The Edgcumbes: Devoted Animal Lovers

Perhaps we are all guilty, at one time or another, for doting on our beloved pets.  Some families even have a strong history of doting on their pets.  The Cavendishes were quite well-known for their breeding of dog-lovers, one being the 5th Duke of Devonshire who much preferred his dogs' company to that of people!

Richard, the first Baron Edgcrumbe was one of the many 18th century men who included his dog in his formal portrait.  That was pretty normal.  However, when the dog died and Richard's world edgcrumbled before him, he did something a little abnormal.  He had his dog's bones mounted and displayed.  I'm sure Lady Edgcumbe loved that!  Rumor has it that he would even talk to the bones and when they were finally moved into the family pet cemetery the dog's ghost would scratch on the door to be let in.

Sir Richard's daughter-in-law was another pet fanatic.  But it wasn't a dog that she set her affections on, it was her pet pig, Cupid.  Lady Edgcumbe and her pig could be seen strolling London, attending to daily business around the house, as well as taking meals together.  Cupid was one of the family.  Sadly, once again, an Edgcumbe was brought face to face with the death of a beloved animal.  But was Emma going to mount poor Cupid's bones in the drawing room? Why of course not! Instead she is said to have buried Cupid below a memorial.  Supposedly Cupid was even buried in a gold casket, but I'm not as keen to believe that.  The king and queen were even said to have visited the memorial on a trip to the Edgcumbe estate.

Now we have no idea where this pig momento mori even is.  But we do have something more lasting, the printed word.  To comfort (or perhaps mock) the countess in her grief, a poet commemorated Cupid in verse;

Oh dry those tears so round and big
Nor waste in sight your precious wind
Death only takes a little pig
Your Lord and Son are still behind.

For more on the search for Cupid's tomb, click here.

The Grueling Life of a Vicar

While reading Jane Austen's books do you find yourself wondering why so many characters' love interests are either in the clergy or planning to enter the clergy as their career path?  Well, the answer could be as simple as the fact that Jane was the daughter of a rector herself, but I believe it has something to do with most of her books dealing with love interests in the upper classes.

In the age of the aristocrat, younger sons were notoriously out of luck when it came to inheriting titles and lands and all other good things that came with be born into a wealthy family.  That meant they had to get a job.  No, not one where they'd actually have to work, Silly! They were still blue blood after all.  The two common options for these younger sons was a career in the military (like Frederick Tilney in Northanger Abbey) or the clergy (like Henry Tilney or Edmund Bertram from Mansfield Park).  Although the two career paths seem quite opposite, one did not necessarily have to have a strong faith in order to become an Anglican vicar or rector.  In fact, having your own rectory or vicarage was quite easy, hence the blue blood career choice, there were books of sermons which you could read from every Sunday in church (most of England didn't attend regularly at the time anyway so it didn't matter).  Local farmers were forced to pay the salary of the local clergy so quality of work was of little consequence.

It's no wonder so many rich young men chose this "humble" career.  It allowed for a lot of free time in order to pursue other hobbies; hobbies which had nothing to do with being a man of God.  In Bill Bryson's book, At Home, he has laid out what a few of these clergymen managed to accomplish with their free time:

• Reverend Thomas Bayes (1701-1761) came up with the extremely complex math theorem which is used today to do things like predict stock market behavior and climate change.
• Laurence Stern (1717-1768) wrote The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman.
• Reverend John Michell (1724–1793) taught William Herschel how to build a telescope, which he did and then discovered Uranus.
• William Buckland (1784-1856) wrote the first scientific description of dinosaurs, and was the one who named Dr Plot's discovery, Megalosaurus.
• Reverend Jack Russell (1795-1883) bred a new breed of terrier.
• Reverend George Garrett (1852–1902) invented the submarine

 The list goes on and on. I wonder what sort of hobbies Henry Tilney and Edmund Bertram picked up after their marriage.

Dinosaurs in the Fop Age

When it comes to the modern history of dinosaurs it was the 19th century when everyone went fossil crazy and actually began thoroughly studying the giant lizards.  But the long 18th century (really long) has some dino discoveries as well.  In fact, one could say that the forward thinking of the Enlightenment aided in shaking off the superstitious thinking of the past which created more logical ideas about those prehistoric bones.

For example, Megalosaurus is a frightfully English dinosaur.  When its femur was unearthed in 1675 Dr Robert Plot and other experts at Oxford determined it to be that of a giant...the warm-blooded kind that live up in beanstalks.

Almost 100 years later part of a Mosasaurus skull was found in a quarry in the Netherlands.  Being the Enlightenment, the educated minds knew this wasn't something silly like an ogre.  This time it was determined to be a fish.  Our scientific minds were getting a little closer.  Mosasaurus was not a fish but it was one of those dinosaurs that you would find swimming around in rivers.

The esteemed zoologist Georges Cuvier has many achievements under his belt.  Perhaps the coolest being that he discovered the Pterodactyl. Apparently "Pterosaur" is the correct term although it was Cuvier who dubbed the dino, "Ptero-Dactyle."  Not only did Cuvier discover one of the most well-known species of dinosaur but he discovered it by looking at a drawing of the fossils found in Bavaria.  It's like identifying a new type of mammoth over email!  Cuvier also cleared up the whole Mosasaurus/fish issue.

Left: Mary and her dog, Tray (who accompanied her in fossil
hunting and died in the line of duty due to a landslide)
  Right: A Victorian (and inaccurate) depiction of two of Mary's discoveries.

Ladies dominated the Regency with their dinosaur discoveries. Take Mary Anning for example.  She was a mere twelves years old when she unearthed the rest of an Ichthyosaur skeleton, the head of which her brother had found, in Lyme Regis in 1811.  She is credited with the dinosaur's discovery.  While other ladies were embroidering Mary could be found dangerously scaling cliffs in order to collect as many fossils as possible and went on to discover the Plesiosaur and the first Pterodactyl Pterosaur outside of Germany.  In other words, Mary was awesome.

Mary's work with fossils inspired Gideon Mantell to follow in her footsteps.  But Gideon is a lying jerk about many things in his life so it is not in my interest to credit him with anything.  His wife, May Ann, on the other hand (who left him in 1839 which I think says a lot about Mr Mantell!) was a clever cookie and probably made many of his dinosaur discoveries.  It was she who found a tooth while taking a stroll in 1822 which turned out to be that of an Iguanodon.  Mary Ann went on to discover other fossils and illustrate her husband's discoveries (hmph, take "husband's discoveries" with a grain of salt).

The word "Dinosaur" itself wasn't coined until the Victorian age.  It was Sir Richard Owen who came up with the name.  Ironically, he disagreed with Darwin's theory of evolution.

Clara the Celebrity Rhino

 

There were many celebrated animals wowing the people of the Enlightenment.  There was the pig that was smarter than a 5th grader, the Duke's of Richmond's moose, the hermaphrodite horse (which I can't find any info on past the fact that he/she was compared to Horace Walpole), and so on and so forth.  But perhaps one of the larger of the animal celebrities was Clara the Rhinoceros.

Clara's humble beginnings come straight out of a Disney movie.  Her mother was killed when Clara was a month old and somehow the Rhino tot ended up in the hands of the director for the Dutch East India Company, Jan Albert Sichterman. Sichterman raised Clara like any pet; she lived indoors with him and would eat her food off a plate.  But as we all know Rhinoceroses tend to outgrow our humble human houses, and if they don't I am sure their poop does.  Sichterman sold his large pet to a Captain van der Meer, who had aspirations to show Clara off to the world.

Now Europe had a bit of a history with attempting to bring Rhinos to their continent and them dying on the way.  Van der Meer was determined to succeed.  On her sea voyage Clara was given an abundance of vegetables and had her skin oiled daily so it would not dry out.  Although, I dare to ponder on the fact that rhinoceroses comes from dry climates and probably don't need to be slathered in fish oil (Clara must have smelled bad).

Van de meer's methods worked and Clara arrived safely in the Netherlands.  She then was exhibited around the country and became so popular that van der Maar gave up his seafaring career to exhibit her.  Clara then went on a rockstar tour across Europe.  Not only did she meet some of the illustrious rulers of Europe; Marie-Theresa of Austria, Frederick II of Prussia, King Louis XV; but was also painted by the great artists of the time.

Jean-Baptiste Oudry who was a court dog painter who painted a life-size portrait of Clara (above).  Oudry's newly-restored depiction shows how Clara continued to have her skin oiled-down for ultimate rhinoceros sheen; it also displays a rather sharp horn.  I have a feeling Oudry embellished the pointy-ness of the horn.

The most accurate portrayal in my opinion would be Clara's appearance in a German anatomy book.

When Clara's rock and roll tour landed in Italy Pietro Longhi was enchanted by the rhino and featured her in multiple works.  By that time Clara's horn was gone although we don't know if it was from her rubbing it off due to being closely confined or if it was cut off.  If the later, it would fetch quite a price considering there were plenty of Clara souvenirs during this Rhino-mania. 

The rock tour ended in London in 1758 when Clara died at the age of twenty.  After over fifteen years on the road, the rhino that enchanted Europe met her end thousands of miles away from her beginnings in India.