Having travelled more than 3,000 miles in six years, the Durham Ox made its last personal appearance in Oxford.
It was born in March 1796 at the Ketton farm, north of Darlington, belonging to the Colling brothers, Robert and Charles. They were leading breeders of supersize shorthorn cattle – their largest monster, Comet, the first £1,000 ox, was born in 1804.
On 4 May 1801, when the Durham Ox weighed 214 stone (1,360kg), it was sold for £250 to John Day of Rotherham, a farmer showman. He built it a luxurious padded carriage, which was pulled by six horses, and turned it into a touring freakshow. It spent much of 1802 starring in London, where takings were £97 a day, and in late 1803 it returned to Darlington for one night only before a twelve-night extravaganza in Newcastle.
‘My wife, who rode with him in the carriage, found him harmless as a fawn and familiar as a lapdog,’ wrote Mr Day in his memoirs. ‘He was surprisingly agile for one so large.’ Merchandise, such as prints, china plates and models, were produced as Mr Day milked his ox for publicity, and pubs – even in the Australian goldfields – were named after it.
But on that fateful day in 1807, the Ox slipped while exiting its carriage and dislocated a hip. After eight weeks, the 271-stone behemoth was still in pain so three butchers slaughtered it.
(‘Memories’, The Northern Echo, 2008)