Sackerson was a famous brown bear which was baited in London's Beargarden in the late 16th century.[1]
The bear appears in Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor in which Slender boasts to Anne Page that, "That’s meate and drinke to me now: I have seene Sackerson loose, twenty times, and have taken him by the Chaine: but (I warrant you) the women have so cride and shrekt at it, that it past:"[2]: 103
Such bears were named after their owners. John Sackerson (1541–95) was the landlord of the Bear Inn in Nantwich and kept a stable of bears and so may have supplied this one.[2]: 105
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