Victorian taxidermy wild cats by Walter Burton sold at auction.

Two Victorian taxidermy wild cats by Walter Burton sold at auction in 2024 in the UK against keen interest from collectors. These unique collectibles have never been sold in the market before and I later discovered them to have been commissioned from Walter Burton Victorian Taxidermist & Naturalist by Edward Aubrey Courtauld Lowe of the Courtauld industrial family from Gosfield Hall in Essex sometime around 1895.

Wild cat case 2 of 2 by Walter Burton FZS about 1891

wild cat case 1 of 2 by Walter Burton FZS about 1891

Walter Burton F.Z.S. was ideally located in London’s Wardour Street

I had already dated these taxidermy cats to about 1895 – the period when Walter Burton F.Z.S. took over the full running of his father’s business – Henry J. Burton & Son – at 191 Wardour Street.

Between 1893 up to 1911 Burton’s customer, Edward Aubrey Courtauld Lowe, flitted between his family home at Gosfield Hall, which is 40 miles from London, and three or four private addresses in central London, including Marylebone, Charing Cross, Strand and Covent Garden.

From any of his addresses in London, Burton’s wealthy customer Edward Aubrey Courtauld Lowe was always within a 15 minute walking distance of Walter Burton’s shop at 191 Wardour Street.

How did the cats come to the taxidermist?

I have two equally likely theories.

Either

that they came from Scotland where Edward Aubrey Courtauld Lowe had been a guest at a hunt on a Scottish Country Estate.

Or

That they came from the grounds at Gosfield Hall, amidst the expanse of the 300 acre estate with its lake, gardens, stables, lands and servants, and that the gamekeeper wanted rid of them for stalking and killing birds on the land where other people wanted to shoot.

It is said that EAC Lowe was an expert shot and a news clipping I found does bear this out – maybe he shot these cats himself?

We will never know

The Taxidermy Cats' Legacy

Edward Aubrey Courtauld Lowe died in 1942.

In 2024 the taxidermy cats turned up at auction in the neighbouring county of Kent.

It’s not too far a stretch of the imagination to wonder if they had been handed down and kept by various members of Edward Aubrey Courtauld Lowe’s extended family, who lived in Sussex and Kent, then finally sold nearly 130 years after they were commissioned.

All this from an old label on the back of a Victorian case.