The Spicer family were successful and well-known Warwickshire taxidermists during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Warwickshire Museum collection includes many examples of their taxidermy, especially the work of Peter Spicer who took over from his father John, turning taxidermy into a real art form and supplying rich clients all over Europe. This once-popular industry is an important part of the Warwickshire Museum collections, and the history of taxidermy within popular culture.
A resurgence in taxidermy
Interestingly, taxidermy as an art form is undergoing something of a resurgence. Peter Spicer’s mounts are enormously popular among taxidermy connoisseurs, representing finely crafted representations of the original animals, set within detailed dioramas of their original habitat. Behind the Spicer showrooms and catalogues, there was a lot of hard work, involving skilled workers prepared to work amongst animal carcasses and a range of chemicals in noisy workshops. There are records of bones and antlers piled high in the yards – a by-product of the industry.
The Spicer toolbox
Peter Spicer set up his workshop in Victoria Terrace, Leamington Spa in the early 1870s and his reputation for high-quality work soon grew. By the early 1900s Peter was joined in his work by sons Gilbert and William, and the business became Spicer & Sons. We have in our collection a toolbox, used at Peter Spicer’s workshop. Its contents include several cast iron stamps used to mark crates and display cases, measuring tools including callipers, pliers, and a coarse metal comb, presumably for cleaning and preparing mammal fur. We also have a shop sign, taken from the Peter Spicer & Son’s premises in Leamington Spa, presumably after the First World War when Peter retired, and the business was transferred to his sons.
Here at the museum, we’re very proud of our collection of Spicer taxidermy, one of the finest in existence and very popular with the new generation of enthusiasts. Equally though, our rather humble collection of tools provides a glimpse of hidden histories, material evidence for the hard work ‘behind the scenes’.
Comments
Spicer’s certainly were in the first rank of taxidermists. A friend of my mother’s, Agnes Wood, who lived in Rupert Cottage, Sunrising Hill, Edgehill, and hunted with the Warwickshire Hunt had two beautiful foxes masks (the stuffed head) and tails. Each mask and tail were mounted together on a wooden shield. They commemorated Agnes being in at the kill of each fox… not a pleasant thing for us to imagine today, but it meant that she and her horse had shown stamina and skill. As a child in the late 1950s and early 1960s I loved the masks and when both Agnes and Dick had died I bought one of the shields with its head and tail at the dispersal sale of the contents of the cottage. it commemorated Agnes being in at the kill at Oakley Wood on December 30 1950. I kept it for many years but sold it at auction in 2020. Hunting trophies are understandably not so popular today but the fact that it was a Spicer trophy still made it an attractive buy to someone. Agnes and Dick’s ashes are by coincidence scattered at Oakley Wood crematorium, which is perhaps justice for the poor foxes. They were a very kind, sweet couple.
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