Living Large With Daniel Lambert:

The Skinny on Britain’s Heaviest Man

By Dan Lambert

(Aka Polly Esther, Investigative Reporter

For the Queen’s Weekly Gossip Monger and Farmer’s Almanac)

(Thank you to Van Gordon for his invaluable research assistance.)

            One of the reasons I became a Sherlockian is because I am an Anglophile. I have always been fascinated by the gas lit, fog-enshrouded world of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and his literary creation, Sherlock Holmes. The historical personages of Victorian England, from Gladstone and Disraeli to Jack the Ripper, are a fascinating lot.

            This afternoon, however, I ask you to return with me even further back in time, to those thrilling days of yesteryear, one hundred years before Doyle created his famous detective. I speak of the world of Adam Smith and Mad King George: eighteenth-century England. I wish to explore the short life of a man who bears my name. Daniel Lambert was born on March 13, 1770, in Leicester, England. There is a Sherlockian connection here. You see, Leister is the home of The Priory Scholars, a Sherlock Holmes Society not unlike the Blustering Gales. Like the Gales, the Scholars meet on a monthly basis, albeit always on a Saturday afternoon. There meeting place is The Criketers club on Grace Road.

            How did I discover Daniel Lambert? I engaged in a high-tech form of narcissism: I performed a Google search on my own name. Many of you know me as Dan Lambert, but my legal name is Daniel Edward Lambert. A Google search confirmed that a few of my short stories have been published here and there. Perhaps more importantly, however, this very same Google search opened up to me the world of Daniel Lambert, who died on June 21, 1809: three months after his thirty-ninth birthday.

            What made Daniel Lambert famous, you ask? Daniel was, quite literally, bigger than life. At the time of his death, he weighed in at over 52 stone, which translates to 739 pounds on this side of the Pond. Daniel’s waist measurement was, at the time, nine feet, four inches.

            Daniel’s father was the keeper of Leicester’s Bridewell Prison. At an early age, the regular-sized Daniel was apprenticed to a Birmingham engraver, before returning to Leicester to take over his father’s jailing duties. By 1793, at 23 years of age, Daniel weighed in at 448 pounds. Eleven years later, he had put on another 238 pounds; the weight of a large adult man. The prisoners who populated the modest, three-room Bridewell Prison held him in high regard. According to an 1809 report, “He never forbore to make the greatest exertions to assist them at the time of their trials.” The magistrates were so happy with him that, when Bridewell was merged with the county prison in 1804, they granted Daniel a pension.

            The cause of Daniel’s rapid (indeed, legendary) weight gain remains a Sherlockian-sized mystery to this day. He did not drink, and was never observed to be an overeater. Although his work at Bridewell was not physically demanding, Daniel was an avid sportsman. He enjoyed hunting, as well as breeding fighting cocks and greyhounds.

            Daniel was a private man, and particularly hated the unwanted attention that his gargantuan appearance garnered. However, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the necessity for custom-made, large-sized clothing left Daniel with financial problems. In March of 1806, to remedy this sad state of affairs, Daniel commissioned a special carriage to carry him to London. A month later, Daniel weighed 700 pounds. All the better for his livelihood. Daniel exhibited himself to the public during frequent visits to London over the next two years. He charged an admission fee of five shillings per person. Unlike England’s unfortunate Joseph Merrick, the so-called Elephant Man, Daniel’s peep shows were motivated by his own financial necessity, not the greed of others. However, the embarrassment that Daniel felt at being gawked at was surely no less than poor Joseph’s.

            Daniel was known for his good humor, but his wit grew sardonic when faced with questions from curiosity-seekers. A woman once asked Daniel the cost of his coat. “If you think it proper to make me a present of a new coat,” he answered, “you will then know exactly what it costs.”

            In June 1809, Daniel arrived in Stamford for the yearly races. He took lodgings at an inn, where he was found dead on the morning of June 21 (a Wednesday). An entire wall of the inn was removed to make way for Daniel’s body. He was buried two days later, in a coffin fashioned from 112 feet of elm wood. It took more than twenty men to lower the coffin (on wheels) down a ramp, into Daniel’s final resting place: St. Martin’s Churchyard in Stamford.

            The Daniel Lambert pub was established in Leicester, six years after Daniel’s death. The pub finally closed its doors over a century and a half later, in the early 1970s. Another Daniel Lambert Pub has been established in Stamford, and remains in operation to this day. Two years ago, I contacted the proprietor of this pub via e-mail, and she sent me a photo of the shingle that hangs outside her establishment. The sign contains an image of Daniel Lambert, whose heart, I suspect, was metaphorically as large as his body. My plan is to visit the Daniel Lambert Pub on my first visit to England. When the barkeep reads the name on my driver’s license, perhaps my first mug of stout will be served on the house.