– cost ₤£10,000
An enquiry under the UK’s Freedom of Information Act produced the response that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) had expended ₤10,000 on restuffing a Guyanese anaconda named Albert, which normally hangs suspended from the ceiling in the FCO’s library, according to the BBC website on Thursday.
Albert, it was said, who has been ensconced in the Foreign Office since at least 1892, was a gift to the Colonial Secretary from a bishop in what was then British Guiana. While the BBC reported that “exact names” were unknown, it seems likely that the donor was William Piercy Austin, who served as this country’s first bishop from 1842 until his death in 1892.
His successor, William Proctor Swaby, was not appointed until 1893.
It was also reported that dates were unknown, but Albert can be seen in a photograph from 1892, which is why the FCO is certain that he is at least 120 years old. Since Bishop Austin died that same year, then it is quite likely that the venerable Albert is older than this.
The website described how officials sent the “sorry-looking snake” for a scan after they noticed it was in poor condition, and that since it had been a gift, it was categorized as an “asset” that the FCO was obliged to maintain. The work on Albert, it was said, constituted “essential maintenance.”
The conservation work on the shabby reptile was undertaken by the Natural History Museum and took five weeks, and as for the cost, the BBC quoted the Freedom of Information reply as saying: “As nothing was known about previous work done on Albert, the conservation team at the NHM needed to use x-ray CT scanning, which is a costly procedure that required extensive data processing and a specialist to do the analysis.”
The FCO thought that Albert had been restuffed before in the 1960s or ’70s at an unknown cost, but said that no “significant maintenance” had been carried out in 40 to 50 years.
