Pictures illustrating how attitudes to animals were wildly different in bygone years are being made public today by the Zoological Society of London, which runs London Zoo.

Zebra-drawn carriages, tigers being introduced to bears, and elephants meandering down Camden High Street are among the images being put online by the society after it realised that its archive represented a valuable and fascinating social record.

The first batch go online today and the society hopes to have enough digitalised by next year to provide a comprehensive pictorial history of London Zoo for its 180th anniversary.

Caroline George, who helped to organise the digital archive, said: “Going through the photos and slides in the library has been a reminder of ZSL London Zoo’s astonishing history, and the changes it has undergone in the last century. They are particularly fascinating because the gradual transformation really mirrors the broader changes in our understanding of the environment and animal husbandry too.”

The inspiration for the online archive came from the level of interest shown in historical and modern images that were transferred to canvas to improve the interior design of ZSL’s offices during a refurbishment in 2005.

“We had so many favourable comments about the canvases, and a number of guests asking if they could buy one, that we realised what a fascinating archive of images we were sitting on,” Mrs George added.

Photographs of the zoo will be available at www.zsl.org/printstore on the web. Copies will be for sale, a reminder that marketing has a long history at London Zoo, which made its first stab at promoting itself in 1914 with zebra-drawn carriage rides. In those days the advertising budget was £731 7s 7d. Today it is £300,000.

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