He loved tea and made the bed himself: the story of a male gorilla who was raised as a human
'14.02.2021'
Source: Medium
John Daniel was a young male gorilla who was adopted by an English family in 1918 and raised as a human boy in the village of Beehive. He had his own room, he went to school, he loved tea with cider.
His remarkable story came to light when Beehive archivist Margaret Groom published John's photographs in a recent book about the village. Medium
But how exactly did this happen? And was he really the same as an ordinary child?
How John Daniel ended up in the English countryside
The gorilla was bought from London's Derry & Toms department store by a wealthy British major named Rupert Penny in 1917. Stores were very different a hundred years ago. The primate was worth £ 300, about $ 34 in today's money.
His parents were shot by French soldiers in what is now Gabon, and the baby gorilla was captured and taken to England. Major Penny named him John Daniel.
Like many people who buy animals on a whim, the major realized that he could not look after him. In 1918, he sent a baby monkey to his sister Alice Cunningham, who lived in a small village called the Hive in Gloucester.
Understandably, neither Alice nor the other villagers had any idea how to care for a baby gorilla. So they decided to treat John Daniel as a particularly hairy child.
The monkey was raised as a little boy
Alice Cunningham adopted John, and the monkey felt at home in the village. The woman gave him the nickname "Sultan" and raised him as her child.
Like many toddlers, John had his own bedroom, could use a light switch, and even knew how to go to the toilet. Unlike most toddlers, he is addicted to cider.
The gorilla was popular in the village. John regularly played and walked with the children of Hive Junior School. He also enjoyed the Cunningham family's convertible rides and was often seen on the street.
As archivist Margaret Groom told Gloucester Live, “Until recently, we had people who remembered walking around the village with his kids. He went to gardens and ate roses. The children drove him in a wheelbarrow. He knew in which house the cider was grown, and often went into that house to pour a mug of cider. He was fascinated by the village shoemaker and watched him repair shoes. He had his own bedroom, he could use the switch and the toilet, he made the bed himself and helped wash the dishes. "
John Daniel also left the Hive. Alice Cunningham took him regularly to London, where she had a home on the prestigious Sloane Street. There he joined Alice's dinner parties and drank a lot of tea.
The young gorilla spent three happy years in the village from 1918 to 1921. Unfortunately, this has come to an end.
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John Daniel was sold to the circus
By 1921, what used to be a cute and funny baby weighing 14,5 kilograms has now become a huge gorilla weighing 95 kilograms. And John just kept growing.
Sad but realistic, Alice Cunningham realized that she needed to find someone to take care of John. It was unlikely that he would have survived alone in Africa, and in 1921 there were no safe havens for him. Luckily, she found an American buyer who loved animals and promised to take him to Florida.
The buyer bought the gorilla for 1000 guineas and shipped it to the United States. But John was not waiting for the care and happy life that the buyer had promised Alice. Instead, the primate was sold to Barnum and Bailey's Circus.
Eventually, John ended up at the Madison Square Garden Zoo in New York. Unfortunately, he soon fell ill and his health deteriorated sharply. The zoo keepers, believing that he yearned for his "mother", contacted Alice.
Hearing what had happened to her beloved "Sultan", Alice Cunningham immediately set off for America.
Sadly, John Daniel died of pneumonia before she got there.
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The memory of John lives on
The body of a young gorilla was donated to the American Museum of Natural History. John was preserved and exhibited at the New York Museum in 1922. John is still there.
He is fondly remembered in the Beehive, but there is no one left in the village who actually met him. In 2017, archivist Margaret Groom published a book with photographs showing him with his mother, playing with children, and being supervised by locals in Gloucester.
Recently the residents of the Beehive got together to create a monument to John. The artist Sebastian Rach designed and created the engraving on Portland stone.
The relief depicts John Daniel surrounded by numerous schoolchildren and is based on a photograph from his life in the Beehive.
Dr. Rod White, Treasurer of the Hive Society, said:
“We would like to celebrate the 2017th anniversary of John Daniel's life in the Beehive. Many young people in the village had never heard of this story before it went viral in January XNUMX. Since then, John's fate has attracted great interest. This is one of the most romantic stories of the Ulei village. "
