ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, BELLE VUE, MANCHESTER
These well-known Zoological Gardens, occupying some eighty acres on
the south-eastern border of the city of Manchester, were founded in
June, 1836, by John Jennison, in whose family the property remains to
the present time. He had opened a small zoological collection in 1828
at Stockport, when Belle Vue House with land became vacant, and gave a
name to his Garden and opportunities for extension. A lithograph of the
Gardens, taken about 1846, shows only cages for domesticated animals
and birds, a few parrots, monkeys, and deer.
On the opening of the London and North-Western Railway to Manchester
(_circa 1846_), the Gardens reached their full dimensions, and an
entrance was built to accommodate visitors alighting at Belle Vue
Station. The zoological collection still clustered close round Belle
Vue House and the bowling-green; indeed, the main outline and extent of
the collection of the early fifties is still visible in the so-called
aviary of the present day. It is divided into two compartments. The
first is the more interesting. There are cages on three sides, arranged
in four tiers--the highest evidently intended for the larger birds of
prey, the lowest for carnivorous beasts, and the intermediate tiers
for birds and small mammals. A few round cages in the other side held
paroquets, and the macaw-stands were placed in the middle. A large
aviary occupied the second compartment. The collection was compact
and representative. About 1852 a new range of cages was built for
the larger cats, and a little later the first elephant took up his
residence in the Gardens.
Three cages represented the first lion and tiger house, and one of the
first occupants was the King of Oudh’s ‘fighting tiger,’ purchased at a
very high figure, and never surpassed since in size or nobility.
About 1870 began a time of extension and decentralization. The lion
house was extended to its present size, and it proved a suitable place
for breeding both lions and tigers. The other animals were housed,
without much attempt at scientific order, far and wide over the
extensive grounds, which had been considerably augmented by purchase,
and now, with their two lakes and wooded tracts, offered innumerable
picturesque cage sites. The polar bears form a beautiful picture in
their light-built cage under a knoll covered with noble forest trees
that dip their roots in the shady waters of the lake. A moss-grown
staircase leads up to the pits which contain Himalayan black bears and
a Russian brown bear. They take life easily, many reaching the age of
fourteen to twenty years.
[Illustration: THE BEAR PITS, MANCHESTER.]
Beyond the lake and water-fowl pond stands the monkey house, a large
white building of Moorish design, 800 square yards in area, the boast
of the Gardens and the finest in Europe. There is a central large
cage (90 by 18 feet), replete with amusements, such as the village pump
and well, the great wheel, aerial flight, rocking-horse, and automatic
running donkeys, that never fail to please the animals and cause
endless fun to the spectators. The side cages usually contain specimens
of the larger baboons and the more delicate monkeys and lemurs. The
house is lofty and well lighted. Ventilation is amply provided by the
removal of all the windows at one end, as experience has proved that
the monkeys live much better in the fresh air. Formerly, with the house
kept hot and close, the mortality was high. Now, with free access to
the open air, it is much lower, and every morning the whole troop can
be seen sitting in the sunshine even when the ground is snow-covered.
But even these animals suffer much more severely than those that are
made to endure all the rigour and changes of our climate with no
artificial heat whatever. The baboons, Rhesus, Bonnet, and Ringtail,
all seem to improve under this régime; two drills, turned out as babies
six years ago, are now perhaps the finest of their kind in Europe, and
the tonic is so efficacious that ailing monkeys removed from indoors
often recover with surprising rapidity.
Such success suggested a similar open-air cage for the chimpanzees, but
with a heated inner chamber. These delicate animals can often be seen
enjoying the fresh air even in winter. It is the custom here to educate
these anthropoids, two of which, named respectively Consul I. and
II., developed quite extraordinary intelligence, so great in one case
as to merit and receive in life a biography that had a much larger
circulation than such books usually obtain, and in death the honour of
an obituary verse, which we give below, from the pen of Ben Brierley,
one of Lancashire’s most honoured poets (‘Consul I.,’ 1892-93):
‘“Hadst thou a soul”?’ I’ve pondered o’er thy fate
Full many a time: Yet cannot truly state
The result of my ponderings. Thou hadst ways
In many things like ours. Then who says
Thou’rt not immortal? That no mortal knows,
Not e’en the wisest--he can but _suppose_.
‘’Tis God alone knows where the “Missing Link”
Is hidden from our sight; but, on the brink
Of that Eternal line where we must part
For ever, sundering heart from heart,
The truth shall be revealed; but not till then--
The curtain, raised by the Almighty, when
Mankind must answer for the deeds of men.’
BEN BRIERLEY.
Consul II. added the riding of a tricycle and bicycle to his
predecessor’s accomplishments, but sad experience warned his masters
not to teach him the use of a key. Teaching was usually required at
first, but sometimes he seemed to think for himself. Another chimpanzee
at these Gardens, fastened in a double cage away from the visitors,
learned of his own accord that nuts thrown to him (against the
rules), if out of reach of his hand, could be secured by pushing his
blanket over them and snatching it quickly back; and with very little
demonstration he learned, too, that a short stick could do similar
service. He even had the sense to use the short stick to reach a larger
one, if the nut were placed at a distance requiring its use, but he
could not appreciate the advantages of a crooked handle.
[Illustration: CHIMPANZEE, CONSUL I., MANCHESTER.
(By kind permission of Messrs. J. Jennison and Co., Manchester.)]
The elephant house is a plain but roomy building, containing at
present a male and two female Indian elephants, which are used in the
Gardens, and a very fine male rhinoceros and female hippopotamus, both
added in 1876 and yet in the finest condition. They are very savage,
in marked contrast to the preceding rhinoceros, which was allowed
to roam the grounds, and had to be driven for exhibition from his
mud bath in the lake on the warm summer days. Contrary to the usual
custom in Zoological Gardens, this building is never heated, and the
hippopotamus tank is filled direct from the lake, often from under
the ice, without any ill effects supervening. Sally, the old Indian,
with thirty-two years’ service, lived longer than any other of the
elephants; but Maharajah was by far the most famous. Purchased in 1872
at the dispersal of Wombwell’s collection in Edinburgh, he first lifted
the top off the railway-van taken to convey him. His keeper then walked
him the whole way to Manchester, and is still ever willing to spin a
yarn on their adventures on the road, such as the lifting away of the
toll-gate, or the troubles in getting stabling, no little difficulty
with so large a beast. He lived and performed ten years in the Gardens,
and, dragging a heavy load, was ever the leading figure in the May-Day
processions, for which Manchester was then so famous.
The camel house is a similar building; in it are housed the camels
and large ruminants. Adjoining are the zebra and antelope pens, and
a series of large pens for the deer and bisons that can stand our
climate. A large specimen of the _Bison Americanus_, purchased prior to
1869 from the Marquis of Breadalbane, lived over thirty-three years in
the Gardens.
The Gardens also possess a penguin house with a large glass tank for
the display of all kinds of diving birds, also a sea-lion house with
an outdoor pool and a large tank, 64 by 20 feet, in which the animals
display their agility and intelligence under training. Young sea-lions
have been bred in the collection.
Above the leopard house is the museum, where past tenants of the
Belle Vue cages find a resting-place--among others, the great elephant
Maharajah, the chimpanzees, and the great orang, with his arms 7 feet
6 inches in stretch, which was exhibited in the Gardens in the summer
of 1899. Housed in the same building are the live snakes and saurians,
the finest specimen a reticulated python 27 feet in length. The
accommodation is, however, judged insufficient, and a reptile house is
in contemplation.
Amongst exciting and amusing incidents the following have occurred in
the Gardens:
One summer midnight, about twenty-five years ago, a cage-door was left
open, and a lioness escaped into the grounds. The keeper was informed,
and saw her lying by the back door of the house. He immediately went to
her den, where she had two cubs lying, and, taking one under each arm,
walked up to her, and so persuaded her to follow him back to the den.
This keeper (Thomas Day by name) had been a tamer, and in his early
days at Wombwell’s had performed before the Royal Family at Balmoral.
Earlier still, probably in the fifties, a leopard escaped from its
cage. Mrs. Jennison, senior, wife of the founder, happened to be
passing, and courageously went into the house, and with her apron
‘shooed’ the animal, as though it had been a hen and chickens, straight
back into its cage, where she fastened it up.
In the very early days, when Belle Vue was in the country and our
enclosures were less perfect, it was a common thing for the countryside
to turn out for a red-deer chase after an escape from the Gardens.
These things do not happen now, as there is a 12-feet high wall all
round the 80 acres. A sea-lion did once get as far as the exit, some
300 yards from its cage. When diving from a high platform his impetus
gave him his freedom. When that escape was blocked he showed wonderful
climbing powers, getting over a barrier 6 feet high by using a corner.
However, his keeper stopped him finally, and turned his powers to
proper uses by adding the climbing of a pole to his other tricks. He
managed 6 feet.
One other incident for a close. Three black-backed jackals (two of
which are still alive) were caged at the Longsight end of the Gardens.
Their cage-door was left open in October, 1900; they got out, traversed
the whole length of the Gardens, and went out by the Lake Hotel exit.
They were seen some 200 yards away outside, playing together. They
returned towards the Gardens; one was headed off by some boys, the
other two entered as they had left (by the exit at the extreme end of
the large lake), and, retraversing the Gardens, returned unmolested
to their cage. (The third was afterwards caught and returned to the
Gardens.) The above is so curious that it is perhaps as well that the
event is recent enough to be capable of very full proof.
An extract from the _Manchester Guardian_ of June 1, 1901, will form a
fitting termination to this short account of Belle Vue:
‘Of the zoological collection, the pride and boast of Belle Vue, it is
only necessary to say that in every department it is kept thoroughly
up to date.
‘Mr. John Jennison, the founder of the establishment, could not have
dreamed forty years ago of the priceless possession which his modest
“Gardens” would eventually become to the city.... We remember saying
that the Gardens were the playground of Lancashire. The description
needs to be very largely expanded. A pleasure resort which attracts,
as Belle Vue does, thousands of visitors from Edinburgh and Glasgow on
the north, Yarmouth on the east, and Gloucester, Cardiff, and Swansea
on the south and west, has about it something of a metropolitan air.
Its votaries, indeed, are not confined to the inhabitants of one
hemisphere. We have heard New Yorkers almost regretfully admit that
the Empire City had nothing so good to show in the way of a pleasure
resort.’