Walter Potter was born in a small English village called Bramber, near Steyning in West Sussex on the 2nd of July, 1835, his family ran a local public house in the village called The White Lion (now believed to be known as 'The Castle').

 There is little information on Walters early formative years available as we jump forward to a 15 year old Walter, who made his very first attempt at taxidermy to preserve his own beloved pet canary. Soon Walter needed to move his experiments of preservation, to the stables loft as his interest and hobby grew.

As we know, this was a growth period for England, it was a time on the brink of great changes, many were encapsulated in the 'The Great Exhibition', taxidermy was already very popular with the Victorian public, so it is no surprise that one of the main amusements at the exhibition was Wurtemberg born, Hermann Ploucquet's displays of taxidermy, his small creatures posed in human situation were very popular, so much so that a book featuring hand coloured engravings of his work was published, it is unlikely that Walter ever got to 'The Great exhibition' but quite possible he may have chanced upon the book and let it capture his imagination.

By the time Walter was 19 he was ready to undertake bigger projects. As legend has it, he was inspired by his sister, Jane Potter, who showed him the illustrations in her nursery rhyme book, he took particular interest in the well known rhyme, 'The death and burial of cock Robin' Potter was to produce probably his most famed diorama from this fable, 'The Original Death and Burial Of Cock Robin' including 98 species of British birds! Housed in a large glass case this mournful little procession later went on to be the main attraction at his museum.

The tableaux went on display in a summer house in 1861 behind his parents inn and was a huge success with his parents customers and he soon began being commissioned to prepare stuffed animals for Victorian parlours.

A modest, working class man of limited means, Walter soon found he could make a living from these more menial ventures in to taxidermy and at the same time fund his passion for his more creative dioramas/tableaux, for which he was to become famous.

Walter created amazing scenes, such as this kittens tea party

  Studious rabbits in their classroom.

The kitten wedding scene was done with such attention to detail.

After several moves of premises, likely to have all been in Bramber, in 1880 Walter secured a specially constructed building, which still exists in Bramber today, it would be here that he would settle with stock, which by now had extended to include housing other unusual exhibits from the animal kingdom, such as the four legged chicken and the two headed lamb, the museum was born!

Walter married a local girl called Ann Stringer muzzell and went on to have three children, Walter, Annie and Minnie all thrived as the museum grew and grew in popularity, billed as 'Mr Potters Museum Of Curiosities' and hailed as a 'World Famous example Of Victorian Whimsy', at it's peak special coach trips were laid on from Brighton and it drew such crowd to the village that an extension had to be built on to the platform at Bramber railway station!

Sadly in 1914 Walter suffered a stroke he was never to fully recover from, dying in 1918 at the age of 83, he was buried in Bramber churchyard, in the little villiage in west Sussex that he had scarcely left. By this time the museum contained about 10.000 specimens.

The museum continued after his demise, taken on by his daughter and grandson, but enthusiasm for taxidermy and stuffed animals had started to wane and notices were displayed, as the unjust accusations of mistreatment of animals increased, saying all the animals had died of natural causes, it is also said that Walter was a kindly man, he never harmed any animal used in his displays, he had an arrangement with a local farm and vet and the public would send him things which might be of interest.

The museum, which had remained in Bramber and served it well for so long closed in the 1970's and moved several times before coming to rest in 1984, for a while with the owners of the famed 'Jamaica Inn', Cornwall, once again it attracted many visitors, more than 30,000 per year, but the death of the in-house taxidermist, needed for the crucial repairs and stocks maintenance, struck it a terrible blow that it could not recover from, especially given the economic climate of the time.

The collection was sold off over two days, from it's last home, Jamaica Inn, in over 600 lots, by Bonhams auction house, there was a last ditch attempt to keep the collection together and a vast sum of money was offered to the auction house, but this was unfortunately not to transpire. Although the sales exceeded double the expected price and was in excess of £500,000, the collection did not remain together and no longer 'whole', we will probably never be seen in it's entire form together again.

Of course we must acknowledge the inspiration that Walter Potter may have provided to some other great Victorian people of merit, it is easy to make a conection between his work and the drawings Beatrice Potter did to illustrate her books, could there be a distant family connection there?... and of course we could also look at the early cat artwork  produced by Louis Wain, who produced some wonderful picture postcards and illustrations for books and annuals, especially of cats in human situation. One thing for sure is the Victorians did have a great sense of humour!

Writen By Miss Demeanor

14th August 2009