Resumen de Englishmen and Alpacas: William Walton, William Danson and Charles Ledger
This chapter examines attempts to naturalize the alpaca in the British Empire and situates these within the wider contexts of animal acclimatization, commercial exchange and national identity. In 1841, William Walton published an important chapter on the subject in the Polytechnic Journal, which he later revised and extended into a short book, and in 1844, the Highland and Agricultural Society awarded ‘a premium of Five Sovereigns and an honorary silver medal’ to ‘Alexander Gartshore Stirling of Craigbarnet’ for ‘the best pair born in the kingdom’. In 1840, the Tenth Annual Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science featured a lecture by William Danson on the alpaca and its wool, during which samples of the wool and ‘living specimens’ were exhibited. The story of Charles Ledger’s quest to naturalize the alpaca reads like a classic Victorian adventure, replete with heroism, tragedy and adversity.
