelerating the trend towards dogs becoming well-treated, domestic companions across British society. [Neil Pemberton and Michael Worboys]
🐶 For a fashionable woman in Victorian England a pet miniature dog was as indispensable as an opera box or presentation at court. She was nobody without her pet who accompanied her wherever she went, and was fed and housed, according to canine requirements, as daintily as the heir to the title and estates. In spite of the devotion of mistresses to their dogs, however, it must be admitted that they were extremely fickle in their attachments, as the fashion in lapdogs changed as rapidly as that in gowns and bonnets. [Victoriana Magazine, edited from article by Olive Thorne Miller - Harper’s Bazaar, 1893]
🐶 The Victorians adored dogs, which were by far the most popular domestic pet of the era, and perhaps no breed was more beloved than the Newfoundland, a frequent subject of artists such as Sir Edwin Landseer, Arthur Batt, George Earl, Samuel West, John Emms, and George Stubbs. Generally depicted with great sentimentality, the breed featured in countless paintings, songs, and poems. [Kristan Tetens]
🐶 In the 1860s… cats were regarded by the average Victorian as scruffy, mewling rat-catchers who weren’t welcome in well-appointed rooms. Then came one man who, with his unabashed adoration of his feline friends, shook up the cat world for good: Harrison Weir, organizer of England’s first cat show [in 1871].
Before Weir united cats and aristocrats, kitties were considered street animals. Cats provided a useful service—rodent extermination—but were not generally valued for their cuteness, cuddliness, or companionship...
Weir’s view of the cat as “an object of increasing interest, admiration, and cultured beauty” led him to develop a whole new form of competitive entertainment: the cat show. To give the whole thing an air of legitimacy and attract an upper-class crowd, Weir drafted a set of points and standards by which the cats, divided by breed and size, would be judged.
The cat-lover appointed himself as an adjudicator, along with his brother John and a priest named Reverend Macdona. With the help of his newly appointed show manager, F. Wilson, Weir then approached cat-owning acquaintances and rounded up “a goodly number” of animals to be evaluated...
When Weir… arrived at Crystal Palace… he discovered to his delight that the show was to be a great success…
That first show at Crystal Palace certainly had an impact on the perception of cats, who gradually became more welcome in homes. More cat shows were mounted around the nation, and cat appreciation clubs began to form. In 1887, Weir founded the National Cat Club and, as president, helmed its first official show, again at Crystal Palace. Over 320 cats were entered into the competition...
Though cats in general were no longer considered dirty and wicked, class issues and snobbery continued to pervade cat shows…
The less-than-egalitarian nature of cat shows didn’t stop the animals from securing a more general affection. ”[T]he cat is gradually creeping into the affections of mankind, even in this busy work-a-day world,” wrote Frances Simpson in 1903’s Book of the Cat. Simpson singled out Weir as a difference-maker… [Ella Morton]
🐶 ...back in the Victorian era, London’s felines received daily, hand-delivered skewers or packages of meat from a peddler known as the “cat’s meat man...” A cat’s meat man sold chopped meat (usually horse scraps from local slaughterhouses) to cat owners… They had regular routes and clients, just like a milkman, and were a fixture of London street life: hundreds, if not thousands of vendors serviced London’s estimated 300,000 cats… [Caitlin Schneider]
🐶 If you think the notion to slap cutesy epigrams on top of photographs of kittens originated with the internet, think again. Deranged cat pictures have been around since the early days of photography. Once humans got their hands on cameras, the dignity of the domesticated feline was forever doomed.
Probably the progenitor of shameless cat pictures was English photog Harry Pointer (1822-1889), who snapped approximately 200 photos of his perplexed albeit jovial "Brighton Cats." Pointer began his career shooting naturalistic photos of cats, but he realized in the 1870s that coaxing felines into ludicrous poses was an exercise in delicious absurdity. Explains vintage photography site Sussex PhotoHistory of his method:
Pointer often arranged his cats in unusual poses that mimicked human activities - a cat riding a tricycle, cats roller-skating and even a cat taking a photograph with a camera [...] Harry Pointer soon realised that even a relatively straight-forward cat photograph could be turned into an amusing or appealing image by adding a written caption. Pointer increased the commercial potential of his cat pictures by adding a written greeting such as "A Happy New Year" or "Very many happy returns of the day." [Cyriaque Lamar]
🐶 Throughout most of the 19th century, it was not at all uncommon for a family to keep a monkey as a household pet. Monkeys were playful, mischievous, and adept at mimicry. In short, they were amusing. They were also human-like enough to be regarded by some affectionate owners as no more than naughty children…
Those who expected monkeys to behave like domesticated pets or mischievous little children were often unpleasantly surprised to learn that monkeys exhibited the exact same traits as their relatives still living in the wild. They were prone to aggression and tended to be destructive in the extreme…
There are various accounts of monkeys biting their owners or attacking the cats, dogs, or birds with whom they shared their home. As a result, the majority of pet monkeys were kept caged or chained… [Mimi Matthews]
🐶 The continued domestication of rabbits was a very middle class pursuit. By the Victorian era, new breeds were emerging and rabbits were bred not for their meat, wool, fur, or laboratory use, they were being exhibited as show animals.
The Fancy - was the breeding of ‘fancy’ animals as pets and curiosity. The term ‘fancy’ was originally applied to long eared ‘lop’ rabbits, as the lop rabbits were the first rabbits bred for exhibition. They were first admitted to agricultural shows in England in the 1820s.
As the rabbit fancy developed, rabbit fanciers began to sponsor rabbit exhibitions and fairs in Western Europe and the United States. Breeds were created and modified for the added purpose of exhibition.
The rabbit's emergence as a household pet began during the Victorian era… People of English nobility kept rabbits as pets and bred them to show all over the country. Also from a wealthy, upper middle class family, Beatrix Potter rose to fame with her animal tales in the 1900s. Among over 23 published books, she wrote The Tales of Peter Rabbit in 1902, inspired by her pet rabbit Benjamin. [Just Rabbits]
🐶 Among fashionable Victorians, there was no parlor ornament so elegant—nor so diverting—as a clear glass globe filled with glittering goldfish. It was considered to be educational for children who, according to author Charles Nash Page in his 1898 book Aquaria, could learn more in a few hours of observing the goldfish than in “many days spent with books.” It was also believed to be beneficial for invalids since watching the goldfish swim was “health restoring” and “restful to the mind.” By the middle of the 19th century, goldfish globes had become so popular that an entire class of street-sellers had risen up to fill the demand. Operating in both London and the English countryside, these “goldfish-hawkers” were a common sight—especially in the vicinity of the homes of the wealthy and the well-to-do, where they preferred to ply their trade...
The goldfish-hawkers in London purchased their stock from wholesalers, generally preferring the heartier English-bred goldfish raised in Essex. They displayed them in glass globes which, as Mayhew reports, were about twelve inches in diameter and contained “about a dozen occupants.” They did not feed them, believing that “animalcules” or “minute insects” in the water would suffice for their sustenance. To this end, the goldfish-hawker changed the water in the globe twice each day, using rain or “Thames water.”
The Victorian era belief that goldfish did not need to be fed was actually quite common. An article in the 1859 edition of the Wellington Journal addresses this misconception in severe tones, stating:
“Whenever you meet with folks who keep goldfishes in the old-fashioned glass globes, you will be sure to hear the melancholy complaint that they will die in spite of every care taken to preserve them. The water is changed most regularly, the glass kept beautifully clean, the vessel shaded from the sunshine; yet, alas! alas! death is always busy amongst them. Is it internal disease? Is it external fungi? No; the cause is starvation. Every other pet is expected to eat, but these gold-carp are expected to subsist on—nothing!”
By the late 19th century, books on goldfish were advising that owners feed their pets a diet of dried ant eggs. Fortunately these were available commercially… Goldfish globes remained favorite parlor ornaments throughout the Victorian era and into the 20th century. I will not claim that goldfish as pets ever reached the heights of popularity achieved by Victorian Dogs or Victorian cats, but as an elegant fixture in the 19th century home, the goldfish globe cannot be overlooked. [Mimi Matthews]
🐶 JAMES GREENWOOD’S 1874 book The Wilds of London reports on the poorer areas of London and the ways of life of their inhabitants…
The third chapter of the The Wilds of London is titled Sunday evening with the ‘Fancy’ and in it Greenwood provides a glimpse of an East End fraternity based around an interest in cage birds and terriers. The sounds of birdsong form a central theme. His description begins with a walk along Hare Street off Brick Lane:
But, before all, Hare Street is strongest in singing birds. Not so much for sale seemingly, as brought out for an airing. There they were, not here and there one, but by dozens and hundreds – goldfinches and chaffinches chiefly, the cages that contain them tied in handkerchiefs, silk and cotton, and carried swinging in the hand, and jostling amongst the rude mob, as though they were of no more account than parcels of most ordinary merchandise. But the most amazing part of the business was, that not only did the imprisoned and much-hustled finches continue to exist under such circumstances, but they retained perches and equanimity in the most perfect manner, and sang as they were carried...
Greenwood then visits a pub on Brick Lane which he doesn’t name. It turns out to be a meeting-place for the bird-fanciers of the East End:
The conversation was strictly birdy. One person was bragging of him ‘slamming’ goldfinch, and there was a dispute as to how many ‘slams’ it could execute within a given time. Another individual button-holed a friend, and told him all about his ‘greypates,’ while a third was learned on the subject of linnets, and recited that able bird’s sixty-four distinct notes, but of which the only sentence I could make out was ‘Tollic, tollic, tollic, chew-chew-tew-wit-joey,’ and as the man had a very gruff voice and gave the recitation with a strong nasal twang, I am afraid that my ideas of the linnet’s song were not exalted by the lesson.
There was presently some talk about chaffinches and ‘chaffinch matches,’ and then I began to glean a little real information. I learned that in the very house we were then in the ‘muffin man’ had sung his bird against another songster the property of a gentleman whom the company spoke of as ‘More-Antique,’ on the previous Thursday, for £3 a side, and that More-Antique had lost by three chalks. The terms of the said match appeared to be that each man hung up his bird against the wall, in the position he best fancied, and that the finch that uttered the greatest number of perfect notes within the space of fifteen minutes – an impartial person sitting at a table, and chalking down the notes as they were delivered – should be the winner. A ‘perfect note,’ as described by the gentleman who was so great in linnets, was ‘toll-loll-loll chuck weedo,’ and if in its utterance the bird abated a single syllable of the note it didn’t count in the scoring...
The tradition of keeping songbirds in cages is often ascribed to Flemish weavers, who settled in significant numbers in Spitalfields and elsewhere in England, notably Norwich, where they introduced canaries as pets. It seems likely that the birds were kept to make a pleasant sound to ameliorate the repetitive work of weaving, filling the same role as the tradesman’s radio.
But what Greenwood describes is different: an informal men’s club meeting outside the workplace for socialising and rules-bound competition... [IMR]
🐶 [In] the 18th and 19th centuries there was a huge upsurge in pet keeping and activities such as visiting the zoo. By 1851 over half the population of England lived in cities, and yet this was a time when people were still strongly connected to animals… But the role of animals was changing from being beasts of burden or livestock, to something altogether more social. The new phenomenon of keeping animals as pets was catching on. Indeed, visiting zoos became hugely popular, where the exhibits were regarded as public pets and objects of scientific interest.
However, keeping pets was more complicated than having a cozy companion to snuggle on your lap. The Victorians, being Victorians, believed that an animal’s behavior was a reflection of their owner. Therefore the lapdog, caged parrot, or house cat became a symbol for the morals of their owner. Indeed, the human – animal bond became an expression of many of the inequalities of Victorian society such as social hierarchy and class, and your gender or ethnic origins. [Grace Elliot]
🐶 On the theme of pet-keeping in Victorian times, let’s take a look at the pets of the poor. Whilst the middle classes and better off people treated pets as creatures in need of a civilizing influence, the poor valued them as they were as companions.
An example of this is the middle classes who went on holiday and put their house cat out onto the street to fend for herself. The early animal welfare lobby objected to turning domesticated creatures with few hunting skills onto the street where they starved.
However, the reason for this was not what you might suspect. Their objection was the loss of a the owner’s influence forced the animal to act in a more bestial – and therefore less civilized- manner. It had little to do with the cruelty of withdrawing food and shelter from a dependent animal, and much to do with the cat’s poor morality living on the street reflecting badly on the owner.
This is contrasted with an ex-sailor living in Houndsditch. He scandalized his neighbours by refusing to go to church on Sundays. The reason for his absence was he refused to leave his pet squirrel alone. As Jack explained:
“How is he to know I be comin’ back? He give’ himself to my care, and I must be true to my charge.”
Indeed the sailors was right to be hesitant. He allowed himself to be persuaded to go to church, but disaster! On returning he found the squirrel had escaped. Four hours later he found his pet…and never went back to church. [Grace Elliot]
🐶 It was a surprise victory, to say the least. All the smart money had been on the eventual losers. Only a reckless few backed the team that ultimately triumphed. So there was consternation at the finishing line, that day in 1888. An eager crowd had craned their necks to see the first of the competitors head for home, but instead of the pigeon everyone expected to be out in front, the field was led by a bee.
The race with a strong claim to the title of the most outlandish match in the history of sport reportedly happened in the village of Hamme, in Westphalia, Germany. A pigeon-fancier and a beekeeper had somehow talked themselves into staging a cross-species showdown to answer the question precisely no-one else was troubled by - which creature was the fastest.
The question they actually seem to have settled was which creature was the least likely to be distracted along the way. The first bee came in 25 seconds before the first bird and three other bees before the second. At that point, the race officials appear to have grown weary of their record-keeping, and the rest of the results went unlogged.
A resounding triumph for insectkind, then. And perhaps the bees would have done better still, if they hadn't been rolled in flour before the start of the three-and-a-half mile race. "It was very difficult to identify them," explained the London Daily News, "and though rolling them in flour before they started on their course made them easily recognisable on their arrival, it must have somewhat retarded their flight." [Magazine Monitor]
🐶 Queen Victoria and her close family kept numerous pet animals, including:
Alma – a Shetland pony given by King Victor Emmanuel
Dandie – a Skye terrier
Dash – a King Charles spaniel
Eos – a greyhound which Prince Albert brought from Germany
Flora – a Shetland pony given by King Victor Emmanuel
Goats – The Shah of Persia presented Queen Victoria with a pair of Tibetan goats upon her accession to the throne. From these, a royal goat herd was established at Windsor. Goats from this herd were then used as regimental mascots by regiments such as the Royal Welch Fusiliers.
Nero – a greyhound
Islay – a Skye terrier
Jacquot – a donkey
Unknown name – a lory
Marco – a small spitz which was the first of her many Pomeranians.
Hector – a deerhound
Noble – the Queen's favourite collie.[1] A statue by Princess Louise is in Osborne House.
Picco – a Sardinian pony
Sharp – a collie
Turi – a Pomeranian who lay on her deathbed at her request
Coco- An African grey parrot [Wikipedia]
Some useful resources:
How the dog found a place in the family home – from the Victorian age to ours Review of ‘At Home and Astray: The Domestic Dog in Victorian London by Philip Howell’, on University of Cambridge website.
Most dog breeds emerged from a shockingly recent moment in history By Sean Kane, on Business Insider.
150 Years Ago Your Dog’s “Breed” Didn’t Even Exist By Tori Holmes, on BarkPost.
The surprising history of Victorian dog shows By Neil Pemberton and Michael Worboys, on HistoryExtra.
Pets in the Victorian Home - Miniature Dogs Edited from article by Olive Thorne - Harper’s Bazaar, 1893. On Victoriana Magazine.
What the Victorians Did for Dogs By David Hancock, on his own website.
Posts Tagged ‘Dogs in the 19th Century’ ‘Pugalicious: The Pug in Mansfield Park and the 19th Century’ and ‘The 19th Century Dog: Occupying High and Low and, Yes, Even Cruel Places’. On Jane Austen’s World.
"A Wonderful Dog" By Kristan Tetens, on The Victorian Peeper.
What Is The Point Of A Pug–and 19 Other Dog Breeds? By Dan Nosowitz, on Atlas Obscura.
Victorian Dogs Photographs of (Montreal) Victorian dogs. By Anyès Kadowaki Busby, on The Dusty Victorian.
Sporting Cats in the 19th Century By Mimi Matthews, on her own website.
In the Victorian Era, You Could Get a Job Delivering Meat to Cats By Caitlin Schneider, on Mental Floss.
How England’s First Feline Show Countered Victorian Snobbery About Cats By Ella Morton, on Atlas Obscura.
Cats in the 19th century (Part 1 - Background) By LA Vocelle, on The Great Cat.
The Madness and Artistry of a Victorian-era Illustrator of Anthropomorphic Cats By Kristy Arbuckle Lommen, on Human Parts.
Here's How Victorian 'Science' Explained Cat Ladies By Mimi Matthews, on Bust.
Even in the 1870s, humans were obsessed with ridiculous photos of cats By Cyriaque Lamar, on io9.
The Plight of the Pet Monkey in 19th century Literature and History By Mimi Matthews, on her website.
Tales of Monkeys as Pets in the 18th Century and 19th Century By Geri Walton, on her own website.
A Brief History of Victorian Goldfish Globes and Goldfish-Hawkers By Mimi Matthews. on her website.
Rabbit History On Just Rabbits.
Victorian cage-bird fanciers of Brick Lane By IMR, on The London Sound Survey Blog.
Victorian Strangeness: The parrot that started a fight By Magazine Monitor, on the BBC website.
The Pet Parrot: As Depicted in 18th and 19th Century Art, Literature, & History By Mimi Matthews, on her own website.
Parrots as Pets in the 1700 and 1800s By Geri Walton, on her own website.
The Victorian Pet Links to various Victorian articles, on Victorian Voices.
Victorian Strangeness: Seven singular sports from the Victorian era By Magazine Monitor, on the BBC website.
Queen Victoria's pets On Wikipedia.
Queen Victoria’s Animals On A Victorian. Photographs, drawings and paintings.
The Pet Cemetery of Hyde Park On London-In-Sight Blog.
The Victorian Pet Cemetery of Hyde Park By Matt Gedge, on Fun London Tours.
Victorian era sarcophagus - for a pet bird! Wild Vintage shared The Thanatos Archive's photo. On Facebook.
Cat Funerals in the Victorian Era By Mimi Matthews, on her website.
In Victorian England, a Sheep Wasn’t Just a Sheep By Andy Wright, on Modern Farmer.
The Representations of Animals in the Victorian era By Katie Taveira, on Reframing the Victorians.
The Importance of Pets to the Victorians By Grace Elliot, on her blog.
Pets of the Poor in Victorian London By Grace Elliot, on her blog.
Pets From the Past By Kate Edenborg, on VolumeOne.
Victorian Artist Charles Burton Barber Captures the Special Bond Between Children and Pets By David James, on Five Minute History.
3D Stereoscopic Photographs of Cats in the Victorian Era (1800's) On YouTube: 3 minutes, 25 seconds. Posted by Chubachus.
3D Stereoscopic Photographs of Dogs and Cats in the Victorian Era (1800's) On YouTube: 5 minutes, 19 seconds. Posted by Chubachus.
Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.
Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2017-07-16 06:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-16 10:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-17 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-17 09:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-28 04:50 am (UTC)by the 1890s shows were patronised by all classes, from royalty, through the middle classes, to the respectable working class. Wow. Am I wrong in thinking that there weren't that many activities that crossed class lines like that?
dried ant eggs. Fortunately these were available commercially… Because of the goldfish trade, or for some other reason? Do we know? (What were Victorians doing with dried ant eggs, other than feeding them to goldfish?)
"and though rolling them in flour before they started on their course made them easily recognisable on their arrival..." Omg, get some professionals in here! You mark bees with paint, not flour. *grumbles* *grumbles some more*
I was surprised to see no Japanese Chin in the list of Victoria's pets, but now that I've poked around Wikipedia a bit, I see no one's actually sure whether that happened or not. (The only reason I know about that story at all, is that it's indirectly referenced in New Russian Holmes: Queen Victoria gives one of them to Holmes at the end of the final episode.)
no subject
Date: 2017-08-06 05:12 pm (UTC)The same thing was going on with pigeons just about then, too, was it not? You know, I didn't know that - I've just been doing a tiny bit of rummaging. Nowadays (or at least in relatively recent years) keeping pigeons is seen jokingly as a typical Northern England working class hobby. But apparently in the Victorian era it was an upper and middle class thing too! You live and you learn.
Wow. Am I wrong in thinking that there weren't that many activities that crossed class lines like that? I suppose there mustn't have been - as there was such a huge financial gap between classes.
dried ant eggs. Fortunately these were available commercially… Because of the goldfish trade, or for some other reason? Do we know? (What were Victorians doing with dried ant eggs, other than feeding them to goldfish?) ^____^ This is a good point.
Well, I don't the definite answer but... The article you quote says As an 1899 article in Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper reports:
“The best food for the fish is dried ants eggs, procurable in penny packets at any corn dealers.”
This article (http://blogs.ancestry.com/uk/2014/03/20/a-victorian-shopping-list-moustache-grease-a-brace-of-pistols-and-a-pint-of-blood/) mentions corn chandlers - which I'm assuming are the same things as corn dealers. And it states Corn chandlers — Pets were hugely popular in Victorian times, and these stores sold a huge selection of animal grains and feed. So presumably the previously mentioned dried ants eggs sold at the corn dealers were definitely aimed at only pets. However, looking at a modern day advert, dried ants eggs can be fed to some birds too, so it's possible they were already available for other kinds of pets before they were recommended for fish...?
Omg, get some professionals in here! You mark bees with paint, not flour. *grumbles* *grumbles some more* As I said above, you live and you learn ^__^
(Embarrassingly I still haven't actually watched New Russian Holmes... ^^") Didn't know what a Japanese Chin looked like before - it's a sweet little dog ^__^
no subject
Date: 2017-08-06 07:35 pm (UTC)I first learned about Victorian pigeon-breeding via evolutionary biology: pigeon-breeding is a very dramatic example of artificial selection, perhaps the one most readily available to Darwin and his readers, and so of course Darwin made much of it. (And apparently his publisher wanted him to make much MORE of it, pigeons were THAT popular.) And then once you know pigeon-fancying was a thing, you start running across stuff like Dhan Gopal Mukerji's Gay-Neck (a 1928 award-winning children's book). What's absolutely fascinating to me is how much the popular conception of pigeons has shifted in the last century. This tumblr thread isn't well-sourced, but its description of the problem -- "how the fuck did pigeons go from beloved to hated SO FAST and SO THOROUGHLY" -- is consistent with what I know on the topic. And oh, look, here's an Audubon article about a sociologist trying to work out how pigeons became 'rats with wings'.
Ahem. Sorry. I find the secret history of pigeons weirdly compelling.
Aha, "corn chandlers"...! Now see, I got as far as "corn dealers" and gave up there, not knowing how to get out of the Chicago commodities market and into something that might actually be relevant to my interests. Yes, it makes a lot of sense that dried ant eggs were a thing that could be fed to multiple kinds of pets. (Now I want to know if there was a cottage industry of ant-farming to support it. But that is an idle question, and you shouldn't feel compelled to research it for me!)
Marking bees with paint: It's usual to color-code the queen of a mellifera hive with the year she hatched, and Root and Son's ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture has a procedure for finding a wild hive by painting and following its bees. Paint-marking was also a common-enough experimental procedure: Baron Avebury, in his Bees, Ants, and Wasps describes marking bees (and ants! and wasps!) with paint so he could distinguish the individuals. And Laurie King made use of that in her Mary Russell books, too: in Beekeeping for Beginners (the Holmes-pov version of The Beekeeper's Apprentice) Holmes has a bag full of little jars of paint for marking the bees he's studying, when he and Russell first meet.
Don't be embarrassed; there are so many smaller-following Holmesian adaptations that one always has an excuse for not having gotten to any given one of them! But I'm not surprised you haven't watched NRH: I love it to death for all kinds of reasons, but when it goes dark it gets dark, and I've never understood that to be one of your pleasures in a Holmesian adaptation.
I've never met a Japanese Chin personally, but there are a ton of videos on the internet of them singing. It seems their owners are much-enamored of that. :-)
no subject
Date: 2017-08-12 04:24 pm (UTC)Ahem. Sorry. I find the secret history of pigeons weirdly compelling. And now so do I ^___^ That’s interesting stuff.
(Now I want to know if there was a cottage industry of ant-farming to support it. But that is an idle question, and you shouldn't feel compelled to research it for me!) Good - because I haven’t managed to find anything so far :P
Marking bees with paint: It's usual to color-code the queen of a mellifera hive with the year she hatched, and Root and Son's ABC and XYZ of Bee Culture has a procedure for finding a wild hive by painting and following its bees… That is so interesting. I had never heard of this at all before.
...but when it goes dark it gets dark, and I've never understood that to be one of your pleasures in a Holmesian adaptation. Yes, that is a large part of my reluctance. A while ago I tried an episode and there was a bloody murder very near the beginning. I bowed out at that point and never quite went back. Really enjoying the fics though ^^
And I have now heard a Japanese chin singing ^___^ Sounds oddly like a cat-growl to me.
no subject
Date: 2017-08-12 08:34 pm (UTC)A while ago I tried an episode and there was a bloody murder very near the beginning. Yep. And it goes on like that: the second episode has on-screen war crimes, and another episode has a gory field autopsy... I adore NRH in part for its willingness to take a non-romantic view of the era and the empire -- and to even explicitly ask why audiences find these stories "romantic" -- but the on-screen violence is legitimately gonna be a non-starter for some.
Sounds oddly like a cat-growl to me. It's not very song-like to me, either! But hey, the dogs seem to be having a good time, and their owners, too, and what more can one ask for, really? :-)