London Zoo: 'Handsome Gifts' to a Young Society
The Zoological Society of London was launched in 1826 to promote scientific research into new species. Roger Rideout describes how it amassed its specimens for its private museum and menagerie, which soon became a public attraction.
In 1828 the Council of the recently formed Zoological Committee of the Linnean Society informed the public that its purpose was ‘to attempt the introduction of new races of quadrupeds, birds and fishes etc. applicable to purposes of utility either in our farmyards, gardens, woods, waters, lakes and rivers’. To this end it had opened to Fellows a menagerie in an area of Regent’s Park and established a museum in Bruton Street, Mayfair, to collect such ‘new races’. But most of its members, enthused by the natural science that had gripped the imagination of the educated throughout western Europe since the latter part of the 18th century had more personal objectives.
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