Entrepreneur. He was part of the very successfu Bostock and Wombwell dynasty, famed for the presentation of traveling menageries of various wild animals throughout the nineteenth century and the first decades of the 20th century in England as well as around the world. His grandfather, the illustrious George Wombwell, started the family's first menagerie with two boa snakes and by 1810 had wagons of various animals traveling about England. He started training big cats as a teenager. Born Francis Charles Bostock, he joined with his mother's menagerie along with a brother in 1883. In London, he was the menagerie proprietor of Agricultural Hall at Islington in 1887 and the menagerie manager of Stoke Newington in 1888. By the summer of 1893, he had sold the business and traveled to the United States to become the "King of the Animals," starting with four monkeys, five parrots, three lions, a sheep, and a boxing kangaroo. He did compete with "The Greatest Show on Earth," which was pioneered by PT Barnum. He became a naturalized American citizen. His encounter with wild cats was not uneventful as on December 4, 1901, in Indianapolis, he was seriously injured by his tiger Rajah, which a few days earlier had seriously mauled an employee. With this injury, as others, he was hospitalized for weeks. As his show grew, he wanted to mix his menagerie with what he had learned in the United States on Coney Island and from Barnum. His shows had animal exhibits, dancing, acrobatics and freak shows, amongst other forms of entertainment. After returning to England by 1903, he had a lion escape his cage in Birmingham. In 1903, he published the book "The Training of Animals," which is still in print in the 21st century. He and his show were in the United States for the 1904 St. Louis Exposition. In 1908 he introduced to England the "Big Cage" for lions and tigers and was credited with discovering that big cats were wary of four-legged chairs pointing in their faces. Bostock's Jungle was exhibited to great acclaim at Earl's Court in London the same year. He is credited with training chimpanzees. He married and had a son and six daughters. After being ill for weeks, he died of influenza while other sources claim complication related to another serious mauling. His funeral was attended by thousands, the hearse was drawn by four horses, and wreaths were in the shape of lions, tigers, and kangaroos. At the time of his death, he had circus shows and amusement parks in the United States, Australia, Europe and South Africa containing at least 1,000 wild animals.