The subject of this study is the Zoological Gardens of the Zoological Society of London, founded in 1826. The aim is to analyse what the Gardens signified as a recreational, educational and scientific institution in London by considering them from four different perspectives: as part of a newly-founded scientific society, as part of the leisure culture of mid-Victorian London, as a mediator of popular zoology and as a constituent of the Zoological Society's scientific ambitions.