The origins of the modern ZSL London Zoo go back 200 years to the founding of the London Zoological Society by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles on 29th April, 1826.
While the idea of a zoo had been debated for some years, it was the death of Chunee the bull elephant at Cross’s Menagerie in the Exeter Exchange on the Strand that is said to have been the catalyst for immediate action.
Chunee, who’d been kept in an enclosure at the menagerie for six years, had been put down by a firing squad of soldiers after, having become aggressive during musth (a natural condition in adult male elephants which sees them experience a massive surge of testosterone and is often characterised by erratic behaviour), had injured one of his keepers and killed another. The soldiers, acting on the wishes of the menagerie’s proprietor Edward Cross, had fired 152 musketballs into the elephant but still had to finish him off with a harpoon.
Such was the outrage at this tragic event, that Raffles, famous for having established a trading post at Singapore, moved to to found the society.
Sir Thomas obtained land for the zoo in Regent’s Park before his death on 5th July that year (his birthday) but it was his successor, Whig politician Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne, who oversaw the construction of the zoo’s first animal houses drawing on the services of architect Decimus Burton.
The zoo opened to fellows of the society on 27th April, 1828, permitting them to study the animals. It was granted a Royal Charter by King George IV in 1829. In 1831, animals held in the Tower of London’s menagerie were transferred to the zoo.
It wasn’t until 1847 that it opened to the public in a plan aimed at raising funds for its upkeep.
Initial animals at the zoo included monkeys, bears, kangaroos and zebras – naturalist Charles Darwin was among those who visited in the early years and was fascinated by an ape named Jenny.
While it wasn’t the first zoo in the world (but was the world’s first scientific zoo), it was later responsible for numerous world firsts with the first reptile house opening in 1849, the first public aquarium in 1853 and the first insect house in 1881. In 1850, Obaysch, the first hippo in Europe since Roman times, came to live at the zoo.
Others among the more famous animals housed at the zoo were the African elephant Jumbo who arrived in 1865, the Black bear Winnie who was part of the inspiration for Winnie-the-Pooh, and Guy the Gorilla who arrived in 1947.
Larger animals were moved out to Whipsnade Zoo, the world’s first open-air zoo, in Bedfordshire in 1931.
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