Cartoon Creatures
6.30pm Thursday 30th March 2017
Westminster Arts Library
35 St Martins Street
London WC1
Ticket includes a specimen of Hendricks Gin Cocktail
Admission: £6.50/8.50 In advance only HERE
In an event which has to be a first in combining satire and zoos, award-winning Guardian cartoonist MARTIN ROWSON returns to the Salon for the third time in his role as vice-president of the Zoological society. He will be the joined by Dr SIMON WERRETT to investigate the incredible life of London naturalist JOSEPH BANKS.
The 190 year history of London Zoo stretches back not just to its establishment in Regent’s Park in 1828, but to its origins in the Tower of London Menagerie. Martin Rowson, who lists his interests as "cooking, drinking, ranting, atheism, zoos and collecting taxidermy", will take us on an safari through its life, times and architecture. 
On the way we will hear of his own natural history - from being the youngest member of the Zoological Society council since Prince Albert when he joined as part of the campaign to save the Zoo from closure in 1991/2 to now serving a third term as its vice-president.Martin will discuss the role of zoos and their importance as centres for conservation, captive breeding and places where urban humanity can'sate its need to associate with representatives of some of the other species with whom we share this planet’.
Playing Mr. Stanley to Martin's Doctor Livingstone, Simon Werret
will then survey the incredible life of London naturalist JOSEPH BANKS. Banks, a man who made Kew Gardens one of the leading Botanical domains in the world, was a classic 19th century polymath - aristocrat, scientist, explorer, and founder of the Royal Academy. Perhaps rather less laudably, he was a leading figure in the establishment of Botany Bay as a place for the reception of British convicts. And apparently, he was an'eater of strange creatures' an alleged habit for which he was regularly satirised.
To bring the salon full circle, Simon will illustrate Bank's life via some of the many cartoons he was satirised in by the British press. Plus, there’ll be a load of funny animal stories thrown in..
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MARTIN ROWSON is an award-winning cartoonist and writer whose work appears regularly in The Guardian, The Daily Mirror, The Morning Star, The Spectator & many other publications. In 2001 he was appointed Ken Livingstone's "Cartoonist Laureate" for London, in exchange for 1 pint of London Pride bitter per annum (still 6 years in arrears). He is vice-President of the Zoological Society of London.
DR SIMON WERRETT is an historian of science working at University College London. He writes and teaches on the ways science and art have interacted in history. His first book Fireworks: Pyrotechnic Arts and Sciences in European History was published in 2010 His second, on the art of recycling, will be appearing soon.
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SALON FOR THE CITY is an ANTIQUE BEAT production