April 1895 - October 1895

The East African (Somali) Village at the Crystal Palace, London (1895)

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In late April 1895, a group of sixty-six Somalis arrived at the Tilbury Docks aboard the Clan Ross. They came to form the East African village at the Crystal Palace in London over the coming months; it was claimed at the time that this was the first ever Somali group to visit England. Described by the London press in racializing terms as a "very fine type" with gleaming white teeth and burnished copper skin, these Somalis were accompanied by six children, a menagerie of animals, and the materials to construct their huts for the summer exhibition. Five of them were women, and it was later claimed in 1904 that Halimo Abdi Batel who died in Bradford at a Somali village exhibition (see the entry on her in this collection), had been one of the five. An imam also travelled with the troupe. During May the weather was bad, and fourteen of the troupe became ill, some of whom were reported to have been in "great peril".

This venture was orchestrated by the German entrepreneur Carl Hagenbeck, who aimed to present what he considered to be a complete depiction of African life on the slopes of Sydenham Hill. The son of an animal trader, Hagenbeck began to bring colonized peoples to tour in Europe from the mid-1880s, and conceived of his shows as a form of infotainment, striving to be authentic depictions of native while also being entertaining. In reality, these two goals worked against each other, so what was co-curated between colonized peoples and their imperial sponsors was reinvention and performance of non-European customs and occupations to entertain European peoples. Hagenbeck considered the shows more authentic if colonized peoples were displayed riding or herding the animals they tended at home: he considered them "zoological-anthropological" shows. The show at Crystal Palace featured the Somalis camel-racing among other performances.

The Crystal Palace exhibition featured over three hundred animals, including 24 lions and 250 sheep, as well as giant pythons, aimed to be a spectacular event. It opened on 18 May 1895, facing direct competition from Imre Kiralfy's Empire of India Exhibition at Earl's Court. The Duke and Duchess of York even visited the Somalis at the Crystal Palace. Advertising claimed an attendance of over 42,000 people on the opening day, with the London press praising the exhibition as "most interesting" and "quite natural".

In mid-June, the Somalis were taken to the London zoo, where they encountered various animals and expressed interest in giraffes that had been brought from Somalia. While news reporting of a September interview with the Somalis might not be taken at face value, it indicated that the Somalis had been content with their experience but were ready to leave Sydenham. They had received gifts, and Hagenbeck's son taught two Somali boys to ride bicycles, who preferred the nearby Catford cycle track to the grassy slopes of Sydenham.

The Somalis departed from Gravesend in early October 1895. Hundreds of thousands of Britons had witnessed their presence during the summer months of that year.

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Colonized Muslims on Public Display

Sources and Attribution

Jeffrey Green, "Somalis in London in 1895.” (November 2019). https://jeffreygreen.co.uk/217-somalis-in-london/.

Lee Jackson, “Victorian London - Entertainment and Recreation - Exhibitions - the African Exhibition.” The Dictionary of Victorian London, 2023. https://www.victorianlondon.org/entertainment2/africanexhibition.htm.

Hilke Throde-Arora, "Hagenbeck's European Tours: The Development of the European Zoo" in Pascal Blanchard et al (eds) Human Zoos: Science and Spectacle in the Age of Colonial Empires (Liverpool: University Press, 2008), pp. 165-173.

Wikimedia Commons (photograph).

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