Most long-term residents of Nottingham will at the very least be aware of George the Gorilla: a well-loved taxidermy exhibit residing in the natural history museum at the heart of Wollaton Park. But what kind of animal is he, really, and where does he come from? A newly-formed collective of scientists and heritage specialists at the Uni of Nottingham set out to answer these questions. In doing so, they hope that visitors to the museum will see the exhibit, and the site as a whole, in a whole new light...
Autumn leaves crunching underfoot, I traverse across Wollaton Park in November, asking myself why exactly this is my first time visiting the natural history museum nestled inside Wollaton Hall: a beloved local treasure trove that houses over 750,000 natural history specimens. Nevertheless, with an exciting, ongoing collaboration between the University of Nottingham and the museum, uncovering the origins of the museum ‘mascot’: George the Gorilla, it seems there’s no moment like the present.
Meeting Sheila Wright, the Curator of Natural Sciences, I’m introduced to George, a taxidermied specimen who lives on the first floor with a porcupine and an orangutan. George is something of a local legend for people living in-and-around Nottingham: a highlight of most family trips to this loved green space.
“People in Nottingham love the museum, and especially the gorilla,” says Sheila. “He was one the earliest brought back to the west: first purchased in 1878, but we think he was taxidermied a lot earlier, probably in the early 1800s. We’d wondered for years how much of him, if any, was genuine, because in those days it was hard to preserve skin, so taxidermists would patch up the animals with things like goat hair.”
It was through getting in touch with a new partnership between the science, archaeology and heritage departments at the University of Nottingham, that Sheila had the chance to satisfy her curiosity.
One day we’re studying a gorilla, the next day we’re looking at ancient bone diseases, and the history of medicine. It’s a great time to bring the disciplines together, and George is just one example of what we hope will be many
Going under the moniker ‘N-MESH’ (Nottingham, Materials, Environment Science and Heritage), this brand new, collaborative partnership between departments took on the challenge of tracing George’s background back in September. Since then, they’ve made lots of headway, most notably in solving the mystery as to whether George is, truly, a gorilla, or something less authentic.
Following this line of inquiry (in N-MESH) was the ‘protein sciences’ team, headed up by Rob Layfield, a biochemistry specialist at UoN. Their job was to analyse the teeth and skin samples to discover what kind of animal George really is…
“From the analysis, the hairs we’ve looked at point to the fact that he is an actual gorilla and not, say, a gorilla-goat hybrid. Results suggest that the teeth are from a male individual as well,” says Rob. “The real killer information is going to come from ancient DNA analysis. From that we’ll know what subspecies he is: either an Eastern or Western gorilla. I imagine that information is going to come through before Christmas.”
George the Gorilla is just one of many subjects that N-MESH are applying their skillsets to, and for Rob there’s many possible research topics, spanning humanities and sciences, that they could investigate in the future.
“It’s transformative, because what we can do is take scientific approaches, which to us are fairly routine or trivial, and apply them to questions of historical significance,” says Rob. “It is one of the emerging areas where science is applying its methods to heritage and cultural science, and Nottingham has a growing reputation in that area. One day we’re studying a gorilla, the next day we’re looking at ancient bone diseases, and the history of medicine. It’s a great time to bring the disciplines together, and George is just one example of what we hope will be many.”
And how will N-MESH decide what to research next? Well, Rob says, members of the team are all keen to leave this up to local people, businesses, and heritage sites, so that University research focuses on what matters to them, not just academics.
“We want to engage with the local community. This is a really nice opportunity to break down barriers, so that people can recognise that it’s not just an ivory tower,” says Rob. “We want it to be citizen-led, rather than the traditional way of working, where we say ‘This is important, we’ll do this’.”
So far, there’s been no better example of this kind of partner than the Wollaton Natural History Museum, which for Sheila Wright has been a thirty-year-long focus of her career. An avid conservationist and regular visitor to Africa, Sheila enlisted N-MESH so that she could label George the Gorilla with information about eastern and western gorillas, both of which are critically endangered.
“In June 2023, I went to Uganda, and got photos and videos of mountain gorillas, which are a subspecies of the eastern gorilla. It would be nice to use some of that in the interpretation we’re hoping to do, about conservation, saying ‘this gorilla is the same species as George’. The more you know about him, the readier you are to talk about the specimen and its conservation needs.”
Outside of national, sponsored natural history museums, like those in London and Liverpool, the Wollaton museum is one of the UK’s largest and most varied. This is one of the many reasons why Sheila feels a big responsibility to engender a spirit of conservationism, when visitors arrive to have a look at the taxidermied exhibits.
“We’re aiming to show as many species from different groups of animals as possible, showing how rich the world’s biodiversity is, but also that it’s under threat,” says Sheila, adding, “We put labels saying which animals are endangered or threatened, and why, hopefully encouraging people to get involved in conservation, because habitat loss is still a huge problem, and there’s masses of poaching all over the planet.” With George the Gorilla set to symbolise the importance of protecting wildlife, however far away from us, in the East Midlands, it might be, it seems there’s no better time to visit the Natural History Museum, and absorb the spectacles that it has to offer.
Visit the Natural History Museum in Wollaton Hall, or keep up with the George the Gorilla project on nottingham.ac.uk/news
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