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Edward Gerrard & Sons was a taxidermy firm founded and run by the Gerrard family in Camden, London. The company also made anatomical models and dealt in the sale of artefacts. The company was founded by Edward Gerrard, who was an employee of the British Museum's zoological as an attendant. The business originally ran from the family home, 54 Queen's Street, Camden, and later at a yard behind 61 College Place. They were initially known for their taxidermy of large game animals, but by the late 1800s, they were producing more small mounts which included some exotic animals.

Engineers

The East India Company was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia), and later with East Asia. The company seized control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent and colonised part of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. At its peak, the company was the largest corporation in the world. The EIC had its own armed forces in the form of the company's three Presidency armies, totalling about 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British army at the time.

Originally chartered as the 'Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies', the company rose to account for half of the world's trade during the mid-1700s and early 1800s, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo, dye, sugar, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea and opium. The company also rules the beginnings of the British Empire in India.

The company eventually came to rule large areas of India, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions. Company rule in India effectively began in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey and lasted until 1858. Following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Government of India Act 1858 led to the British Crown assuming direct control on India in the form of the new British Raj.

The company subsequently experiences recurring problems with its finances, despite frequent government intervention. It was dissolved in 1874 under the terms of the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act enacted one year earlier, as the Government of India Act had by then rendered it vestigial, powerless and obsolete. The official government machinery of the British Raj had assumed its governmental functions and absorbed its armies.

Dudley Zoo & Castle is a zoo located within the grounds of Dudley Castle in the town of Dudley, in the Black Country region of the West Midlands, England. The zoo went into receivership in 1977 and was purchased by Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council. Dudley Zoo is now operated by Dudley and West Midlands Zoological Society, founded in 1978 and a registered charity.

The owner of Dudley Castle, the Third Earl of Dudley, decided to create a zoo in the castle grounds in the 1930s. It was Oxford Zoo, which closed in 1936, that supplied Dudley with the majority of its initial collection of animals. The zoo was built between 1935 and 1937, with Dr Geoffrey Vevers, Superintendent of London Zoo acting as an advisor. Thirteen zoo buildings were designed by Berthold Lubetkin and engineering was carried out by Ove Arup