Domestic rabbits in 'A Practical Treatise...' by Moubray, 1834

Rabbits: from prey to pet

Even though the domestication of the rabbit occurred 2000 years ago, rabbit care before the 19th century was not in the local vet or farmer’s repertoire.  This explains the lack of lagomorph related content in our historical collection. Contrary to what you may think, rabbits don’t belong to the rodent order but sit in a […]

St Johns Gardens 1913

From burial ground to picnic spot

May is local and community history month so that, together with a rather nice photograph from 1913 that was included in the material we received from Fegans (see the previous post), has led to me writing about one of the places I go to eat lunch – St John’s Gardens on Horseferry Road. The garden started […]

completed building

Our home on Horseferry Road – 100 years old today

Today we are celebrating the 100th birthday of 62-64 Horseferry Road, the current home of the RCVS. The plaque on the corner of the building records the laying of the foundation stone like this: “Mr Fegan’s Homes” (incorporated) to the glory of God and the welfare of orphan, needy and erring boys, here and hereafter, […]

The Dog: its external and internal organisation. Plate 5 the internal organs

The many layers of the dog

There has been a lot of discussion of anatomical illustrations recently following the opening of the exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery Leonardo da Vinci anatomist.  We have a number of stunning anatomical illustrations in the Historical Collection – the most well known would be in Stubbs’ The anatomy of the horse and then there are […]

Picture from 'Illustrated Book of the Dog', by Vero Shaw (1890)

Pet keeping: a brief history

National Pet Month (7 April – 7 May) is now drawing to a close but one of the enduring messages of the initiative is the benefits of pets for people, and vice versa.   What we need from our companion animals has changed over the centuries, dogs are no longer solely hunting partners, and cats are […]