The Golden Age of Zoo Postcards--Alan Ashby

Postcards

by Alan Ashby

Anyone with an interest in the cultural heritage of the United Kingdom during the first half of the twentieth century will inevitably find themselves drawn towards picture postcards.

They were enormously popular, and millions were manufactured, depicting just about anything and everything in the lives of our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.

But there is a catch: although deciphering the handwritten messages on the backs of used cards can be enjoyable in its own right, the photographs on the fronts very often tell us almost nothing they are ‘silent snapshots’ of the past.

In those days, just as it is now, a day at the zoo was a break from routine, an enjoyable diversion. However, the passage of time has gradually revealed some fascinating and marked differences between then and now.

Dublin Zoo 1914

These postcards show a politically incorrect world where giving a lighted cigarette to a chimpanzee was not considered out of the ordinary, where enticing a bear to climb a pole to earn a tid-bit or riding on just about any animal that would tolerate it, was the norm, all part of the fun. We Went To The Zoo Today... takes a close look at this world.

London Zoo early 1900s

The postcards featured would almost certainly be impossible to duplicate as a collection of originals and, even if that were not true, it would take years of searching and many hundreds of pounds, to gather a comparable set.

See the curious zeedonk on page 78, the famous elephant trainer, Lorenzo Lawrence, on page 48 or the boxing kangaroo on page 38. All are now scarce, and most of the zoos shown are now long closed and some virtually forgotten.

We Went To The Zoo Today... contains almost two hundred of the best postcards of their kind. They are often amusing, sometimes poignant, but always of interest. This book endeavours, and hopefully succeeds, to give these ‘silent snapshots’ the voice they deserve.

Belle Vue Zoo c.1949

Contents

Foreword, History, Menageries, London, Dublin, Belle Vue (Manchester), Bristol, Rosherville, Blackpool, Southport, Alexandra Palace, Stoke-Sub-Hamdon, Halifax, Maidstone, Edinburgh, Paignton, Grimsby, Whipsnade, Chester, Oxford, Chessington, Liverpool, Dudley, Wellingborough.