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 John Aspinall
b. 11
June 1926
d. 2000, London
 He was born in Delhi to a well-off family
and schooled at Rugby, in England, where he was eventually asked not to return.
After a stint in the Marines he went up to Oxford, where he nourished a
penchant for gambling. He missed his finals to attend the races at Ascot and he
put his entire term’s grant on the nose of a winner at short odds. After
college he set himself up in the casino business, then illegal in England. His
wealthy Oxford friends would drop fortunes at his tables playing chemin de fer.
Aspinall had no compunctions about taking their money. He said that he liked
“the corrosive effect that it has on such outdated concepts as the
sanctity of money and the dignity of labor,” adding that his luxurious
trappings meant that “gentlemen could ruin themselves as elegantly and
suicidally as did their ancestors 300 years ago.” He enjoyed being rich,
and lived amid opulence. When his tables were raided, the ensuing court case
set a precedent by which casino gambling was re-legalized in England, in 1962.
He quickly took advantage of the situation by opening a huge casino.
His notoriety only increased when it was suspected that he was involved in the
disappearance of Lord Lucan, a peer who had murdered his family’s nanny
with a lead pipe blow to the head. (It was said that the real target was
Lucan’s wife.) The London tabloids suggested that Lucan had shown up at
Aspinall’s zoo and implored Aspinall to feed him to the tigers. Aspinall
later let it be known that Lucan had committed suicide at sea, but no trace was
ever found.
At some point Aspinall’s mother admitted to him that
he was not the son of his surgeon “father” but of a British
serviceman who had the pleasure of her company under a tamarisk tree at a
regimental ball in India. Unperturbed, Aspinall tracked down the man in a
retirement home and supported the old soldier for the rest of his life.
In 1957, with money won at the races, he purchased Howletts, a derelict
18th century country mansion near Canterbury, with 39 acres of gardens and
parkland that was to become his first zoo. Funds from his own gambling and the
casino business allowed him to build up a private collection that included
rhinos, bongo antelopes, Przewalski’s horses, langurs and leopards. Here
he developed his philosophy of treating animals with respect – he said
that animals know and resent it when they are being treated as inferiors. He
regaled his retinue with diverse, fabulous diets and individual attention. He
gathered about himself a devoted team of like-minded keepers.
His
methods, however, had their problems as well as their successes. Over the years
five keepers were killed in encounters with tigers and elephants. A young boy
had his arm ripped off by a chimpanzee, and there were other injuries as well.
Aspinall frequently appeared in public with his face scratched and bruised from
overzealous romps with the animals. He was unrepentant, noting that humans were
much bigger killers than animals. “One tiger in 12 has this aberrant
streak,” he noted of Zeya, who killed two keepers. “With humans it is
one in three.”
Such a view was sadly typical of his mindset. He
thought the human race had far too many members, and he rejoiced at the news of
natural disasters and plagues that carried off thousands. He said, “I
would be very happy to see 3.5 billion humans wiped out from the face of the
earth within the next 150 or 200 years and I am quite prepared to go myself
with this majority … Let us all look forward to the day when the
catastrophe strikes us down!” He also wrote, “The sanctity of human
life is the most dangerous sophistry ever propagated by philosophy and it is
all too well rooted. Because if it means anything it means the in-sanctity of
species which are not human.” He tended toward eugenic beliefs that oddly
allied him with the English upper classes he fleeced through gambling:
“Broadly speaking, the high income groups tend to have a better genetic
inheritance.” “Reason is the worst possible guide to human
affairs,” he said a few years ago. “It is merely the undertaker that
you send in after the battle to explain the logic of the affair. Instinct and
prejudice are much better guides.” He harbored a special loathing for
wealthy women with left-wing bents.
Despite these addled views, Aspinall was clear-headed enough to be
able to earn a fortune whenever he wanted. He used his gambling and impresario
talents to support his zoos (there was soon a second) to the tune of millions
per year. At least three times he abandoned the casino business, only to have
reverses that forced him back into it. Each time he attained greater success
than he had experienced previously. “I’m like an old warrior who can
galvanize himself when he’s threatened, but I’m pretty idle when
I’ve got no threats,” he said. He only opened up his zoos to the
public in the early 70s, when his finances were at a dodgy point after a market
crash, and then only after selling paintings and jewelry to feed his animals.
Nearing death at age 74 from cancer of the jaw, he wanted to be
dispatched by one of his own tigers, but this wish was not to be granted him.
He was pleased, however, to leave his zoos in the hands of his eldest son
Damian, who had built up excellent friendships with many of the animals. It was
typical of Aspinall that he would think of animal friendship and his own
bloodlines when considering the fate of his quirky and amazing projects.
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