Killed by a tiger in Wiltshire (Surprised!)

Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!) by Henri Rousseau, 1891. National Gallery, London.

A gravestone in the churchyard of Malmesbury Abbey in Wiltshire records what is apparently the first documented incident of a person in Britain meeting their end after being attacked by a tiger.

IN MEMORY OF HANNAH TWYNNOY

Who died October 23rd 1703

Aged 33 Years

In bloom of Life

She’s snatched from hence

She had no room

To make defence

For Tyger fierce

Took Life away

And here she lies in a bed of Clay

Until the Resurrection Day.

A plaque at nearby Hullavington (since lost… the plaque, I mean, not the village) recorded that Hannah was a barmaid who enjoyed tormenting the tiger in a travelling menagerie. Almost inevitably, Hannah didn’t enjoy her sport for very long before the tiger decided to teach her a fatal lesson. Presumably the lesson here was also deemed appropriate for local churchgoers, hence the plaque.

Hannah Twynnoy being “the first” obviously implies that other people have been killed by tigers in Britain since 1703, but I bet you don’t know how hard it is to find out exactly who those people were. Nor does there seem to be anybody keeping track of tiger deaths in Britain. Come on, this is important.

I’m reminded of a great little book from the late 1960s or early 1970s: A Small Book of Grave Humour, by Fritz Spiegl. As the title suggests, it collects epitaphs that are either deliberate attempts at black comedy or inadvertently funny because they’re so absurd. One from Gorgie Cemetery in Edinburgh is unforgettable because it’s hard to tell whether it’s meant to be funny or just turned out that way by mistake, thanks to incredibly bad syntax:

Erected to the memory of

John McFarlane,

Drowned in the Water of Leith,

By a few affectionate friends.