Past killing of animals in Southwark – and a current small alternative
Different parts of London can still show us where cats were frequently killed by cat skinners stripping their fur even when they were still alive. In Southwark -near where the modern Tate museum thrives- a nineteenth century street now named Great Suffolk Street stretches towards the Borough High Street. Part of the street was named Gravel Lane.Named street plates hang on relevant walls, often displaying a former wording. As graphic designer, Alastair Hall of the image below , has discussed, in his fascinating book, London Street Signs “a wealth of name plates, which stretch across centuries of history … won’t just tell us where we are, but where we’ve come from as well.” Importantly Gravel Lane is included less clearly in the current street sign!
Alastair Hall’s close image of an almost overlooked plaque!
Although no plaque is attached explaining the past, perhaps there was a clear rationale…For here Elizabeth Rogerson, ‘ an elder prisoner’ and cat skinner ,lived in the 1830s and charged in the nearby Union Hall court when her home was searched revealing the carcasses of more than 150 cats and dogs. She was not the only cat skinner taken to the local court .
Not far away in Grange Road there is a different story of previous hostile times towards animals. Here there is still a seal sculptural relief of 1869 used as the trade sign of the company, Alaska Factory. Established by John Moritz Oppenheim, born in Hamburg in 1801, becoming a British subject, and was later described as a fur and skin merchant. Here sealskins were used as well as “scores of thousands of furs, skins” as earlier reports suggested. Operating in the 1870s and employing around a thousand local men and women they represented a tenth of the 11,000 fur workers in Britain.
The seal sculptural relief inserted in 1869 in Grange Road
Some locals were still working there in the 1960s but the buildings closed in 1978 and were not destroyed. For example, now 2 bedroom flats are available for c £800,000 – £1,000,000 currently simply described as “a former industrial warehouse in Bermondsey”…
By contrast instead of reflecting past histories of an area destroying animals, another part of Southwark is more positive. In Princes street, opposite the renamed Great Suffolk Street, a different position on animals is displayed. Near the extant building now displayed externally as ‘Kirkaldy’s testing & experimenting’ a Grade 11* listed former factory founded in 1874 by David Kirkaldy was not linked at all to animal vivisection / experiments but with a ‘116-ton Universal Testing Machine’ which is still working.
Near the experimenting building – but very safe!
Near the Kirkaldy exterior building stands an alternative to the 116 ton – a ‘Hydration Station’ in ‘pet bar’ where dogs are encouraged to “have a drink on us!” Sometimes the present is better than the past…
