Document Of The Month: Pets At Home

The family pet has most likely existed for as long as we have had families themselves. For many, they are virtually another family member and we dote on them as loving companions.

It seems as if, all through human history, taking on and taking care of animals in our home is something we have always been fascinated with, so why don’t we see more evidence of this in our history books?

In the collections of the East Riding Archives & Local Studies Service at the , which date all the way back to the 11th century, the first recorded reference to a ‘pet’ is thought to be in a letter dated 12 March 1770, in which Thomas Grimston writes of his pet cock bullfinch that he kept at Harrow School, Middlesex. It is not until the 1890s though, that we find evidence of a pet actually being kept in the East Riding itself.

This was ‘Conty’ the donkey, who belonged to Reverend Francis Woods and his family at Bainton Rectory. The family kept him as a pet and took rides around the grounds of the house in a small cart, pulled by Conty.

So why aren’t there more records in our local history that document our love affair with pets? Collections Officer, said:

“There may well be earlier references to pets in our archives, but the collections are so vast that we just haven’t found them yet. Also, pets don’t tend to be the sort of thing that keep a record of, unless they happen to be writing about them in a letter, or they turn up on a family photograph.”

Historically, we have always liked to try out what to keep as a pet: In the 1850s, James Hirst of Rawcliffe (then in the West Riding), notoriously kept a pet jackdaw, trained a hedgehog to follow him around, and went hunting on a bull. Monkeys also gained popularity during the early to mid-twentieth century.

Our firm favourites though must surely always have been simple cats and dogs. Interestingly, with the exception of a pet cat in a photograph from the 1900s, our feline friends don’t really begin to appear in East Riding archive photographs until the 1970s, suggesting that a hundred years ago, their canine counterparts were a more popular choice of animal companion.

On the other hand, they may have just been less camera shy than cats!

You can search the archives for pet-related items, and maybe even find out an earlier reference to a pet, by visiting the Beverley Treasure House on Champney Road, Beverley.

The online list is available at: http://www2.eastriding.gov.uk//archives-family-and-local-history/online-catalogue/ , or see @East_Riding on Twitter for some archive pet images.

For more information call (01482) 392790.



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