My plane from Zurich had touched down early at London City Airport in the beginning of July and as my appointment at the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons was scheduled for 10 AM the following day, I had some time on my hands, so that I decided to explore the strange world of a Victorian Philanthopist – Frederick John Horniman.
Visiting his legacy, the Horniman Museum, a relict of 19th century Britain, had been an ambition of mine since reading about it in a London guidebook some thirty years ago.
Far less known and a bit more off the beaten (tourist) track than the British Museum or the Natural History Museum, the beauty of Horniman’s collection is, that it is much smaller, but despite it’s size it seems to have a bit of everything.
Horniman, a rich tea trader and a Member of the Houses of Parliament, was a collector of seemingly anything that wasn’t native to the British Isles. This particularly involved all sorts of stuffed animals, items of clothing, weapons, household utensils and musical instruments. Worthless kitsch was at times displayed next to important national artefacts (often looted from remote British colonies).
With other words, it was a bit like a three dimensional encyclopedia or like a 19th century version of Google, giving the Victorians an idea how life and animals looked like in parts of a world, that most people would never be able to visit. These items must have had both an educational value, but at the same time must have been the source of dreams and of nightmares for generations of British children (and adults…).
Taking the tube to Forest Hill in the South of London and following a short walk from the station, I found myself standing next to a Canadian walross that had been unlucky enough been shot well over a hundred years ago. Due to the expertise of a skilled taxidermist (or serveral of them…..), it still looked in pretty good shape.
So did a dodo in a glass cabinet, right next to it and I was wondering how a bird with such a powerful beak proofed to be so defenceless against hunters and imported predators…..
Somewhat off putting, but surprisingly contemporary in its educational message was a display of decapitated dogs, showing how much our domestic canines had started to divert in their external features from their mutual ancestor – the wolf.
In a different room, cultural and ethnic artefacts from around the world were displayed. The complete outfit of a seal hunter from Greenland had found its place next to that of a Bedouin family, and with the life-size model of a camel standing next to them, it created a somewhat fitting backdrop to a beautifully arranged Swedish Christmas display in the adjacent cabinet.
The Horniman Museum and its 30 000 wonderful and at time rightout weird artefacts
is no longer likely to draw in the same crowds of visitors as Madame Tussauds or the Tower of London, but it is a good example why it is always possible to find something new – that is yet so old – in this magical city of contrasts and diversity.
The Blue Vet Diary 