The wine-o rhino: the rhinoceros with an alcohol problem

The sight of a live rhinoceros in 18th century London was extraordinary. Christopher Plumb tells the tragic, drunken story of Gilbert Pidcock's rhinoceros

Name: Gilbert Pidcock's rhinoceros
Species: Rhinoceros unicornis
Dates: ca.1788-1793
Claim to fame: One of the few living rhinoceros exhibited in 18^th-century Britain
Where now: The skin and horn were sold at auction in 1810. Current whereabouts unknown

Gilbert Pidcock's rhinoceros was an obedient animal with a penchant for sweet red wine. It could guzzle vast quantities (three or four bottles in a sitting). Which may explain how, in October 1792, the rhino stumbled and dislocated its right front leg. "There is"a grave suspicion that it was while laboring under the effects of intoxication that Rhinoceros Indicus came to grief," wrote one commentator following the accident.