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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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London Zoo
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The establishment in 1826 of the Zoological Society of London was largely the achievement of Stamford *Raffles, but he died before its gardens were established in 1828. The original small collection of animals in Regent's Park was soon supplemented by the arrival of the royal menagerie, previously housed at Windsor and the Tower of London. The many animals to have caught the public's fancy in the zoo's history have included the first Jumbo, a very large African elephant whose numerous admirers tried to prevent his being sold to the American showman Phineas T. Barnum in 1882; Chi-Chi, the giant panda whose intimate problems with An-An, her Soviet fiance/', fascinated the world's media in the 1960s; and Guy the gorilla, so popular with Londoners in the 1970s that a statue of him was put up in the zoo after his death.
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Meanwhile the zoo had pioneered the world's first reptile house (1849), aquarium (1853) and insect house (1881). It was stylish in its commissioning of architects; Decimus Burton (1800–81) laid out the gardens and designed the original buildings; the hillside and rocks for the bears and goats (Mappin Terraces, 1913) were devised by the distinguished firm of Belcher and Joass; the modernist penguin pool of 1934 was by Tecton (in particular Berthold Lubetkin); and two striking buildings completed in 1965 were by Lord Snowdon (the aviary) and Hugh *Casson (the elephant and rhino pavilion).
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In the early 1990s the zoo was in serious financial difficulties with rising costs and falling attendance. In 1992, after facing the possibility of closure at the end of that season, it decided to concentrate its resources on the breeding of endangered species. Its country branch, more in keeping with modern notions of animal conservation, is at *Whipsnade.
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