Here stood The Plume of Feathers Inn. The Bristol Journal of 13th August 1785 reported that: ‘in the large and commodious room [...] was displayed The Amazing Pig of Knowledge’.
This Learned Pig was trained by a Scotsman, Samuel Bisset, who ran a travelling novelty show. After Bisset’s death, Mr Nicholson took over, and travelled around the country, first to Norwich, then London, Oxford and Bristol. The Learned Pig, so advertisements claimed, could cast
‘accounts by means of Typographical cards, in the same manner as a Printer composes, and by the same method sets down any capital or Surname, reckons the number of People present, tells by evoking on a Gentleman's Watch in company what is the Hour and Minutes; he likewise tells any Lady's Thoughts in company, and distinguishes all sorts of colours.’
In reference to the Pig’s arithmetic skills, Robert Southey commented that he was: ‘in his day a far greater object of admiration for the British nation than ever was Sir Isaac Newton’.
The Pig captured the public’s interest, enjoying references in children’s informative literature about the treatment of animals (Mrs Trimmer’s The Robins, of domestic life among the birds), various poems (Wordsworth’s The Prelude) and satirical prints and verse. More serious scholars used the Pig in the argument about whether animals possessed reason. Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles Darwin) writes of the Pig in his 1798 work Zoonomia.
