Rowland Ward
The most famous and enduring Rowland Ward Ltd. product is the Records of Big Game series of books, which started in 1892 and is now in its thirtieth edition (2020).
Two forces in the nineteenth century came together to make Rowland Ward Ltd. an international powerhouse of taxidermy and book publishing: the global reach of the British Empire and the Industrial Revolution.
The British Empire was composed of dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories that were ruled or administered by the United Kingdom.
These fortunes created a new class of British sportsmen who ventured out over the world and brought back hunting trophies as well as natural history specimens for public and private museums.
The company's reputation spread, and soon Rowland Ward was receiving commissions from all over Europe to prepare museum specimens.
More than any other taxidermist of his age, Rowland Ward became known for making items from skins, horns, and skulls that could be used in the home, either for practical purposes or as decorations.
Then there were liquor cabinets made from elephants’ feet; stuffed birds that acted as lamp stands, and items that would seem very odd in the twenty-first century but were highly fashionable and desirable in Victorian England.
In addition, Rowland Ward Ltd. was a great supplier of glass cabinets filled with colourful mounted birds; these were all the rage as home decorations at the time.
Rowland Ward's mounted heads and glass bird boxes are very collectible today in England, with several auction houses offering specialised sales each year.
[4] In 1872 Rowland Ward's brother, Edwin Jr., published a small book entitled Knapsack Manual for Sportsmen on the Field.
It is clear Rowland Ward borrowed elements from this publication to start his own series of books in 1880 called The Sportsman's Handbook.
These titles include Sport in Somaliland by Count Josef Potocki, After Wild Sheep in the Altai and Mongolia by Prince Demidoff; Great and Small Game of Africa by Henry Bryden; The Deer of All Lands by Richard Lydekker; Elephant Hunting in East Equatorial Africa by Alfred Neumann; A Sporting Trip Through Abyssinia by Percy Powell-Cotton; Travel and Big Game by Frederick Selous, and many others.
Rowland Ward himself wrote several books, including one on his angling trip to Florida[5] that was based on the diaries kept by his wife.
Many of Rowland Ward's books are instantly recognisable by their "zebra pattern" endpapers, which were granted a patent in Great Britain.
The series was the talk of its day among hunters and naturalists, and by the time World War I started (1914), seven editions had been issued, each containing more and more measurements and greater variations in the number and species of animals with trophies listed from the early 1800s.
[6] Many natural history museums of that day kept a copy of Rowland Ward's Records of Big Game in their reference libraries.
After World War II, the influence of American big-game hunters became more apparent as sportsmen such as Ernest Hemingway, Robert Ruark, Jack O’Connor, Herb Klein, Elgin Gates, and James Mellon II entered their exceptional game trophies in “the book.” At the turn of the twentieth century, Rowland Ward Ltd. was at its zenith, and in 1904 the company was granted a royal warrant.
In 1907 American Percy Madeira wrote “When in 1907 I saw the possibility of making this hunting trip—a long desired wish—I wrote to Rowland Ward, the naturalist-taxidermist, in London, inquiring where the best bag of African game had been secured that year.”[7] Madeira proceeded to take a steamer to London where he picked up supplies deemed necessary for an extended safari before continuing on to East Africa.
Young Winston Churchill was a customer of Rowland Ward Ltd. Walter Rothschild, kings Edward VII and George V, and numerous American and European celebrities and film stars brought their hunting trophies to "The Jungle" to be mounted.
In England, the business continued in various locations in London, and in the period between 1960 and 1970 Rowland Ward Ltd. employed from twenty-nine to forty-four people, .
This, combined with the shifting of the client base to the United States and the increasing competition from American and European companies, caused the taxidermy side of the business to close in the mid-1970s.
Tim Best, a brother of Anthony, continued to operate the Rowland Ward store, now located in Knightsbridge, London, which sold crystal, porcelain, books, and other animal-themed items.
He also published books containing accounts of big-game hunting adventures, including Tony Sanchez's on the Trail of the African Elephant.
A year after Smith died in a car accident (1993), Game Coin sold the company to Robin Halse of Queenstown, South Africa.
Subsequently, the company was taken over by his daughter, Jane Halse, who continues to publish the Records of Big Game series as well as other natural history and hunting publications.
