In the eighteenth century, it would not have been impossible to encounter an elephant or a kangaroo making its way down the Strand, heading towards the menagerie of Mr. Pidcock at the Exeter Change. Pidcock s was just one of a number of commercial menagerists who plied their trade in London in this period the predecessors to the zoological societies of the Victorian era. As the British Empire expanded and seaborne trade flooded into London s ports, the menagerists gained access to animals from the most far-flung corners of the globe, and these strange creatures became the objects of...
In the eighteenth century, it would not have been impossible to encounter an elephant or a kangaroo making its way down the Strand, heading towards th...
