For World Women’s Day, two local heroes, Eliza and Helen Edmonstone, who did what they could in an attempt to preserve the legacy of their brother-in-law Charles Waterton: his museum and nature reserve at Walton Hall, near Wakefield.
Eliza (1807-1870) and her younger sister Helen (1813-1879) were of Scottish/Caribbean descent.
The margay was trained to hunt rats at Walton Hall. I’ve read that Waterton trained it to run with foxhounds.
According to a story that I heard via my tutor, Professor Bryan Robb, at the Royal College of Art, whose wife was related to Waterton, a tame crow (or possibly a raven?) once interrupted mass in the small chapel at Walton Hall, wandering in during the service and causing mayhem.
Charles Dickens consulted Waterton when researching the habits of Grip, the pet raven in Barnaby Rudge.
By the way, a credit to another of my tutors at the Royal College, Quentin Blake, who, amongst other things, did what he could to find me work on BBC television’s Jackanory and who tried to broaden my outlook by getting me to draw zoo animals in the way that Ted Hughes might see them. I now realise that I could have learnt a lot from him, so I’m currently taking another look at his work and trying to free up my pen and wash. When he’s adding wash, he never works exactly to the outline and in this drawing I tried hard to do that, but it’s difficult for me with my rather literal approach to illustration.