Memorial for cider-swilling ape that charmed a Cotswold village

When a gorilla by the name of John Daniel settled in a Cotswold village in 1918 it unsurprisingly became something of a local talking point.

After being bought for £300 in London, the young ape was taken to Uley in Gloucestershire, where it was given his own bedroom, reputedly using the light switch and lavatory and drinking tea and cider.

Such was the affection with which John Daniel was held by the residents of Uley that, 100 years on, a statue is to be erected  in its honour – leading to fears among some locals that their village will be swamped by sightseers.

They anticipate that coach-loads of visitors will be drawn to the curious story of the gorilla who was captured as a baby in Gabon and brought to England. Rupert Penny saw it for sale in a London department store and decided to buy it for his sister Alyce Cunningham. Despite its popularity with local children – archive photographs show them playing with the gorilla in the village – Ms Cunningham was forced to sell John Daniel in 1921, after it became too large for her to care for it.

She had been told the ape was being sent to a home in Florida, but instead it ended up as part of the Barnum and Bailey Circus.

When reports reached Ms Cunningham that the animal was pining for her, she set sail for New York, determined to care for it again. But before she arrived John Daniel, then aged four-and-a-half, died from pneumonia.

Stroud District Council has now granted planning permission for a sculpture of the ape on Uley village green.

The Uley Society’s Dr Rod White said he hopes it will be formally unveiled “sometime in September or very early October”.

In planning documents, officials at Stroud District Council admitted the plan had not been universally welcomed. One official said: “A number of concerns have been raised over highway safety issues that would arise following the erection of the statue.”

But these concerns were dismissed by the council, which stated in its planning report: “The likely amount of visitors to the statue are unlikely to be high given the very local nature of the subject. 

“There is likely to be interest at the time the statue is erected such as at an unveiling ceremony but it is envisaged that this would represent the peak.” It added: “Further concerns about people standing and looking at the statue being in highway danger are also limited as the statue will be facing south and anyone admiring the work would be stood in the centre of the green.”

Local interest in the life of John Daniel was revived when the village’s archivist, Margaret Groom, last year published a collection of photographs of it in a book about Uley. She said it was “quite unique to have a gorilla grow up here”, adding: “People still talk about it and a lot don’t believe it. They say ‘oh no that can’t be possible’.”

The planned stone statue shows children gathered around John Daniel, in an echo of the photographs taken of the gorilla sitting on a bench.