John Daniel (1917–1922) was a
lowland gorilla
The western lowland gorilla (''Gorilla gorilla gorilla'') is one of two Critically Endangered subspecies of the western gorilla (''Gorilla gorilla'') that lives in montane, primary and secondary forest and lowland swampland in central Africa ...
who was raised among humans in
Uley
Uley is a village and civil parish in the county of Gloucestershire, England. The parish includes the hamlets of Elcombe and Shadwell and Bencombe, all to the south of the village of Uley, and the hamlet of Crawley to the north. The village ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
.
John Daniel was born in
Gabon
Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north ...
.
After his mother was shot and killed by soldiers, John Daniel was brought over to England and ended up living with Major Rupert Penny. Unable to look after him full-time however, Penny then passed John Daniel over to his aunt, Alyce Cunningham, who lived in the village of Uley in Gloucestershire. He resided with her in the village from 1918 until 1921.
John Daniel learned to use a toilet, make his bed, and drink tea and cider from cups.
He was a playmate to the village children
and was allowed to drink cider at the local pub. He also occasionally resided on Sloane Street in London when Cunningham traveled to her home there and would attend dinner parties.
He rode in Cunningham's
convertible
A convertible or cabriolet () is a passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary among eras and manufacturers.
A convertible car's design allows an open-air driving ex ...
.
When he became too large to manage at ,
Alyce Cunningham sold him in 1921 for £1,100 to an American person who misled her to believe the gorilla would be retired to
Florida
Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...
.
Instead, John Daniel was placed with
Barnum and Bailey Circus
The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus (also known as the Ringling Bros. Circus, Ringling Bros., the Barnum & Bailey Circus, Barnum & Bailey, or simply Ringling) is an American traveling circus company billed as The Greatest Show on Ear ...
.
He was later sent to the Ringling Zoo
at
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsyl ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...
.
Distraught from being away from his home and Cunningham, John Daniel's health worsened. The zoo sent for Cunningham, but she did not arrive in time, and he died of
pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...
at age 4.
His body was given to the
American Museum of Natural History in New York City and was placed on display in 1922.
A century after he lived in Uley, villagers made plans to erect a statue commemorating him.
Stroud District Council
Stroud is a market town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England. It is the main town in Stroud District. The town's population was 13,500 in 2021.
Below the western escarpment of the Cotswold Hills, at the meeting point of the Five Val ...
granted permission,
and the sculpture was unveiled in 2018.
It was created by Sebastian Rasch and is made of Portland stone.
Further reading
*
See also
*
List of individual apes
This is a list of non-human apes of encyclopedic interest. It includes individual chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, bonobos, and gibbons that are in some way famous or notable.
Actors
* Bam Bam, an orangutan, played Precious on the soap opera ...
*
Koko (gorilla)
Hanabiko "Koko" (July 4, 1971 – June 19, 2018) was a female western lowland gorilla. Koko was born in San Francisco Zoo, and lived most of her life at The Gorilla Foundation's preserve in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The name , , is of Japanese ori ...
*
Alex (parrot)
Alex (May 1976 – 6 September 2007) was a grey parrot and the subject of a thirty-year experiment by animal psychologist Irene Pepperberg, initially at the University of Arizona and later at Harvard University and Brandeis University. When Alex ...
*
Nim Chimpsky
Neam "Nim" Chimpsky (November 19, 1973 – March 10, 2000) was a chimpanzee and the subject of an extended study of animal language acquisition at Columbia University. The project was led by Herbert S. Terrace with the linguistic analysis heade ...
*
Washoe (chimpanzee)
Washoe (c. September 1965 – October 30, 2007) was a female common chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn to communicate using American Sign Language (ASL) as part of an animal research experiment on animal language acquisition.
Washoe ...
*
John Daniel II
John Daniel II (–1926), originally called Sultan, was a Western gorilla who was captured at age three in August 1923 in the French Congo. John Daniel II then passed into the possession of an Englishwoman named Alyce Cunningham to be a successor ...
, successor; Cunningham and John Daniel II toured with the circus
References
{{Notable apes, state=expanded
1917 animal births
1922 animal deaths
Individual gorillas
Circus apes
Individual primates in the United States
Male mammals
Individual animals in England