Mattfeld - Spanish Horse


The Spanish Horse 
and the Thunder Drum
Taxidermied Subjects and 
Animal-Made-Objects in the 
Early Nineteenth Century

Monica Mattfeld
University of Northern British Columbia

HUMANIMALIA 15.2 (Summer 2025)



Abstract: Life for many horses at the turn of the nineteenth century was short 
and subject to objectification before and after death. However, the life and 
afterlife of one horse at Astley’s Amphitheatre, the Spanish Horse, resisted the 
usual loss of identity animal death often brings. In this article I first provide a 
biography of the Spanish Horse and then question his afterlife as a theatrical 
thunder drum. In doing so, I think about the nature of taxidermy, memorial, 
and the usual binary of subject/object inherent within fragmented animal 
bodies. As part of this process, I explore the thunder drum/Spanish Horse 
with the aid of ecofeminism, philosophies of taxidermy, and material feminist 
thought, and I argue that the afterlife of the Spanish Horse as a thunder drum 
was one of loving remembrance that did not erase the animal self within the 
material object. Instead, I suggest, the preservation of the Spanish Horse’s 
skin after death enabled his ongoing participation and agential voice within 
the Amphitheatre, while elevating him above other animals therein.

Keywords: taxidermy; Gibraltar Charger; the Spanish Horse, Astley’s Amphitheatre; 
horses; agency; matter; ecofeminism; animal memorial; sound; subjectivity.

Bio: Monica Mattfeld is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of 
Northern British Columbia, where she specializes in animal studies and the 
literature and history of eighteenth-century England. She has published on the 
interplay between animal and human disability, early modern horsemanship 
practices, theatrical animals, the early circus, and performances of human 
and animal gender. She is the author of Becoming Centaur: Eighteenth-Century 
Masculinity and English Horsemanship (2017), and co-editor of multiple animal-
studies publications. Her forthcoming second monograph is entitled Equines 
in Eighteenth-Century Thought: Intersectional Discriminations and the Imperfect 
Horse (Palgrave Macmillan). It focuses on discourses of equine disability, 
animal activism, and systems of discrimination and exploitation over the long 
eighteenth century.

Email: monica.mattfeld@unbc.ca

Copyright © 2025 Monica Mattfeld
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence.
Humanimalia 15, no. 2 (2025): 1–41. DOI: 10.52537/humanimalia.15999

http://doi.org/10.52537/humanimalia.15999


Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 3

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

In 1824 the clown Jacob Decastro published his Memoirs, which 
offered a glimpse into the lives and performances of animals at 
Astley’s Amphitheatre — the pre-eminent illegitimate theatre and 
the first circus venue in England. He records the back-stage ad-

ventures of the Amphitheatre, telling stories of individual actors, the 
plays and songs performed, the ongoing battles between the Am-
phitheatre and the Office of the Lord Chamberlain, and of the many 
animal performers who graced the Amphitheatre stage.1 During this 
process, however, Decastro’s Memoirs raise many more questions 
than they answer about period conceptions of performing equines, 
the tensions between animal value and personal emotional attach-
ment during a time of rapid economic change, and the correspond-
ing commodification of nonhuman animal bodies. Some of the most 
complex questions appear from a short account of the theatrical life, 
death, and afterlife of one of the Amphitheatre’s most valuable horses. 
The “Spanish Horse” seemingly held a special place in the hearts of 
the Amphitheatre’s human performers, but after his death his body 
was fragmented, seemingly de-individualized, and objectified. He 
was skinned, his hide tanned and then crafted into a thunder drum.2

In his Memoirs, Decastro discusses the end of life and afterlife of the 
Spanish Horse in a footnote, which is worth quoting in full:

Mr. W. Davis, the present proprietor and manager of the Royal 
Amphitheatre, was so fond of this same horse from its wonder-
ful tractability and extreme docility, that when, from his loss of 
teeth by age, he was unable to eat his corn; and from a lively re-
membrance of his former services, he very humanely (and such 
feelings do honour to the heart of humanized society), allowed 
the decrepit, aged, and nearly worn-out animal, out of his own 
private purse two quartern loaves per day.

N.B. — This beast was accustomed, at a public performance, to 
ungirt his own saddle, wash his feet in a pail of water, fetch and 
carry a complete tea equipage, with many other strange things. 

1 Decastro, Memoirs. For information on London’s theatre and circus environment see: 
O’Quinn, Entertaining Crisis; Moody, Illegitimate Theatre; and Worrall, Theatric Revolution.

2 Decastro, Memoirs, 30.



4 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

He would take a kettle of boiling water off a flaming fire, and act-
ed in fact after the manner of a waiter at a tavern or tea gardens.

At last, nature being exhausted, he died in the common course 
of it, and Mr. Davis, with an idea to perpetuate the animal’s 
memory, caused the hide to be tanned and made into a thun-
der-drum, which now stands on the prompt side of the thea-
tre, and when its rumbling sounds die on the ear of those who 
know the circumstance, it serves to their recollection as his 
“parting knell”.3

This was not the usual method of either memorializing or preserving 
the body of a celebrity animal. The Spanish Horse was not stuffed 
and placed in a museum, as was the case with Alfred the Gorilla; he 
was not the subject of satirical memorialization in newspapers, as 
was the Learned Pig; nor was he buried with an extensive elegiac in-
scription, as was King Nobby.4

This article explores the strangeness of this apparently loving me-
morial, the continued objectification and use of the Spanish Horse’s 
fragmented body, and the mixed private and public nature of his af-
terlife. In doing so, I question why this afterlife? Why a thunder drum? 
And: what does the life and death of the Spanish Horse tell us about 
the nature of objects, animal bodies after life, and connections to 
the subjective? This article is divided into two sections. The first de-
finitively establishes the identity of the Spanish Horse and provides 
biographical details of his life before and after entering service at 
the Amphitheatre. The second builds on this biography by explor-
ing the connections between the life of this particular horse and 
the peculiarities of his specific afterlife as a thunder drum. As part 
of this process, I suggest that objects like the thunder drum, those 
composed of animal bodies (or parts of them) from beings like the 
Spanish Horse, can resist the typically faceless and subjectless na-
ture of objects. Thinking with ecofeminist approaches to animals, 
especially those by Josephine Donovan, and the material feminist 

3 Decastro, Memoirs, 30.
4 Paddon, “Life and Times of Alfred”; Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser (London), 21 June 

1786, issue 17949; Mattfeld, “Genus”; Boyle, “Monumental Inscriptions”. 



Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 5

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

thought of Jane Bennett towards objects, I suggest that the Spanish 
Horse remained known, remained subject, even in his fragmented 
state. As a drum, the Spanish Horse gained a voice, and his afterlife 
within the Amphitheatre tied agency and memory to his live being 
and lived history. In other words, contrary to what previous schol-
arship on animals as faceless objects suggests, the live animal was 
not effaced by the act of rendering or shaping after death. In making 
this argument, I look to the history of taxidermy as memory keeper, 
while also suggesting an expanded definition of the practice that en-
compasses the faceless after death — the fragment, the unrecogniz-
able but still known, animal being.

Part 1: “The Spanish Horse”

The Spanish Horse was truly old when he passed away sometime 
around 1824. According to Decastro, he lived to the age of forty-two, 
outliving his original owner, Philip Astley, and was still alive at the 
Amphitheatre when William Davis became owner and manager in 
1822.5 Most horses during the early nineteenth century experienced 
premature ageing, disability, and death as a result of intersecting 
exploitative systems endemic to a growing capitalist economy. In-
deed, most horses did not live beyond the ages of ten or twelve, 
thus making those who experienced true old age anomalies.6 As 
such, the Spanish Horse was one of the few equines to survive the 
typical life trajectory of most equines living in the period’s increas-
ingly capitalist, speciesist, and ableist society, and the care he re-
ceived in his declining years suggests an important ethical respon-
sibility of care, perhaps even sympathetic affection, between horse 
and human that resists systems that define animal value as useful 
or monetarily beneficial.7

According to Decastro, Davis spent his own money to care for the 
Spanish Horse in his elderly years, ensuring that he was able to eat 
by purchasing bread for his consumption. Most likely horse bread 

5 Decastro, Memoirs, 30.
6 Edwards, “Image and Reality”; Mattfeld, Equines.
7 Mattfeld, Equines.



6 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

softened with water or wine, as was customary, this food, Decas-
tro implies, was nourishing, medicinal, and special (or elite and ex-
pensive).8 Thus, for Davis to incur this extra expense for a horse who 
could no longer fulfil his duty as a performing horse due to his old 
age and impaired state was an act of “humane” benevolence during 
a time when such actions towards an animal were especially indica-
tive of a civilized and properly British heart.9 They were also actions 
that fulfilled many calls by animal welfare, anticruelty, and animal 
rights campaigners who argued horses should be rewarded for their 
lifetime of hard work in support of human society at all levels with a 
happy retirement and veterinary care therein.10 However, many au-
thors likewise lamented that such duty to a horse was often forgot-
ten when faced with equine old age or disability. Indeed, care for a 
decrepit animal was highly unusual for the time.11 Thus, Davis’s ac-
tions suggest there was something unique, even special, about this 
particular horse that made him deserving of such attention.

While at the Amphitheatre, as Decastro recalled, the Spanish Horse 
was an acting equine famous for his sagacious abilities, which ranged 
from making and serving tea to untacking himself.12 Decastro does 
not provide any indication of how a quadruped accomplished such 
feats, but the inclusion of their description in his Memoirs evidences 
the central position of the Spanish Horse within the Amphitheatre’s 
programme. Indeed, the performance of these and similarly “impossi-
ble” feats were standard elements of the Amphitheatre’s programme 
for most of its history. Horses who could “count”, tell time, or sit at 
a table and enjoy tea (fig. 1) were top-billed actors, even if their indi-
vidual names were often omitted from the Amphitheatre playbills. 
Indeed, these horses were often simply advertised as “Learned” in 

8 Rubel, “English Horse-bread”, 40–47.
9 See for instance Boddice, History and Attitudes; Donald, Picturing Animals; Eisenman, 

Cry of Nature; and Perkins, Romanticism and Animal Rights.
10 See for instance, Primatt, Dissertation, 214–15.
11 Mattfeld, Equines.
12 Decastro, Memoirs, 30. Such acts of animal sagacity were typical for the Amphitheatre, 

and for other period illegitimate theatres in London. See the British Library’s (BL’s) “Ast-
ley’s Cuttings from Newspapers”, 1768–1833, Scrapbook. 3 Vol. Th.Cts.35–37.; and Lysons, 
Collectanea, for some of the many examples of acting equines working in London.



Fig. 1

Anonymous, Horse Sitting Down to 
Tea with a Clown, n.d.

From the British Library Collection. Daniel Lysons, 
Collectanea: or, a Collection of Advertisements 
and Paragraphs from the Newspapers Relating 
to Various Subjects (ThCts 50), f. 85. Image # 
F60105-88.



8 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

some way.13 They were also the ones who, it seems, could play dead, 
act furious or wild when needed, and who later took on some of the 
hippodramatic roles written for them at the turn of the nineteenth 
century. These horses, then, were the partners with whom the Am-
phitheatre succeeded. However, very few warranted a mention in 
Decastro’s Memoirs. What was so unique about the Spanish Horse? 
Why was he the one who experienced such care and textual record?

These questions are difficult to answer. Even though worthy of care 
in infirm old age and famed during his life and after his death, the 
Spanish Horse’s identity remains confused and contradictory — and 
establishing it is key to understanding this particular afterlife. In the 
minimal scholarship that mentions the Spanish Horse (and Decas-
tro’s Memoirs), he is conflated with two other leading horses of Ast-
ley’s Amphitheatre: Billy and the Gibraltar Charger. Philip H. Highfill, 
Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans record that Philip 
Astley had acquired two horses from Smithfield market, and one 
of them “was ‘Billy’, later known to fame as the ‘Little Learned Mili-
tary Horse’, or ‘Spanish Horse’”.14 In contrast, Hannah Velten states 
Astley would perform on “a dark bay stallion known as ‘The Span-
ish Horse’ or ‘The Gibraltar Charger’, who had been gifted to him 
by General Elliott” after his discharge from “fighting in the German 
war”.15 Susanna Forrest also conflates a Spanish Horse gifted in 1766 
with the Gibraltar Charger, but for her he was “white” not “dark bay” 
in colour.16 Who was the Spanish Horse of Decastro’s Memoirs? Was 
he also known as Billy, and did he come from a market infamous for 
old and broken-down equines? When was he active at the Amphi-
theatre? Was he instead known as Gibraltar and came to Astley in 
1766 as a lavish gift from Elliott? Or, did he arrive at the Amphitheatre 
even later than that?17 As my following discussion suggests, Decas-
tro’s Spanish Horse, the uniquely deserving equine from a world of 

13 For examples of learned horses see BL, “Astley’s Cuttings”. 
14 Highfill, Burnim, and Langhans, Biographical Dictionary, 147.
15 Velten, Beastly London, 133. 
16 Forrest, Age of the Horse, 121–22.
17 Smithfield market was notorious for selling horses of dubious quality during the sev-

enteenth and eighteenth centuries. See Heyrick, Cursory Remarks.



Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 9

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

unique horses, was also known as the Gibraltar Charger, arriving at 
the Amphitheatre in 1788. However, it is a twisted path of misnam-
ing, confusion, and misremembering we need to follow to arrive at 
this conclusion — and it is a path that begins with Decastro himself.

Decastro provides the foundational account of the Spanish Horse, 
and his version of the Horse’s life was re-published throughout the 
nineteenth century. Decastro’s account was also expanded upon by 
Charles Dickens in his biography of Philip Astley, published in All the 
Year Round (1872).18 However, while there are problems with Decas-
tro’s original account, as I will discuss in a moment, it is with Dick-
ens’s work that the story of Decastro’s Spanish Horse really begins 
to become muddled. Dickens provides a detailed history of a horse 
called “Spanish Horse”, while connecting him to a longer genealogy 
of acting equines, including the first famous Amphitheatre horse, 
Billy. As Dickens writes, Philip Astley obtained Billy from Smithfield 
market sometime around 1766 and trained him for the stage.19 Billy 
proved an apt pupil and quickly became “a great popular favourite, 
playful as a kitten with those he knew, and deeply versed in all the 
learning of the circus”. He could fire pistols, serve tea, and “invite the 
clown down to tea”, which recalls Decastro’s account of the Spanish 
Horse. Billy, after a few misadventures (including being seized and 
then sold by the London authorities only to be reunited with Astley 
by chance after three years’ absence from the theatre) had a long life 
and died “at last of sheer old age, universally respected and regret-
ted”.20 Dickens does not specify the year of Billy’s death.

While Astley relied on Billy to help begin his career as equestrian per-
former and later as circus owner and manager, he also owed much 
of his success to an equine also named the Spanish Horse, who he 

18 Dickens, “Philip Astley”, 210. 
19 Astley took great pride in advertising that Billy was a poor-quality horse from Smithfield, 

and he became a living advertisement for Astley’s equestrian abilities. Astley said “he 
cared little for shape, make or colour; temper was the only consideration. Five pounds 
was the highest price he paid for a horse, and he patronised Smithfield for his buying.” 
K.B., THE MAGAZINE PROGRAMME. The Stage of the Past BEING EPISODES IN THE LIVES OF 
ACTORS AND ACTRESSES OF OTHER DAYS. No. 34.—Philip Astley, 1742–1814, in Astley’s Bi-
ography File — V&A Archives — unfoliated.

20 Dickens, “Philip Astley”, 210.



10 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

owned at the same time as Billy (the two horses Highfill, Burnim, 
and Langhans incorrectly conflate into the Spanish Horse of Decas-
tro’s Memoirs). Evidently “even more famous than Billy”, this Spanish 
Horse, probably of ideal Barb or other Spanish breeding (as his name 
indicates), was, according to Decastro and Dickens, gifted to Ast-
ley by General George Elliott “after the German War”, i.e. the Seven 
Years’ War (1756–1763). Astley was a Sergeant Major in Elliott’s Fif-
teenth Light Dragoons and had distinguished himself at the Battles 
of Emsdorf and Friedburg. To celebrate his military achievements, 
in June 1766, when Astley petitioned for his discharge at the war’s 
conclusion, Elliott presented him with a certificate of service and 
“with a fine charger, which, as the Spanish Horse, afterwards made 
the acquaintance and secured the applause of a very large public”.21 
This was because the Spanish Horse “could perform all Billy’s tricks 
and more”, such as ungirthing his own saddle, currycombing him-
self, and of course sitting down with a clown for a meal.22 According 
to Decastro, this was the “fine charger” who died and was turned 
into a thunder drum sometime around 1824.23

Unfortunately, however, Decastro’s recollection (and later Dickens’) 
of when Astley acquired the Spanish Horse does not stand up to 
scrutiny; when the timeline is examined, the numbers just don’t add 
up. Indeed, the first Spanish Horse’s acquisition date of 1766 and 
death date of circa 1824 are nonsensical when considered along-
side possible equine lifespans. When we compare the gifting and 
death dates of this Spanish Horse, it is doubtful that the first Span-
ish Horse was the same Spanish Horse Decastro described as the 
recipient of Davis’s charity. If in the unlikely event the first Spanish 
Horse was gifted to Astley in 1766 as a foal, at his death he would be 
fifty-eight years of age. However, if he was gifted as an older, trained 

21 Dickens, “Philip Astley,” 205. Astley’s certificate of service and discharge letter are held 
at the BL, “Astley’s Cuttings,” Item 1028, n.d. Highfill, Burnim, and Langhans, in addition 
to mixing up Billy and the Spanish Horse, also mistakenly argue the first horse given 
to Astley by Elliot, the Spanish Horse, was actually the second horse gifted to him, the 
Gibraltar Charger. See Kwint, “Astley’s Amphitheatre” and “Legitimization”, 72–115, for 
further information on Astley and his military career.

22 Dickens, “Famous Circus Horses”. 
23 Decastro, Memoirs, 29.



Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 11

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

horse, as was the more likely scenario in keeping with period views 
towards the prime age of working equines,24 he would be between 
five and eight years older, or more. In this case, he would have an ap-
proximate death age of sixty-three to sixty-six years of age. Horses 
in captivity during the early modern period could have a lifespan of 
forty years (with the majority living to less than twenty).25 These are 
lifespans many scientists today likewise uphold for horses kept in do-
mestic environments.26 Indeed, horses living beyond forty are and 
were unusual, but not unheard of: the oldest horse on record lived 
to the age of sixty-two.27 Therefore, the first Spanish Horse’s possible 
lifespan range of sixty-three to sixty-six years was technically possi-
ble but highly improbable during a period of uneven and sometimes 
questionable veterinary knowledge and often exploitative work en-
vironments.28 The idea of the first Spanish Horse being the animal 
Davis turned into a drum is further destabilized by his recorded age 
of death; Decastro records he died at the age of forty-two, not in 
his late fifties or sixties. As a result of these discrepancies between 
acquisition date and death age, we must question the accuracy of 
the information contained in Decastro’s Memoirs. We need to take a 
closer look at our final horse, the Gibraltar Charger, also called “The 
Spanish Charger”,29 to make sense of who is who in Decastro’s record.

General George Elliott gifted the Gibraltar Charger to Philip Astley 
in 1788, after the Siege of Gibraltar (fig. 2).30 A “white” horse (i.e. a 
grey horse who appeared white),31 not a “dark bay stallion” as Vel-
ton contends, Gibraltar was also known as the “Spanish Charger”.32 
He did not, initially, perform any of the feats or tricks that made Billy 
and the first Spanish Horse famous; instead, with Astley Gibraltar 

24 Mattfeld, Equines.
25 Bacon, “History of Life and Death,” 234.
26 Cozzi, “Aging and Veterinary Care.”
27 Spector, “Handbook of biological data.”
28 See Curth, Care of Brute Beasts, for a history of farrier and veterinary medicine.
29 The Morning Post (London), December 2, 1806, issue 11183.
30 BL, “Astley’s Cuttings,” vol. 3, f.1077, n.p, “1788.”
31 The North-Eastern Daily Gazette (Middlesborough, England), July 11, 1890. See also Wil-

liam Hinck’s portrait in Mattfeld, “‘Undaunted all he views’.”
32 The Morning Post (London), December 22, 1806; Issue 11183.



Fig. 2

John Singleton Copley, Defeat of 
the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, 
September 1782 (The Siege of 
Gibraltar), 1783–1791. Oil on canvas, 
544 × 754 cm. The Guildhall Art 
Gallery, London.

Image credit: City of London Corporation, CC BY-NC.



Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 13

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

became famous for appearing on stage (or on a barge in the mid-
dle of the Thames) surrounded by patriotic fireworks. Gibraltar also 
performed with Philip Astley’s son, John, in 1788 as an embodiment 
of grand military achievement and ideal British loyalty to the crown. 
With the Astleys, Gibraltar became the headlining act of the 1788 the-
atre season and quickly achieved celebrity status. Critical infatua-
tion with him was short-lived, however; after the end of the 1788 the-
atre season, Gibraltar’s name disappears from the Amphitheatre’s 
performance programme and from the national press.33 While the 
reasons for his decline are unknown, it is probable that his popular-
ity with the audience simply waned. The Astleys prided themselves 
on staging the strange and wondrous, and on the continual perfor-
mance of everything new. Philip Astley was known for revamping the 
entire Amphitheatre programme, as often as once or twice a week 
in some cases, in order to remain unique within the ever-increasing 
popularity for displays of equestrian extravaganzas from the other 
illegitimate theatres around London.34 In order to stay competitive, 
then, Astley may have quietly removed Gibraltar from the position 
of headlining performer while assigning him to another role within 
the Amphitheatre, such as the “Flying Equestrian Stage”, “The Won-
derful Learned Horse”, or the “beautiful white and spirited Horse”, 
possibly renamed “Tallyho”, who plays the burlesque role of the Tay-
lor’s horse in the pantomime “The Hunted Taylor”.35

Now, assuming Gibraltar, the Spanish Charger, was between eight or 
ten years of age when he came to Astley after his military service, this 
would put his age between forty-one and forty-three. This, of course, 
fits with Decastro’s account of the “Spanish Horse’s” death at the age 
of forty-two in 1824 and suggests a tentative birth date sometime 
between 1780 and 1782 — if he died between 1822 and 1824, as De-
castro implies. With these numbers in mind, then, I suggest that Gi-
braltar was Decastro’s equine who became a thunder drum.

33 For a more complete account of the Gibraltar Charger and his role in Astley’s Amphi-
theatre with John and Philip Astley see Mattfeld, ‘“Undaunted all he views”.

34 BL, “Astley Cuttings,” vol. 2, unfoliated, n.d. 
35 BL, “Astley’s Cuttings,” vol. 1. f. 123A, n.p. (March 1795); vol. 3, f.170 (May 16, 1808); vol. 3, 

f. 185 (June 1808).



14 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

Life and Death

Gibraltar reached the end of his life in the early nineteenth century 
during a period of immense change—but also remarkable continu-
ity—when it came to views towards nonhuman animals. Over the 
period, as Keith Thomas argues, older, and often minority, views 
on animal care and cruelty became of interest to more and more 
people; and it was also a period where animal life was important 
enough to preserve with legislation and protection societies.36 While 
the discourses themselves had not changed in great measure from 
their earlier iterations, by the end of the eighteenth century they 
were “much more widely dispersed, and they were much more ex-
plicitly backed up by the religious and philosophical teachings of the 
time”.37 As part of this tradition, while it had long been argued that 
unnecessary pain and suffering was cruel, ideas about which ani-
mals should now fall under humanity’s sphere of moral concern had 
also shifted. Instead of only the rational animals (broadly defined) 
being deserving of care, by the beginning of the nineteenth century 
many authors argued that all nonhuman animals were deserving of 
happiness and even unalienable rights. They became subject to the 
“law of universal benevolence” in a way where their suffering as an-
imals, as individuals, was considered of increased importance. Of 
course, animal cruelty was still widespread and condemned mostly 
for what it taught a person to do to his fellow humans (i.e. cruelty to 
animals was the gateway to cruelty to humans), but nonhuman an-
imals were increasingly coming to be seen as fellow creatures, even 
as brothers, equally deserving of attention and care as their fellow 
humans.38 And care and sympathy for animals became an essential 
component of a new British ideal of humanity — as Davis evidently 
embodied, at least for Decastro.39

36 Kean, Animal Rights; Perkins, Romanticism; Spencer, Writing About Animals. See also 
Meneley, Animal Claim; Donald, Picturing Animals.

37 Thomas, Man and the Natural World, 174–75. See also Edwards, Horse and Man; Boddice, 
History of Attitudes.

38 Thomas, Man and the Natural World, 174–80; Preece, Brute Souls, 37–38.
39 Sympathy and sentiment towards animals had limits, however, as Morillo (Rise of Ani-

mals, xv), and Wolloch (“Limits”) argue. 



Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 15

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

Once an animal was dead or dying, however, common husbandry 
practice often invited the end of such sympathetic care and intro-
duced treatment of animal bodies that led to objectification, com-
modification, loss of individual identity. While sympathetic care of 
aged horses was a central component of animal welfare and an-
ti-cruelty literature in this period, actual enactment of the advice 
presented in such texts was remarkably rare — making Davis’s ac-
tions that much more unique.40 Indeed, it seems the majority of 
equines who were aged, lamed, disabled, ill, or simply unwanted 
for any reason, were sold for parts to the knacker’s. As Clay McShane 
and Joel A. Tarr explain, once a horse arrived at the knacker’s yard, 
workers would remove the hair, which would be made into cush-
ions, added to plaster to help it stiffen, or be woven into blankets. 
The bones could be carved into knife handles or combs; the hooves 
would be boiled to extract oil necessary for the production of gel-
atine and glue; the head would also be boiled to separate the oil 
and then burned for bootblack. The vapours from the boiling pro-
cess contained carbonate of ammonia, used as an insecticide. The 
bones also produced phosphate of lime, which was processed fur-
ther into phosphorus used in matches, while the fats skimmed off 
the top of the boiling vats would be used in candle or soap mak-
ing. The meat would be processed as dog food, and finally, the hide 
would be removed and sent to the tanners to be made into valua-
ble cordovan (shoe) leather.41 A dead horse, then, was regarded as a 
source of financial profit, just as many owners thought of them dur-
ing their lifetimes. Indeed, as George Skeavington argued in 1850, 
“[m]oney is of more consequence than animal feeling”, and money 
was the pre-eminent driving force behind all treatment of horses—
alive or dead.42

While we do not know how Gibraltar died, after his death Davis’s 
common course of action would have been to exploit the horse’s 
body for profit. Indeed, it is likely that Gibraltar’s body was disar-
ticulated and sold for its component parts — even though Decastro 

40 Mattfeld, Equines, chapter 8.
41 McShane and Tarr, Horse in the City, 27–30.
42 Skeavington, Modern System of Farriery, 295.



16 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

certainly does not provide details of this process, as to do so would 
undermine the anticruelty and humanizing messages of his Memoirs. 
But, surprisingly, he does provide an account of what happened to 
the most recognizably individualized and familiar signifier of the Gi-
braltar Charger: his skin. “At last, nature being exhausted, he died 
in the common course of it,” Decastro writes, “and Mr. Davis, with 
an idea to perpetuate the animal’s memory, caused the hide to be 
tanned and made into a thunder-drum, which now stands on the 
prompt side of the theatre.”43 This horse-as-drum itself does not 
survive, probably destroyed in one of the many fires to strike the 
Amphitheatre over its history, but the transformation of Gibraltar’s 
body into a drum positions him both inside and outside of the cat-
egory of animal as commodity, useful only for financial gain.44 Cer-
tainly his presence as a drum aided the revenue of the theatre, but 
there is more to his presence than pure economics would allow. In-
stead, Gibraltar’s life, death, and afterlife positioned him as at once 
a cherished member of the Amphitheatre troupe on par with the 
human actors, and someone who should be honoured for his ser-
vice, but also as both an objectified employee and mourned serv-
ant for whom simple burial or the erection of a monument would 
not suffice.

Indeed, I suggest, turning Gibraltar into a thunder drum was an oddly 
fitting memorial for a horse famous for his courage under fire. As a 
large drum, he continued to be associated with the sounds of bat-
tle, and with the drums carried therein. As a drum, his use value con-
tinued to be associated with military service to humans — a service 
the Amphitheatre (and most authors who touched on the subject 
at the time) considered natural to the equine species.45 Gibraltar as 
a thunder drum, then, using anthropocentric and anthropomorphic 
rationale, would be able to continue his service to the Amphithea-
tre, perhaps even to the wider nation.

43 Decastro, Memoirs, 30.
44 Dickens, “Philip Astley”, 210.
45 Astley, Astley’s Projects and Astley’s System. See also Cavendish, A General System; and 

to a certain extent, Herbert, A Method. 



Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 17

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

Part 2: Subjective Objects

As a drum, however, the Gibraltar Charger became a thing, a piece of 
hide stretched over a frame.  For many, Gibraltar’s thingness would 
relegate him to the position of the inert, immobile, and silent, like 
the bodies of so many other horses rendered down to fertilizer or 
worn on the feet of fashionable Londoners. However, as Decastro 
suggests, in the state of thunder drum Gibraltar was not necessar-
ily understood or thought of as simply inert, as an inanimate object 
unable to influence those around him. Instead, I argue, Gibraltar in 
his afterlife retained a level of subjectivity and agency not afforded 
to many other animals alive or dead. Gibraltar’s agency, in turn, in-
vites us to question the usual binaries of live/dead, recognizable/
faceless, subject/object, and culture/nature which, as I will argue, 
some recent scholarship on animal lives and deaths, memory, and 
attitudes towards the nonhuman other (animal, thing, matter) con-
tinues to perpetuate.

Furthermore, Gibraltar’s ongoing agency as object likewise invites a 
thinking beyond existing philosophies on matter, animals as mate-
rial objects, and the power and agency within such things. As such, 
to unpack the ontological complexities within Gibraltar-as-drum, as 
an object, and Davis’s implied rationale for making him into one, I 
bring together into conversation new materialism, ecofeminism, and 
taxidermy. These three approaches to objects/matter and agency, 
I suggest, are incomplete in singularity when complex beings/ob-
jects like Gibraltar-as-drum are in question. Therefore, by bringing 
them together in a more interwoven approach to Gibraltar I prob-
lematize the usual interpretation of material objects made from an-
imal remains as subjectless, inactive, and no different than objects 
composed of any other material. Doing so offers a more nuanced in-
terpretation of the Amphitheatre’s thunder drum, the special horse 
who was made into it, and the affective relationships many people 
had to Gibraltar as material thing.

I begin with new materialism, and specifically with the work of Jane 
Bennett as one of the leading scholars thinking about the typically 



18 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

unnoticed power of all matter. As part of her groundbreaking ex-
ploration of how seemingly inert matter or material items are im-
bued with meaning, emotional response, and thus agency of their 
own, Bennett uses anecdote and scenes of refuse as a generative 
thought experiment. The most influential of these experiments for 
ecofeminist scholars engaging with her work is a scene of “Debris” 
on the street. While out walking one day, Bennett came across the 
following:

one large men’s black plastic work glove
one dense mat of oak pollen
one unblemished dead rat
one white plastic bottle cap
one smooth stick of wood.46

For Bennett, this scene was affective and indicative of the power of 
things to be both objects and items that have agency in themselves 
to produce their own forms and formulations beyond human inter-
vention. As Bennett states, in witnessing this “tableau” of immate-
rial and nonhuman matter she was struck by “a nameless awareness 
of the impossible singularity of that rat, that configuration of pollen, 
that otherwise utterly banal, mass-produced plastic water-bottle 
cap.”47 For Bennett, the objects on the street all together were indic-
ative of the live and unalive nature of things and matter in general.

In making this philosophical argument and her wider point about 
the agential nature of matter, however, Bennett does not differen-
tiate between types of matter, or man-made objects, things, and 
dead animals. For her, the dead rat was no different, and ethically 
should be approached no differently, than the plastic work glove 
or the wooden stick. Instead, she argues, “[o]rganic and inorganic 
bodies, natural and cultural objects (these distinctions are not par-
ticularly salient here) all are affective.”48 Bennett, and many theo-
ries that form the groundwork for her investigation into vital ma-
terialism, is not particularly interested in animals (worms and their 

46 Bennett, Vibrant Matter, 4.
47 Bennett, Vibrant Matter, 4, original emphasis.
48 Bennett, Vibrant Matter, xii.



Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 19

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

political agency being an exception49) or the ethical questions their 
material presence invites as different from that of inorganic objects. 
Instead, Bennett works to create an ethics of recognition, an ac-
knowledgement of all matter as more than inert, lifeless, and there-
fore unimportant object commodity. For Bennett, matter (regard-
less of what it is made from) is an actant that when taken as a ‘vital’ 
element within the world, especially a human world, offers a newly 
ethical politics for the betterment of all.

However, by presenting these more general approaches to matter, 
Bennett has sidestepped the issue of animal matter as fundamen-
tally different in its once-alive and now-dead state from other ma-
terial forms. For Josephine Donovan, as an ecofeminist interested 
in the connections between objects, the aestheticization of animal 
representation, and animal life, Bennett’s oversight is ethically prob-
lematic enough to undermine the entire enterprise of new materi-
alism. Indeed, Donovan rejects Bennett’s new materialism, arguing 
that due to the ongoing Newtonian-Cartesian aesthetic value as-
cribed to matter (man-made and once alive), and the lack of “lov-
ing attention” that would see that one of those objects (the rat) was 
once alive and hence deserving of loving respect as an individual, 
new materialism has lost even a glimmer of ethical credibility. As 
Donovan writes: “Ironically, we find here rescripted the aesthetics 
of modernity in which the ‘unblemished’ (aesthetic description) rat’s 
body has significance only as part of an interesting, if vibrant, aes-
thetic composition.” Indeed, “surely there is a difference to be made 
(something the New Materialists often fail to do) between a living or 
formerly living being and a manufactured commodity.”50 Bennett’s 
rat was once a live being and as such deserving of attention, love, 
and ethical care that honours her life. Therefore, to engage with Ben-
nett’s rat appropriately and with true recognition and care for her 
as a once-live being (instead of aestheticizing and de-individualizing 
or demonizing her as a source of disgust), Donovan suggests “[o]ne 
might indeed be moved, under an ethic of care, to bury the rat, of-
fering her a measure of final dignity, in honor of her past existence 

49 Bennett, Vibrant Matter, 94–109.
50 Donovan, Aesthetics of Care, 35.



20 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

as a presence with whom a caring, dialogical relationship had been 
possible.” Such attention, and an ethics of care towards nonhuman 
beings (alive or dead), is essential for Donovan’s aim of generating 
“a significantly new understanding of living matter” and thus a truly 
ethical concern for the beings on this planet.51

While I applaud Donovan’s emphasis upon live animal beings and 
the aesthetic representations that have great impacts on their lives, 
as with Bennett, Donovan does not readily extend this ethics of care 
to once-live nonhuman animals. What this limited focus on the once-
live animal does, however, is prohibit thinking about an animal as ob-
ject and as agential within that state. It likewise rejects any possibil-
ity that animal matter, especially once fragmented, might agentially 
invite alternative human responses to live animal bodies — of invit-
ing its own matter-driven ethics of care or of inviting influential lega-
cies of the once-live animal within the dead flesh. Indeed, Bennett’s 
dead rat was certainly vibrant (provoking an affective response in 
the form of disgust), an actant within a wider assemblage of matter, 
as Donovan also points out, but she was also a rat with her own life, 
culture, and relationships with both human and nonhuman beings. 
I suggest it was a life that remains part of the dead body, of the de-
composing matter of the self.

In making this argument, though, I embrace the nature of Bennett’s 
vital materialism, where matter remains agential, intentional, in ways 
not fully understood by modern science. I also stretch it further to 
question what it means when that matter is from a once-live animal. 
What would it mean to question Bennett’s dead rat? What happens 
to the subjective self, epistemologies and ontologies of knowing the 
animal other, at the point of death? The introduction of Erica Fudge’s 
concept of “animal-made-objects” may help remind us of and ac-
count for the power of animals as objects, as matter. 

Looking to Bruno Latour’s Actor Network Theory and Bill Brown’s 
Thing Theory, Fudge proposes a new phrase, the “animal-made-ob-
ject”, as a way to help recall the agential power within human culture 

51 Donovan, Aesthetics of Care, 35–36.



Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 21

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

of animals alive or dead. According to Fudge, “this term carries two 
simultaneous meanings: (1) the animal-made object — the object 
constructed from an animal; and (2) the animal made-object — the 
objectified animal.” For Fudge, this term should “not only remind us 
of the concurrent status of animals as both agents and matter but 
also of the nature of the relationship we have with them.” Therefore, 
the “animal-made-object” is ethical in intent, illuminating animal–
human relationships and often the destabilizing aspects, or “recal-
citrant” nature, of animal matter.52

However, while Fudge’s concept of the “animal-made-object” is in-
deed a useful reminder of animal material power, nuancing Ben-
nett’s non-animal-focused arguments, Fudge’s objects, while agen-
tial and acknowledged for their unique actant status as animal 
objects, also remain deindividualized. Donovan argues something 
similar. Indeed, during the rendering from live animal to butchered 
food, Donovan argues “animals become absent referents. Animals 
in name and body are made absent as animals for meat to exist.” 
As part of this process, “the living animal is eclipsed, deadened, ex-
ploited, and discarded” as modernity and its reliance upon Cartesian 
and Kantian mechanism demands.53 Thus, for both Fudge and Dono-
van the “animal-made object” and the “animal made-object” remain 
subjectless. Indeed, while “animal-made objects” are especially in-
teresting and forceful actants to “effect change upon so-called hu-
man culture” when they come into contact with human bodies, of-
ten in the form of clothing or perfume, they remain objectified things, 
like Donovan’s slaughterhouse victims, where the live animal’s indi-
vidual “sentient presence has been removed”.54

Therefore, in order to see the nonhuman animals of the world, es-
pecially those who are dead or have been killed, like Gibraltar, we 
need to move beyond a care ethic that stops short of recognizing 
all animals made matter. Certainly, recognizing the objectification 
and removal of the animal self that occurs in modern abattoirs and 

52 Fudge, “Renaissance Animal Things,” 42–43, 44.
53 Donovan, Aesthetics of Care, 50.
54 Fudge, “Renaissance Animal Things,” 45.



22 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

rendering facilities is essential, but for us to understand the transi-
tion of the Gibraltar Charger into a thunder drum, and then the in-
dividual particulars of this specific afterlife, we need to think about 
the who within all matter — not just the matter with still-recogniza-
ble animal shapes, or bodies. As such, we cannot simply reject Ben-
nett’s new materialism, as Donovan has done. Nor can we simply 
view dead animal matter as the result of mechanical and anti-sen-
timental modernism. Instead, we need a theory of cared-for mat-
ter that continues to recognize matter’s vital agency as objectified 
thing and which recognizes the subject within the dead-animal mat-
ter itself. Indeed, to bring the animal self back, to recognize the on-
going if often unquantifiable or mysterious nature of animal subjec-
tivity in seemingly inert matter, we need to exercise a recognition 
of animals as sentient, feeling, desiring beings before death and ac-
knowledge that at least a modicum of that self remains in the mat-
ter that the animal becomes when transformed into an objectified 
now-dead, if agential, object. While the self that remains is subject 
to continuing anthropocentric and anthropomorphic constructions, 
and as we will see is predicated on the knowability or “celebrity” sta-
tus of the animal before death, I suggest the nonhuman animal self, 
in some instances, is never fully effaced by objectification and me-
chanical rendering after death.

Thus, to come to understand Gibraltar-as-drum scholars need to rec-
ognize and hear the “who” within the animal-made objects.55 As part 
of her ethical approach to animal representation and aestheticiza-
tion, Donovan suggests that scholars need to recognize and think 
with the self within that representation. According to Donovan, “art 
and literature”, and, as I suggest, animal-made-objects, “created un-
der an aesthetics of care are conceived through a participatory epis-
temology — an ‘I–thou’ relationship, in which the natural world and its 
multivarious creatures are recognized as subjects who have stories 
of their own.” For Donovan, “[s]uch subjects are qualitatively particu-
larized, embedded in specific locales — their unique physical bodies 
and historically and geographically specific environments.” Knowing 

55 Donovan, Aesthetics of Care, 50.



Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 23

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

“these subjects’ ways of being requires experiential attentiveness to 
their unique shapes, expressions, and patterns, as well as to their 
contextual habits. It requires listening to their diverse voices.”56

I want to listen to Gibraltar’s voice as a drum. I want to take his af-
ter-death body, his disarticulated and unrecognizable shape, seri-
ously. In doing so, I want to think about Gibraltar as the thunder 
drum in a way that not only takes seriously his status as animal mat-
ter, as a sound-making machine, but also Decastro’s recollection 
of why Gibraltar was made into a drum and what influence he had 
on those around him. However, the interweaving of vital material-
ism and Donovan’s ethics of care still leaves us with the thorny is-
sue of moving beyond the moment of rendering subjectless that 
death and disarticulation brings. To take the “who” within the drum 
as central, and as a presence and a self attached to a physical ani-
mal-made-object, I add to these theoretical approaches the prac-
tice of taxidermy — while offering a slightly alternative interpretation 
of its defining features.

The practice of taxidermy traditionally is about preserving the indi-
vidual within the recognizably and aesthetically shaped object for a 
variety of reasons. For example, taxidermy has been, and is, done to 
make a political statement and for self-aggrandizement, as with Jer-
emy Bentham’s Auto-Icon; to capture the likeness and anthropomor-
phized notion of a wider species, as with museum specimens; freez-
ing in time a thrilling (for the human) moment of human vs. “beast”, 
as with game hunting; making an ethical or artistic statement, com-
mon to artistic taxidermy; or the preservation of a loved companion, 
as with pet taxidermy.57 Regardless of rationale, though, taxidermy is 
about capturing within the preserved hide / skin / feathers / scales of 
a dead animal some semblance or notion of that animal when they 
were alive (or a semblance of human–animal relationships indexed 
in the animal body58) — this intent makes taxidermy, and the philo-

56 Donovan, Aesthetics of Care, 73.
57 See Collings, “Bentham’s Auto-Icon”; Staughan, “Entangled Corporeality”; Aloi, Specu-

lative Taxidermy; Baker Postmodern Animal; Haraway, “Teddy Bear Patriarchy”.
58 Aloi, Speculative Taxidermy, 23.



24 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

sophical underpinnings of it as a practice, potentially quite useful for 
coming to understand why Gibraltar was made into the Amphithea-
tre’s thunder drum and the role he had once there.

However, there is a problem: the definition of taxidermy is often lim-
ited to beings whose body remains recognizable in some form and 
akin to the animals’ live body (in its entirety or in part) in its dead, 
taxidermied state.59 For example, Sarah Amato, looking to Kather-
ine Grier, defines taxidermy as follows: 

taxidermy posits a particular kind of connection between an-
imals and objects, whereby the animal is transformed into an 
artefact but remains recognizably embodied as its animal self 
[…]. To create taxidermy, the skin of the animal was removed, 
stuffed, and mounted in a lifelike position — though early tech-
niques varied and sometimes skeletons were wrapped in ma-
terial to provide the structure of the mount. Taxidermy trans-
formed animals into manufactured objects.60

Taxidermied animals (and some humans, like Bentham) retain recog-
nizable physical elements, such as hands / paws, coats, and faces 
that recall their live selves through their preserved shape. As Donna 
Haraway suggests, taxidermy is “the art most suited to the episte-
mological and aesthetic stance of realism.”61 It is when an animal 
body becomes so fragmented or altered through human process-
ing, and the animal’s original shape becomes lost, that problems 
arise. Indeed, for Amato, and other scholars interested in the his-
tory of taxidermy, animal-made objects that do not retain recogniz-
able features of the now-dead-animal do not qualify as taxidermied 
beings. As Amato argues, items such as “a leather coat” cannot be 
classified as taxidermy because the object’s animal “origins are dis-
embodied, abstracted, and recalled through the mental effort of as-
sociating the coat to the cow”.62 Even within some modern art cir-
cles where “speculative taxidermy” celebrates non-traditional and 

59 See Baker, Postmodern Animal, for ‘botched taxidermy’ or taxidermy of the fragment. 
60 Amato, Beastly Possessions, 190.
61 Haraway, “Teddy Bear Patriarchy,” 34.
62 Amato, Beastly Possessions, 190.



Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 25

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

often nonreferential forms of animal taxidermy, the individual ani-
mal self is subsumed under the ‘relationship’ between human and 
animal within the Anthropocene — the who within remains unknown 
within the object.63 The association between object (such as a mod-
ern-art installation, shoe, glove, perfume, or stuffing in furniture) and 
the animal from which they are made simply is not clear enough, 
and the animal self is lost to the nonreferential matter. As a result, 
such objects, Amato implies, cannot allow the dead animal to act as 
memory, as emotive being, or as instructional item as “proper” taxi-
dermied animals should. Such objects, according to traditional defi-
nitions of taxidermy, do not allow for “attentive love” or the recogni-
tion of the animal within all “animal-made-objects”.

In order to understand the afterlife of Gibraltar as a thunder drum, 
then, we need a new definition of taxidermy, one that includes any 
alteration of an animal’s body, especially alterations that are de-
signed for remembrance or memorial in perpetuity. We need to strip 
“taxidermy” as a practice and art back to its original meaning: ety-
mologically, taxidermy is derived from Greek, and is composed of 
taxis [τάξις], “order / arrangement”, and derma [δέρμα], “skin”. Thus, 
literally, “taxidermy” is simply “skin arrangement”.64 Within this open 
definition, skin of any shape or size can be stretched over just about 
anything — a life-like mould or a geometric frame would make no dif-
ference. The skin could be manipulated and arranged as the creator/
worker wished — even if they were creating a coat, gloves, or drum. 
While broadening this definition runs the risk of subsuming the tax-
idermist’s art, that of stretching and shaping a hide over an internal 
skeleton to preserve the image of the dead animal after life, into a 
wider morass of animal-body renderings, a new definition that in-
cludes the fragmented and shaped dead body as always carrier of 
the live individual allows for visibility of the animal subject within 
the material object; we can recognize the animal individual inher-
ent within the manipulation of skin (or other body part) into an ani-
mal-made-object even if the object is utilitarian and its final shape 
does not recall the animal’s original form.

63 Aloi, Speculative Taxidermy, 24. 
64 Kalshoven, “Gestures of Taxidermy,” 35.



26 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

If we interpret the thunder drum as a piece of taxidermy, an agen-
tial animal-made object composed of once-live animal matter, and 
thus worthy of ethical consideration, provocative interpretations of 
Decastro’s short and enigmatic footnote start to emerge. Gibraltar 
was rendered into a thunder drum specifically as a useful object of 
theatre life, but this rendering, I suggest, illustrates his actant status 
as matter, as animal-made-object, where his objectified and frag-
mented skin becomes the matter and means of remembrance, emo-
tional connection, and moralizing instruction that in turn consist-
ently recalls aspects of his life as military hero and celebrity actor. 
Indeed, with this expanded definition of taxidermy in mind, I sug-
gest as an animal-made utilitarian object, as taxidermied animal 
matter, the thunder drum retained the who, the presence of Gibral-
tar. Therefore, by coupling Bennett’s generally vibrant matter, Dono-
van’s ethical attention towards animals as important and separate 
from other material objects, Fudge’s animal-made objects as agen-
tial in their own right, and who Gibraltar was before death (and how 
he was interpreted as a subjective being after death), the thunder 
drum is made intelligible. As I explore next, and in contrast to Kan-
tian philosophy, which, as Bennett points out, argues that the “es-
sential character of matter is lifeless, inertia”,65 the animal-made-ob-
ject retained Gibraltar’s voice, the who behind the object. To be sure, 
that voice (the recognition of it and the recollection of Gibraltar it 
enabled) was predicated upon an epistemological status that man-
dated a hearer possessed some form of connection to Gibraltar as a 
living—and celebrity—being. As Decastro writes, his rumbling voice, 
or “parting knell”, was recognizable to those who knew “the circum-
stances” of his life and death. Thus, Gibraltar-as-drum, an object re-
duced to bare matter and artificially constructed object, remains 
horse — he remains, at least in some form and for some people, the 
Gibraltar Charger.

Thunder Drum

As a taxidermied and agential animal-made object, I argue, Gi-
braltar’s body had a voice. Thunder drums had the capacity to 

65 Kant, Critique of Judgement, 1790, as qtd. in Bennett, Vibrant Matter, 65.



Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 27

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

exercise an immense influence upon all those who interacted with 
them — through sight, touch, and, of course primarily, sound. Thun-
der drums, as the name implies, were used to recall the sounds of 
thunder, storms, and battle (especially of cannon and other ordi-
nance fire). They helped to create mood, tension, and fear, and were 
essential pieces of the Amphitheatre’s soundscape. As John Jen-
nings recalled, they were a modern invention during the early nine-
teenth century and usually consisted “of a calf-skin tightly drawn 
over the top of a box frame. With this instrument the low rumbling 
of distant thunder or the long roll of the elemental disturbance may 
be attained.” This elemental disturbance rarely existed in singularity. 
Instead, the thunder drum worked in tandem with other theatre ma-
chines to create weather and atmospheric effects designed to shock, 
and in some cases frighten, the audience that experienced them.66 
When we look closely at them, however, and attentively invite the an-
imal self within to emerge, thunder drums can also act as powerful 
reminders of the animal within. In the case of the Gibraltar Charger 
(the animal within and the who in the object) the thunder drum func-
tions both as a human memorial to his life and as a strongly emotive 
voice through which he, as material actant, could influence those 
around him. Indeed, as a taxidermied animal-made-object, Gibral-
tar as thunder drum became the embodiment of mournful memory 
for those who knew him, a creator of the Amphitheatre soundscape 
and shaper of the audience into a community of the sublime, and 
a commanding instructor of ideal behaviour who was positioned 
close to the divine.

Primarily, however, for the select few who knew of his death and life, 
the drum’s theatre soundscape became, night after night, Gibraltar’s 
memorial — as Davis probably intended and as taxidermy invites. As 
Rachel Poliquin argues, regardless of stated intent, taxidermy is also 
about remembrance, about “human longing” for one who is lost; it is 
about “the desires and daydreams surrounding human relationships 
with and within the natural world.”67 Typically, and especially for the 
early nineteenth century, such relationships were those of pet and 

66 Jennings, Theatrical and Circus Life, 171.
67 Poliquin, Breathless Zoo, 6.



28 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

owner (the taxidermy of pets was popular at the time), where the 
pet remained useful after death.68 For the Gibraltar Charger, these 
dreams and desires invite recollections of equine service that paint 
him as the absolute equine military hero.

With the thunder drum, it mattered that the hide used came from 
the Gibraltar Charger and not another animal. It mattered also that 
Gibraltar was a war hero. Indeed, the association of thunder drums 
with performances of a military nature was especially useful for a 
theatre that in the early nineteenth century turned much of its at-
tention to the staging of grand military equestrian extravaganzas 
known as hippodramas. Over the nineteenth century, these specta-
cles became the most popular theatre productions of the age, with 
many produced around the approximate date of Gibraltar’s death 
and first performances as a drum.69 While there is no extant record 
of which productions Gibraltar as the thunder drum may have been 
a part of, all these plays in some form contain military or national-
istic subject matter.70

 While the Gibraltar Charger experienced a long and, it seems, cared-
for history at the Amphitheatre, he was above all a military horse. 
Even though Decastro does not accurately record his connection to 
the Siege of Gibraltar, it seems Gibraltar’s connection to General El-
liot and military action in general remained firmly entrenched within 
Amphitheatre lore. Gibraltar’s overall militaristic history is in keep-
ing with the acts he performed in 1788, and the ones which gained 
him celebrity status as a result. For instance, Gibraltar’s first pub-
lic appearance on 4 June  1788 was timed to celebrate the birthday 

68 Young, Pet Projects.
69 These hippodramas include: James Robinson Planche’s Cortez; or, The Conquest of Mex-

ico (1823); Charles Dibdin the Younger’s Bonduca; or, The British Queen (1823); J.H. Amh-
erst’s Battle of Waterloo (1824) and Bonaparte’s Invasion of Russia; or, the Conflagration 
of Moscow (1825); Thomas Dibdin’s Kenilworth; or, The Days of Good Queen Bess (1824); 
George Croly’s The Enchanted Courser; or, The Sultan of Curdistan (1824); and Andrew 
Ducrow’s The Burmese War; or, Our Victories in the East (1826).

70 See Harvard University, Houghton Library’s Lamont Microfiche (W 2653) for copies 
of these plays. For information on hippodrama in England, France, and America, see 
Saxon, Life and Art; Mattfeld, “‘I see them galloping!’”; and Poppiti, A History of Eques-
trian Drama.



Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 29

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

of George III and overtly connected military courage with support 
for the crown. Part of the celebrations consisted of a fireworks dis-
play lit on a barge in the centre of the Thames River. The Gibraltar 
Charger was also on this barge, “courageous[ly]” and unconcern-
edly “entirely covered with fire, which seemed to be his favourite el-
ement.”71 The Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser even jokingly 
asked “whether the Gibraltar Charger has not been used to eat fire, 
as he seems to be so very fond of it.”72 Indeed, he “stood as firm as 
the Rock of Gibraltar itself” through the entire ordeal.73 From here, 
Gibraltar frequently performed his military training in conjunction 
with (indoor) fireworks and the firing of weaponry (including a small 
cannon) from his back, proving beyond doubt his ability to “with-
stand fire” as ideal military chargers (and according to Philip Astley, 
all horses) naturally should. Indeed, as the Morning Post and Daily 
Advertiser pointed out, Gibraltar could “stand […] fire so well” due 
to being ridden by Elliot “during the whole siege of Gibraltar”.74 And, 
“[e]very body seems desirous of seeing the Horse which carried the 
gallant Veteran through the glorious toils of war” as a result.75

Even though Gibraltar would go on to perform with John Astley in 
his equestrian ballet, and more than likely in comedic or “learned 
horse” parts, it seems he would always be remembered for his na-
tionalistic military service (and the performance of it on the Thames 
and the Amphitheatre stage in 1788). His military experience, and 
consequential ability to calmly interact with fireworks and cannon, 
became synonymous with “him”, with the anthropomorphized con-
struction of his equine self. Gibraltar would always be the horse as-
sociated with General Elliot, with battle, the protection of British im-
perialism, and with his prowess as a Charger — regardless of which 
name he was subsequently known by or which history he was given. 
Gibraltar, as the “Ode” about him enthused,

71 World (1787) (London), June 21, 1788; Issue 462; World (1787) (London), June 5, 1788; Is-
sue 448.

72 Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser (London), June 21, 1788; Issue 5965.
73 Morning Herald (London), June 5, 1788; Issue 2377.
74 Morning Post and Daily Advertiser (London), June 5, 1788; Issue 4748.
75 World (1787) (London), July 5, 1788; Issue 474.



30 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

Bore our warlike hero round
Gibraltar’s rocks, while cannons sound,— 

Fly red hot balls in air:
Thousands has he to conquest led;
His course has been o’er slaughtered dead.

He was “Fearless as noble in his soul”, while “His element is war 
alone; / On glory’s heights for this he’s known”. And known he was 
throughout his life, if Decastro’s short note about him is to be be-
lieved.76 He was Elliot’s Charger, an honoured veteran of war, and I 
suspect he remained so for the rest of his life (although no evidence 
that I could find, other than Decastro’s incorrect history, discusses 
Gibraltar directly after 1788) (fig. 3). Furthermore, I suggest Gibraltar 
was also known for his military might after death, and his reputation 
for the ultimate of military chargers directly informed the decision 
to taxidermy him into a thunder drum. While we can never be sure 
of the exact rationale behind Davis’s decision, Gibraltar’s militarized 
reputation, coupled with the typical valuation of animals alive or 
dead through use value, suggests the drum as animal-made-object 
was considered a fitting, even perfect, memorial for an old warhorse.

It was a memorial that at once allowed for the remembrance of his 
past service, but which also emphasizes human constructions of 
ideal horses — and by extension, ideal human/animal relationships. 
The “Ode on the Gibraltar Charger” again offers clues to these con-
structs. It emphasizes discourses that constructed equines as serv-
ants (or slaves, depending on the author) and ever eager to serve 
his human masters.77 According to the “Ode”, “The Soldier he will 
ne’er forsake” as “The army’s friend and guide” in peace and war. 
Gibraltar was “Created for our use, his pride / Is man to glory e’er to 
guide” — indeed, he “welcomes Death mankind to Love, / And no 
reward but Love he’ll crave”.78 Such imagery and constructions of 
Gibraltar, and by extension all ideal equines whom he represents, 
follow the usual view of horses as created to serve mankind — and 

76 “Ode”, Morning Post and Daily Advertiser (London, England), June 16, 1788; Issue 4757.
77 On animal slavery see Tague “Companions, Servants, or Slaves”; Mattfeld, Equines.
78 Anonymous, “Ode”, Morning Post and Daily Advertiser.



Fig. 3

John Singleton Copley, General 
George Augustus Eliot on a Grey 
Charger: A Study for the “Siege of 
Gibraltar”, ca. 1787. Oil on canvas, 
50.2 × 31.8 cm. The Huntington 
Library, Art Museum, and Botanical 
Gardens. Object no. 2001.6.

Courtesy of the Huntington Art Museum, San 
Marino, California.



32 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

hence, as only valuable when they can continue to do so.79 There-
fore, as a celebrated servant of the nation’s military heroes (Elliot 
and Astley), literary representative of ideal equines throughout Brit-
ain, and as cherished actor who could perform apparently impos-
sible feats, Gibraltar must be correctly honoured after death. To re-
main valuable and valued, he must remain of use. The thunder drum 
is particularly poignant, as it is a way for him to continue serving as 
animal-made-object. It is a loving homage to his life (his wished-for 
reward according to the “Ode”) while honouring his service to both 
the military and to the (militarized) Amphitheatre. 

Such recollections, and the ongoing use of Gibraltar-as-drum within 
the nationalistic, imperialist, and often violent world of hippodrama, 
I suggest, was an especially fitting aspect of his memorial and one 
that also allowed for further improving instruction. In his afterlife 
of service, Gibraltar functioned as a taxidermied animal-made ob-
ject that channelled his “self” as both military hero and performing 
horse to shape the world around him as a material actant. As an 
animal-made object embodied with the military history and ideal-
ized nature of Gibraltar, the thunder drum’s ability to produce loud 
sounds reminiscent of battle that consequently, according to Jen-
nings, rendered an audience awestruck, was essential to the Am-
phitheatre soundscape. Such sounds were required for drawing the 
audience into the Amphitheatre’s world of artifice and reenactment, 
and for eliciting desired emotive responses from those who heard 
him. As Jennings writes: a thunder drum was struck, “and, follow-
ing the sharp rattling of the shaken sheet of iron and the flash of ig-
nited magnesium an effect is produced that completely awes the 
simple citizen who knows nothing of the mechanism of the stage.”80 
For Edmund Burke, the sound of thunder and drums was simply 
sublime. According to Burke, the sound of “vast cataracts, raging 
storms, thunder, or artillery, awakes a great and awful sensation in 
the mind.”81 Indeed, “[f]ew things are more awful,” other than the 
“striking of a clock” on a silent night, than the “single stroke on a 

79 Mattfeld, Equines.
80 Jennings, Theatrical and Circus Life, 171.
81 Burke, Philosophical Inquiry, 151.



Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 33

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

drum, repeated with pauses; and of the successive firing of cannon 
at a distance.”82 As Gibraltar was likely used to accompany hippo-
dramatic spectacles, his voice was that of the sublime, and the most 
effective machine for its production. 

The sublime, as theorized by Burke, could have a strong influence on 
those who experienced it. This was especially the case when it came 
to sound. As Burke argued, loud or sudden noise, such as that cre-
ated by thunder or the striking of a drum, “is sufficient to over-power 
the soul, to suspend its action, and to fill it with terror.”83 This terror 
of an imagined threat robbed the people who experienced it of all 
their rational abilities. They were struck dumb. Such fear, in turn, also 
resulted in one of the key emotions necessary to the success of the 
theatre: “delight.” Fearful delight, that thrill one experiences when 
witnessing the sublime, was bread and butter to the Amphitheatre, 
which relied on sensation to sell tickets (as many critics scornfully 
pointed out).84 When an audience heard Gibraltar’s voice, then, they 
could become awestruck, speechless, and affected by what they ex-
perienced at the theatre in a multi-sensory experience that helped 
bring the theatrical world to life.85 Furthermore, the sublime sound 
of the thunder drum could enwrap an audience in waves of the sub-
lime because the sound of a drum like the thunder drum provides 
“a means of us ‘touching’ at a distance — a form of personal contact 
[…] a kind of social glue.”86 It offered a shared experience that sym-
pathetically drew listeners together into a world of mutual feeling.

Of course, all drums could do this, but the equine material of this 
particular thunder drum was especially important within the Amphi-
theatre world. As I illustrate elsewhere, for Burke, horses were typ-
ically not associated with the sublime owing to their obedience to 
human direction. There were, however, also instances where a horse 
could become the embodiment of the sublime par excellence.87 

82 Burke, Philosophical Inquiry, 153.
83 Burke, Philosophical Inquiry, 150–53.
84 Moody, Illegitimate Theatre in London, 10–14.
85 Moody, Illegitimate Theatre in London, 10–14.
86 Hendy, Noise, 14–15.
87 Mattfeld, “‘I see them galloping’,” 74–75.



34 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

Specifically, Burke refers to a horse in the Book of Job as the prime 
instance of the equine sublime:

Hast thou given the horse strength? hast thou clothed his 
neck with thunder?

Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper? the glory of his 
nostrils is terrible.

He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth 
on to meet the armed men.

He mocketh at fear, and is not affrighted; neither turneth he 
back from the sword.

The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and the 
shield.

He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage: neither 
believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet.

He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the 
battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the 
shouting.88

This was a horse whose neck was “clothed […] with thunder” and 
who was the ultimate in human helpmate as God directed. As a mil-
itary charger, then, Gibraltar was (at least advertised and staged as 
such) the embodiment of a truly divine animal. He was the ultimate 
in the sublime horse — alive and dead. Indeed, through sound Gi-
braltar could fulfil the fantasy of equine servitude, live the anthro-
pocentric story of equine love, and embody an ideal military might 
of Biblical proportions. The audience shared the phenomena of the 
sublime, as listening to Gibraltar after death created a shared, ter-
ror-filled, experience, one that worked to equate the often-patriotic 
and militaristic messages and images performed on stage with an 
overwhelming voice. His voice was rumbling, awe inspiring, and to-
tal — a voice, Decastro implies through the phrase “parting knell”, 
that was for some also remarkably similar to the thundering voice 
of God.89

88 Job 39:19–25 (KJV).
89 Hendy, Noise, 165.



Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 35

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

“Parting Knell”

Parting knells were complex elements of nineteenth-century death 
practices. Parting knells (also known as passing knells, death knells, 
or death bells), in addition to signifying the death of a person, had 
the potential effect of providing divine protection and a call to salva-
tion for those who heard them. As David Hendy notes, parting knells 
were rung on bells — either handheld or situated in church towers. 
These bells, especially in the Middle Ages, were often inscribed with 
lines of scripture or “spells” designed to drive away evil spirits wait-
ing to seize the newly departed soul.90 While an integral component 
of earlier practices of death and mourning, parting knells and the 
ringing of bells continued into the nineteenth century, and their de-
votional elements endured within the popular imagination.91 In the 
nineteenth century, however, ringing the bells was “not for the souls 
of the dead but for the ears of the living.”92 People  were not inter-
ested in driving away any evil spirits, or necessarily in praying for the 
soul of the deceased, but in the reminder of their own mortality that 
the bells afforded.93 Many mourners found such reminders deeply 
disturbing. For example, Laura Lorrimer described the parting knell 
as “a leaden weight” on the hearts of all who heard it, a “mournful 
utterance”, and an unutterably sad reminder of death.94 Similarly, 
for Walter Scott the parting bell was a “mighty knell” that disturbed 
the human and natural world with its sound, “so dull and stern”.95

By invoking the language of the parting knell, Decastro linked the 
sound of Gibraltar-as-drum to that of the bells. As such, like the ring-
ing of the church bell, the horse-as-drum’s parting knell, while cele-
bratory for his past deeds in the Amphitheatre, was also the voice of 
man’s divine protector and partner in times of strife; he was also, in 
this instance, the voice of death, the newly departed, and as a result, 
a voice to be mourned and ultimately feared. I suggest that hearing a 

90 Price, Bells and Man, 111–12.
91 Laqueur, Work of the Dead, 147.
92 As qtd. in North, Church Bells of Rutland, 91.
93 Sigourney, “Passing Bell,” 217–18.
94 Lorrimer, “Captain Jasper J. Jones,” 246–47.
95 Scott, “Marmion”, Canto Second, ll. 628–34.



36 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

parting knell like Gibraltar’s could make listeners acutely and tanta-
lizingly aware of how close death walked beside them.96 As the bell at 
Rutland’s church of St. Andrew’s, Whissendine, made clear: “My roar-
ing sounde doth warning geve / That men cannot heare always lyve.” 
Similarly, a bell at Warmington church, Northamptonshire, warned “I 
measure life: I bewail death.”97 To hear a parting knell was thrillingly 
to hear death speak, and fearfully to mourn its presence.

 But to hear it was also to hear the potential for eternal salvation. 
As the third bell at the Church of St. Helen’s in Brant Brougham be-
seeched its listeners: “Beg ye of God your soul to save / Before we 
call you to the grave.”98 Regardless of how nineteenth-century au-
thors strove to distance themselves from historical funerary prac-
tices, the association of parting knells with religion remained firmly 
in place. The church bells continued to toll around the nation, and 
the sounds of passing continued to invite spiritual devotion from the 
community of listeners. Within this communal soundscape of the 
death knell, the act of listening was potentially an act of religious 
expression and reaffirmed faith, and as a result, an act of receiving 
a promise for divine protection in the afterlife.99 To hear the parting 
knell of the church bells or of Gibraltar-as-drum recalled the pres-
ence of death to the living, and in turn, awakened the listeners to 
the fragility of their own immortal souls.

For Gibraltar, then, his parting knell not only connected the audi-
ence within a community of terror-filled delight, and the Amphithe-
atre workers in a community of celebrating mourners, but it also, in 
effect, spread his message of spiritual guidance, or his “wholesome 
warning”, throughout the theatre on waves of sound.100 Like a church 
bell, the Gibraltar-as-drum worked to:

96 Lomax, Bells and Bellringers, 68.
97 Lomax, Bells and Bellringers, 90–91.
98 Laqueur, Work of the Dead, 147.
99 Hendy, Noise, 112; Lomax, Bells and Bellringers, 67.
100 Monsell, Passing Bell, ix. As Don Ihde argues, early acoustics began discussing the move-

ment of sound through waves in the early to mid nineteenth century. Ihde, Acoustic Tech-
niques, 11. For an overall look at sound in the nineteenth century see Picker, Victorian 
Soundscapes.



Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 37

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

Prompt us His will to do,
Bid us His favour sue,
Warn us His wrath to rue, 

Unto whose eye,
Unto whose bar of dread,
Judge of the quick and dead,
Every hour’s silent tread 

Bringeth us nigh.101

What his mournful voice meant, precisely, and what constituted his 
message of warning in order to receive divine protection remains 
unclear. But what is certain is that as a drum he was a momento 
mori that “touched” everyone in the Amphitheatre in some way. 
As a being fragmented, stripped of his skin — the external mark-
ers of identity — in the process of becoming an animal-made-ob-
ject, he became, as all taxidermy must, a figure of “remembrance” 
for those who “knew the circumstances” of his life and death.102 He 
likewise became a being whose voice activated the experience of 
the sublime through his agency as a horse-as-drum. As such, he 
embodied the possibility of “[o]rganic materials [to] have the po-
tential to be far more haunting souvenirs than manufactured ob-
jects. And haunting is the right word. By staving off the finality of 
material dissolution, preservation endows bodily souvenirs with 
an impoverished yet resolute immortality.”103 As a drum, the Gi-
braltar Charger was elevated above a celebrity animal famed for 
performing the impossibly human; as a seemingly inert material 
object he was transformed into a producer of emotive sound that 
altered all aspects and people of the theatre. He became at once 
material, animal, thing, companion, but he also became elevated, 
better, heard, and divine as a taxidermied animal-made-object that 
celebrated the “who” within.

101 Sigourney, “Passing Bell,” 219.
102 Poliquin, Breathless Zoo, 7.
103 Poliquin, Breathless Zoo, 203.



38 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Kevin Hutchins, Humanimalia’s editor Kári Dri-
scoll, and the two anonymous reviewers for their excellent com-
ments and suggestions. Your time, generosity, and expertise are 
greatly appreciated.

Works Cited

Aloi, Giovanni. Speculative Taxidermy: 
Natural History, Animal Surfaces, and 
Art in the Anthropocene. New York: 
Columbia University Press, 2018. 

Amato, Sarah. Beastly Possessions: Animals 
in Victorian Consumer Culture. Toronto: 
University of Toronto Press, 2015.

Astley, Philip. Astley’s Projects, in His 
Management of the Horse […]. London, 
1804.

Astley, Philip. Astley’s System of Equestrian 
Education, Exhibiting the Beauties and 
Defects of the Horse […]. London, 1801.

Bacon, Francis. “History of Life and Death.” 
In The Works of Francis Bacon. Volume 
5: Translations of the Philosophical 
Works 2, edited by James Spedding, 
Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon 
Heath, 213–336. London, 1858. Reprint, 
Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Baker, Steve. The Postmodern Animal. 
London: Reaktion Books, 2000.

Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political 
Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke 
University Press, 2010.

Boddice, Rob. A History of Attitudes 
and Behaviours Toward Animals in 
Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century 
Britain: Anthropocentrism and the 
Emergence of Animals. Lewiston, NY: 
Edwin Mellen Press, 2008.

Boyle, John. “Monumental Inscriptions 
on an Urn in the Gardens at Marston.” 
Gentleman’s Magazine 50 (1780): 242. 

Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Inquiry 
into the Origin of Our Ideas of the 
Sublime and Beautiful. London, 1767.

Cavendish, William, Duke of Newcastle. A 
General System of Horsemanship in All 
It’s Branches […]. Volume I. London, 1743. 
Facsimile reproduction. Introduced 
by William C. Steinkraus and technical 
commentary by E. Schmit-Jensen. 
North Pomfret, Vermont: J.A. Allen, 
2000.

Collings, David. “Bentham’s Auto-Icon: 
Utilitarianism and the Evisceration 
of the Common Body.” Prose Studies 
23, no. 3 (2000): 95–127. https://doi.
org/10.1080/01440350008586718.

Cozzi, Bruno, Cristina Ballarin, Roberto 
Mantovani, and Ada Rota. “Aging and 
Veterinary Care of Cats, Dogs, and 
Horses through the Records of Three 
University Veterinary Hospitals.” 
Frontiers in Veterinary Science 4, no. 
14 (2017). https://doi.org/10.3389/
fvets.2017.00014.

Curth, Louise Hill. The Care of Brute Beasts: 
A Social and Cultural Study of Veterinary 
Medicine in Early Modern England. 
Leiden: Brill, 2010.

Decastro, Jacob. The Memoirs of J. 
Decastro, Comedian […]. London, 1824.

Dickens, Charles. “Famous Circus Horses.” 
Era, March 26, 1892.

Dickens, Charles. “Philip Astley.” All the 
Year Round 7 (Dec. 2, 1871–May 11, 1872), 
205–11.

https://doi.org/10.1080/01440350008586718
https://doi.org/10.1080/01440350008586718
https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2017.00014
https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2017.00014


Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 39

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

Donald, Diana. Picturing Animals in Britain, 
1750–1850. New Haven: Yale University 
Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for 
Studies in British Art, 2007.

Donovan, Josephine. The Aesthetics 
of Care: On the Literary Treatment 
of Animals. New York: Bloomsbury 
Academic, 2016.

Edwards, Peter. Horse and Man in Early 
Modern England. London: Bloomsbury 
Academic, 2007.

Edwards, Peter. “Image and Reality: Upper 
Class Perceptions of the Horse in Early 
Modern England.” In The Horse as 
Cultural Icon: The Real and the Symbolic 
Horse in the Early Modern World, edited 
by Peter Edwards, Karl A. E. Enenkel, 
and Elspeth Graham, 281–306. Leiden: 
Brill, 2012.

Eisenman, Stephen F. The Cry of Nature: 
Art and the Making of Animal Rights. 
London: Reaktion Books, 2013.

Forrest, Susanna. The Age of the Horse: An 
Equine Journey Through Human History. 
New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2016.

Fudge, Erica. “Renaissance Animal Things.” 
In Gorgeous Beasts: Animal Bodies in 
Historical Perspective, edited by Joan 
B. Landes, Paula Young, and Paul 
Youngquist, 41–56. University Park: 
Pennsylvania State University Press, 
2012.

Haraway, Donna J. “Teddy Bear Patriarchy: 
Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New 
York City, 1908–1936.” Social Text no. 11 
(1984): 20–64.

Hendy, David. Noise: A Human History of 
Sound and Listening. London: Profile 
Books, 2013.

Herbert, Henry, Earl of Pembroke. A 
Method of Breaking Horses and 
Teaching Soldiers to Ride, Designed for 
the Use of the Army […]. London, 1762. 

Heyrick, Elizabeth. Cursory Remarks 
on the Evil Tendency of Unrestrained 
Cruelty: Particularly on that Practised in 
Smithfield Market. London, 1823.

Highfill, Jr. Philip H., Kalman A. Burnim, 
and Edward A. Langhans. A Biographical 
Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, 
Dancers, Managers, and Other Stage 
Personnel in London, 1660–1800. Vol. 1: 
Abaco to Belfille. Carbondale: Southern 
Illinois University Press, 1973.

Ihde, Don. Acoustic Techniques. Lanham, 
Maryland: Lexington Books, 2016.

Jennings, John Joseph. Theatrical and 
Circus Life: Or, Secrets of the Stage, 
Green-Room and Sawdust Arena. St. 
Louis: Sun Publishing, 1882.

Kalshoven, Petra Tjitske. “Gestures 
of Taxidermy: Morphological 
Approximation as Interspecies Affinity.” 
American Ethnologist 45, no. 1 (2018): 34–
47. https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12597.

Kean, Hilda. Animal Rights: Political and 
Social Change in Britain since 1800. 
London: Reaktion Books, 1998.

Kwint, Marius. “Astley’s Amphitheatre and 
the Early Circus in England, 1768–1830.” 
PhD Dissertation, Magdalen College, 
Oxford, 1994.

Kwint, Marius. “The Legitimization of the 
Circus in Late Georgian England.” Past 
and Present, no. 174 (2002): 72–115.

Laqueur, Thomas W. The Work of the Dead: 
A Cultural History of Mortal Remains. 
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University 
Press, 2015.

Lomax, Benjamin. Bells and Bellringers. 
London, 1879.

Lorrimer, Laura. “Captain Jasper J. Jones.” 
In A Voice from the South, 246–247. 
Nashville, TN: Southern Methodist 
Publishing House, 1883. 

Mattfeld, Monica. ‘“Genus Porcus 
Sophisticus’: The Learned Pig and 
the Theatrics of National Identity in 
Late Eighteenth-Century London.” 
In Performing Animality: Animals in 
Performance Practices, edited by 
Lourdes Orozco and Jennifer Parker-
Starbuck, 57–76. Basingstoke: Palgrave 
Macmillan, 2015.

https://doi.org/10.1111/amet.12597


40 | Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

Mattfeld, Monica. ‘“I see them galloping!’: 
War and Performing Horses in Matthew 
Lewis’s Timour the Tartar.” In Performing 
Animals: History, Agency, Theater, edited 
by Karen Raber and Monica Mattfeld, 
66–80. University Park: Pennsylvania 
State University Press, 2017. 

Mattfeld, Monica. Equines in Eighteenth-
Century Thought: Intersectional 
Discriminations and the Imperfect 
Horse. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 
forthcoming.

Mattfeld, Monica. “‘Undaunted all 
he views’: The Gibraltar Charger, 
Astley’s Amphitheatre and Masculine 
Performance.” Journal of Eighteenth-
Century Studies 37, no. 1 (2014): 19–36. 
https://doi.org/10.1111/1754-0208.12036.

McShane, Clay and Joel A. Tarr. The 
Horse in the City: Living Machines in 
the Nineteenth Century. Baltimore, MD: 
Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007.

Menely, Tobias. The Animal Claim: Sensibility 
and the Creaturely Voice. Chicago: 
University of Chicago Press, 2015.

Monsell, John Samuel Bewley. The Passing 
Bell, and Other Poems. London, 1866.

Moody, Jane. Illegitimate Theatre in 
London, 1770–1840. Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Morillo, John. The Rise of Animals and 
Descent of Man, 1660–1800: Toward 
Posthumanism in British Literature 
between Descartes and Darwin. Newark: 
University of Delaware Press, 2018.

North, Thomas. The Church Bells of 
Rutland: Their Inscriptions, Traditions, 
and Peculiar Uses; with Chapters on Bells 
and Bell Founders. Leicester, 1880.

O’Quinn, Daniel. Entertaining Crisis in the 
Atlantic Imperium, 1770–1790. Baltimore, 
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 
2011.

Paddon, Hannah, “Biological Objects and 
‘Mascotism:’ The Life and Times of Alfred 
the Gorilla.” In The Afterlives of Animals: 
A Museum Menagerie, edited by Samuel 

J. M. M. Alberti, 134–50. Charlottesville: 
University of Virginia Press, 2011.

Perkins, David. Romanticism and 
Animal Rights, 1790–1830. Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Picker, John. Victorian Soundscapes. 
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Poliquin, Rachel. The Breathless Zoo: 
Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing. 
University Park: Pennsylvania State 
University Press, 2012.

Poppiti, Kimberly. A History of Equestrian 
Drama in the United States: 
Hippodrama’s Pure Air and Fire. New 
York: Routledge, 2018.

Preece, Rod. Brute Souls, Happy Beasts, 
and Evolution: The Historical Status of 
Animals. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2005.

Price, Percival. Bells and Man. Oxford: 
Oxford University Press, 1983.

Primatt, Humphrey. A Dissertation on the 
Duty of Mercy and Sin of Cruelty to Brute 
Animals. London, 1776. 

Rubel, William. “English Horse-Bread, 
1590–1800.” Gastronomica 6, no. 3 
(2006): 40–51. https://doi.org/10.1525/
gfc.2006.6.3.40.

Saxon, Arthur H. The Life and Art of Andrew 
Ducrow & The Romantic Age of the 
English Circus. Hamden, CT: Archon 
Books, 1978.

Scott, Walter. “Marmion.” In The Poetical 
Works of Sir Walter Scott, 76–171. 
Edinburgh, 1850.

Sigourney, Lydia Howard Huntley. “The 
Passing Bell.” In Illustrated Poems, 
217–218. Philadelphia, 1849.

Skeavington, George. The Modern System 
of Farriery, as Practiced at the Present 
Time at the Royal Veterinary College. 
London, 1850.

Spector, William S. Handbook of Biological 
Data. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1956.

Spencer, Jane. Writing about Animals in 
the Age of Revolution. Oxford: Oxford 
University Press, 2020.

https://doi.org/10.1111/1754-0208.12036
https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2006.6.3.40
https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2006.6.3.40


Mattfeld , The Spanish Horse | 41

Humanimalia 15.2 (2025)

Straughan, Elizabeth R. “Entangled 
Corporeality: Taxidermy Practice 
and the Vibrancy of Dead Matter.” 
GeoHumanities 1, no. 2 (2015): 363–77. 
https://doi.org/10.1080/237356
6X.2015.1109468.

Tague, Ingrid H. “Companions, Servants, 
or Slaves?: Considering Animals in 
Eighteenth-Century Britain.” Studies 
in Eighteenth-Century Culture 39 
(2010): 111–30. https://doi.org/10.1353/
sec.0.0067.

Thomas, Keith. Man and the Natural 
World: Changing Attitudes in England, 
1500–1800. London: Allen Lane, 1983.

Trimmer, Sarah. The Two Farmers, 
an Exemplary Tale: Designed to 
Recommend the Practice of Benevolence 
Towards Mankind, and all Other Living 
Creatures; and the Religious Observance 
of the Sabbath-Day. London, 1787.

Velten, Hannah. Beastly London: A History 
of Animals in the City. London: Reaktion 
Books, 2013.

Wolloch, Nathaniel. “The Limits of 
Enlightenment Sensitivity to the 
Suffering of Animals.” In Knowledge and 
Pain, edited by Esther Cohen Leona 
Toker, Manuela Consonni and Otniel E. 
Dror, 123–144. Leiden: Brill, 2012.

Worrall, David. Theatric Revolution: Drama, 
Censorship, and Romantic Period 
Subcultures, 1773–1832. Oxford: Oxford 
University Press, 2006.

Young, Elizabeth. Pet Projects: Animal 
Fiction and Taxidermy in the Nineteenth-
Century Archive. University Park: 
Pennsylvania State University Press, 
2019.

https://doi.org/10.1080/2373566X.2015.1109468
https://doi.org/10.1080/2373566X.2015.1109468
https://doi.org/10.1353/sec.0.0067
https://doi.org/10.1353/sec.0.0067

	_Hlk161041181
	_Hlk140132597
	_Hlk161041194
	_Hlk161118751
	_Hlk161139015
	_Hlk161118898
	_Hlk140132098
	_Hlk161140134
	_Hlk161043591
	_Hlk143854788
	_Hlk165781072
	_Hlk161041644
	_Hlk178073107
	_Hlk140068815
	_Hlk165182304
	_Hlk161140645
	_Hlk165368484
	_Hlk162670924
	_Hlk161138603
	_Hlk165183180
	_Hlk172119951
	_Hlk140545318