Abstract

In 1861, 200 members of the New South Wales elite gathered at a ranch on the outskirts of Sydney to celebrate the arrival of 276 living alpacas in Australia. Congregating at the estate of Mr J. Atkinson, where four of the animals were being held, the party first met with the alpacas’ keeper, Charles Ledger, who had smuggled the animals out of Peru and shipped them to Australia. The visitors then conducted ‘a careful inspection’ of the newly-arrived camelids, before heading to a ‘spacious tent’ next to Atkinson’s house to consume ‘several joints of alpaca meat’. Toasting the prosperity of Ledger and his alpacas, one attendee, R. Jones, prophesied that alpaca wool would soon become ‘one of the staple exports of the colony’.

Tracing the movement of alpacas from South America to Britain and its Empire, this talk explores how camelids travelled from the Andes to the outback. The talk looks at the motivations for acclimatising alpacas in Britain and Australia and discusses efforts to improve the animals’ wool through selective breeding. It also asks why alpaca acclimatisation ultimately failed in the Victorian period. Was this due to climate, poor management, inadequate veterinary care or political opposition?

Bio

Helen Cowie is Professor of History at the University of York, where she researches and teaches the history of animals. She is author of Conquering Nature in Spain and its Empire (2011), Exhibiting Animals in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Empathy, Education, Entertainment (2014), Llama (2017), Victims of Fashion: Animal Commodities in Victorian Britain (2022) and Animals in World History (2025).

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