Belle Vue

 



Figure 1 Personal photograph: Image of a postcard of Belle Vue

Belle Vue was a fairground based in Manchester and I had the opportunity to go to Chetham’s Library and was given a tour about the history of Belle Vue.

‘Belle Vue was like Disney Land, but bigger.’ – Teaching Staff

I have learnt that there were very limited details about Belle Vue, but the photographs show that Belle Vue had an animal circus and a zoo. What interested me was that during the tour at Chetham’s Library, I was told a zookeeper kept a journal about the animals, I didn’t have a chance to read it myself, but I was informed that the zookeeper wrote something like, ‘The animal is not eating… The animal is not moving… The animal has now died…’

It surprised me that in Belle Vue they would have different types of animals, and yet they would have no idea how to look after them. I felt horrified at the capturing of exotic animals and sharing animals from zoo to zoo and circus to circus with little concern for their welfare, including not researching what they ate and setting off fireworks close to the animal areas. Belle Vue was actually famous for fireworks so people would go to the see the fireworks but the animals would be terrified of them. This was apparently seen as entertainment. I think that now we would think that this is not right to do, but back in that time period when monkeys were used as pets to show class status, it would have been seen as normal.  I am aware that people do use exotic animals as pets but there is a licensing system. At first I thought Belle Vue was amazing then I realised what it included, freak shows and animals being mistreated and I realized that it’s not right and I’m glad it’s not running now. I don’t feel that I want to use Belle Vue, partly because of the limited information about it and also because although there are paper clippings showing friendly images of people touching giraffes (see figure 2) and photos of school children at Belle Vue, behind this they were mistreating the animals. 

 

Figure 2 Personal Image: Newspaper clipping Belle Vue