“New Sensibilities?

Attitudes to Wildlife and Nature in Nineteenth century Britain

PolecatRed KiteBarn Owl

First Stage of Cruelty

2nd Stage of Cruelty The Reward of Cruelty

Cruelty in Perfection “In Tudor England the artificial preservation of uncultivated hilltops wouldhave seemed as absurd asthe creation of sanctuariesfor wild birds and animalswhich could not be eatenor hunted.

Man’s task, in the words of Genesis (i.28) was to:‘Replenish the earthand subdue it’: to level thewoods, till the soil, drive off the predators, kill the vermin, plough up the bracken, drain the fens’

(K Thomas 1983)

‘Over the fence’ (W Williams 1890)

“The love of the chase may besaid to be screwed into the soulof man by the noble hand ofnature”

(R Dorvill 1833)

“Hunting was at the same timea mark of the fitness of the dominant race, a route to healthstrength, and wealth, an emblemof imperial rule, and an allegoryof human affairs”(J Mackenzie 1989)

Victoria & Albert stag hunting 1853

“The House of Commons representing none but the rich and powerful, protects a barbarous and bloody sport from which every enlightened and amiable mind shrinks in abhorrence and disgust, persons of great property nurtureanimals on their estates for the sakeof destroying them that they may kill and torture living beings for their sport”

(Shelley, Polemic against hunting)

“The poor hart toils along the mountainside I will not stop to tell how far he fled, Nor will I mention by what death he died; But now the Knight beholds him lying dead

(William Wordsworth 1800)

Hart Leap-Well

Shooting as ‘Sport’ on Landed estates in the Nineteenth century

The Prince of Wales on apheasant shoot atChatsworth, late 19th Century

‘One of the largest ‘bags’ of birdstook place on a Yorkshire estate where just 9 guns killed 3,824 pheasants, 15 partridges, 526 hares, 92 rabbits and 3 various making a grand total of 4,460 birds and mammals killed’

19th Century ‘Vermin’ Control

Burley Estate Rutland1807-1816

Red Kite 183Buzzard 285Hawk 340Owl 386Polecat 206Pine Marten 9Red Squirrel 197Woodpecker 103

Killing of Wildcatson Scottish Estates1874 – 1902

Wildcats killed

Ross & C – 1874-1902 193Inverness – 1880-1903 67Argyll - 1885-1888 10Sutherland 1877-1886 27

Total 297

Murderous Millinery?

Snowy EgretA hat and muff set made in the 1890’s using the feathers of a Great crestedGrebe

At the London Commercial Sales rooms in1902 there were sold 1,608 packages ofheron’s plumes. A package is said to averagein weight 30 ounces, this makes a total of48,240 ounces. It requires 4 birds to make anounce of plumes, these sales meant that192,960 herons were killed at their nests, withtwo or three times that number of young or eggs destroyed

Victorian Caged Songbirds and the fascination for Taxidermy

A variety of bird cages

The poorselling cagedbirds in London

A glass dome of stuffed and mounted songbirds

“Animals, whom we have made our slaves we do not like to consider our equals” (Charles Darwin)

Primary

Darwin C, (1839) The Voyage of the Beagle Howitt W, (1838) The Rural Life of EnglandJeffries R (1879) The Gamekeeper at Home: Sketches of Natural Historyand Rural LifeJohnson T B (1851) The Gamekeepers DirectoryMayhew H (1861) London Labour and the London PoorWhittaker J (1904) Scribblings of a Hedgerow Naturalist

Secondary

Coates P, (1998) Nature, Western Attitudes Since Ancient TimesGrove R H (1995) Green Imperialism, Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism 1600-1860Lovegrove R (2007) Silent Fields, The long decline of a nations wildlifeMartin B P (1987) The Great Shoots, Britain’s Best – Past and PresentThomas K (1983) Man and the Natural World, Changing Attitudes in England 1500 - 1800

Journals

David Perkins, ‘Wordsworth and the PolemicAgainst Hunting: “Hart Leap Well”, Nineteenth Century Literature, Vol. 52, No. 4, (Mar. 1998) pp. 421-445

Rob Boddice, ‘Manliness and the “Morality of Field Sports”: E. A. Freeman and Anthony Trollope, 1869-71