Today’s inspiration for Sepia Saturday is a photo of a baby elephant at Taronga Zoo, Sydney, taken by Sam Hood (1872-1953) and comes from The State Library of New South Wales via flickr. It was taken about 1930.
For some strange reason, Great Granny’s album has, once again, come up with a rather obscure but appropriate image. Meet Dougal and the baby elephant in St Edmund in August 1928 –
I haven’t a clue who Dougal is. I gave my family tree a good shake, but no Dougals fell out. Just a few nuts.
Perhaps someone on Tinterwebs will find him and let me know 🙂
I suspect that this Nellyphant was a working Nellyphant, rather than an “exhibit”. I’ve never been a fan of zoos and, as a child, I would cry when I saw the polar bears or the tigers cooped up at Edinburgh Zoo. I’m really soft when it comes to animals (Lassie/Flipper/Black Beauty/Skippy – NOOOO!) and cried when I saw the amazing Lippizaner horses “dancing” to classical music. A few years ago a friend persuaded me to go to see a dolphin show while on holiday in Tenerife. I should have known I would snivel my way through it.
Check out the other elephant-inspired posts at Sepia Saturday
Happy weekend!
Jo
Jo Graham
Images Past 
It must have been a very tame elephant.
Hmm, a mystery photo. Hopefully someone will be able to tell you who Dougal is.
Great story and picture but I don’t know who Dougal is.
It is a great photo. I do not know that name either. I have seen very few elephants. Did see the one on my post but unable to find the photos but did come up with something.
Was that someone’s house or a building at a zoo?
The building is huge, look how it gets bigger on the left. Perhaps the clothes worn by the mahout will help identify where it is. Definitely a hot country looking at the plants. India possibly as it’s an Indian elephant.
Jo there is a Robert Dougal buried at Dunblane who served out in India – check out http://www.britishmedals.us/collections/TB/heic/dougal.html for starters.
Pingback: Follow Friday: This Week’s Favorite Finds » Climbing My Family Tree
That looks like it was taken in India (or possibly Burma). Were any of your family in India? Just because it’s signed with ‘St Edmund’ doesn’t mean it was taken there. 🙂
Not that I know of – I wonder if this was a family friend rather than a relation. Perhaps I will be able to match him up in another photo in the collection. Fingers crossed!