In 1872, London businessman Frank Shalders went on a trip to Brighton, a seaside town in southern England. While there, he saw a monkey dressed in a sailor suit on display in a local shop window.
Shalders was intrigued by the monkey and decided to buy it as a gift for his wife. He took the monkey back to London and put it in the back of his carriage for the journey home.
As Shalders was driving through the streets of London, he noticed that people were staring at him and his carriage in shock and horror. He couldn’t understand why until he looked behind him and realized that the monkey had escaped from its cage and was now sitting in his wife’s seat, wearing her hat and gloves, and glaring menacingly at the passers-by.
Shalders was embarrassed and fearful of what might happen, so he quickly drove home and smuggled the monkey into the house without his wife noticing. For days after the incident, he was the talk of the town, and people would point at him and whisper “There goes the man who brought the monkey to London!”
The story of “the monkey in the carriage” became one of the most talked-about incidents of the time and inspired many satirical cartoons and articles in the papers.
