Museum Notebook: Samuel Drew's cat and the taxidermied animals collection

Whanganui Public Museum interior, 1897. Photographer: A A Willis. Whanganui Regional Museum Collection

Samuel Henry Drew was a man with many interests.

Trained in London as a jeweller and a watchmaker, he settled in Whanganui in 1864 and established Drew's Jewellery shop in Taupō Quay.

Drew was creative, hardworking and methodical, and his business was a financial success.

It allowed him to pursue his true passions of natural history and collecting historical and ethnic items. He kept his collection in his home.

In 1880 it became apparent that a new building was required to house his substantial collection.

Drew understood the significance of his collection and the considerable public interest in it. For these reasons he sold it to the town of Whanganui for a nominal price.

A public museum was built in 1892 in Wicksteed Place which later became Drews Ave. The building still exists to this day and is now the Whanganui Musicians Club.

He was also a keen taxidermist. Dead keen.

A taxidermist is a person who preserves and mounts animals for display. Humans have been preserving and wearing animal skins for thousands of years for warmth and protection from the elements.

The golden age of taxidermy was during the Victorian era, 1837 to 1901.

The museum has an extraordinary collection of taxidermied animals in our vibrant exhibition Teeth, Talons and Taxidermy where you can see a dazzling array of creatures from a snow leopard and polar bear, to a Bengal tiger up close.

Drew's taxidermied cat. Whanganui Regional Museum photograph

In the late 19th century, stuffed and mounted animals were extremely popular in museum displays. For many people it was the only way to see an exotic animal from a faraway country.

Trophy hunting in Africa, America and India was also popular and hunters looked for taxidermists to mount their trophy heads or to make sumptuous skin rugs.

In a middle-class Victorian home, it would not have been unusual to see a display of taxidermied birds in a natural setting. Occasionally, grieving pet owners unable to let go of their beloved pet would have them taxidermied following their death.

A dear friend of mine had a much-loved, humongous Neo Mastiff. When he died, such was her grief she had him "stuffed". A few years have passed, the grief has subsided, and I asked her where she kept her mastiff.

"Oh, he's in the hallway," she told me. "Everyone trips over him on the way to the loo. It doesn't even look like him!"

Well over a century ago, Samuel Drew stuffed his own cat when it died., a gorgeous fluffy ginger cat. He still sits in a collection store beneath the museum, waiting perhaps for an elusive stuffed mouse.

• Lisa Reweti is programmes presenter at Whanganui Regional Museum.