Daniel Lambert
Daniel Lambert was a gaol keeper and animal breeder from Leicester, England, famous for his unusually large size. He was a keen sportsman and extremely strong; on one occasion he fought a bear in the streets of Leicester. By 1805, he weighed 50 stone, and had become the heaviest authenticated person up to that point in recorded history. Unemployable and sensitive about his bulk, Lambert became a recluse. In June 1809, he died suddenly in Stamford, Lincolnshire, and his coffin required 112 square feet of wood.
About Daniel Lambert in brief
Daniel Lambert was a gaol keeper and animal breeder from Leicester, England, famous for his unusually large size. He was a keen sportsman and extremely strong; on one occasion he fought a bear in the streets of Leicester. By 1805, he weighed 50 stone, and had become the heaviest authenticated person up to that point in recorded history. Unemployable and sensitive about his bulk, Lambert became a recluse. In June 1809, he died suddenly in Stamford, Lincolnshire, and his coffin required 112 square feet of wood. While others have since overtaken Daniel Lambert’s record as the heaviest person in history, he remains a popular character in Leicester, and in 2009 was described by the Leicester Mercury as “one of the city’s most cherished icons”. Lambert was the son of Daniel Lambert, who was the huntsman to Harry Grey, 4th Earl of Stamford, and at the time of his son’s birth was the keeper of Leicester’s gaol. Lambert’s paternal uncle also worked with animals, but as a professional gamekeeper; his maternal grandfather was a breeder of champion fighting cocks. Lambert grew up with a strong interest in field sports, and was particularly fond of otter hunting, fishing, shooting and horse racing. At the age of eight he taught local children to swim. Lambert remained fit and active, once walking seven men from Woolwich to the City of London. On one occasion, while watching a dancing bear on display in Blue Boar Lane, his dog slipped loose and bit it, knocking it to the ground to allow the dog to escape. Lambert reportedly struck the bear with a pole and with his left hand punched its head to allow it to escape to the middle of the street.
On another occasion, he knocked a man to the floor, knocking him to the pavement, causing him to fall unconscious. Lambert was able to easily carry five long hundredweight men for up to five hundred yards. He died in 1809 and was buried in a newly opened burial ground to the rear of St Martin’s Church, Leicester, where his casket took 20 men almost half an hour to drag into the trench. He is buried in the same grave as his father, who died in 1788, and is buried next to his brother, William Lambert, the former huntsman for Harry Grey. In 1784, he was apprenticed to Messrs Taylor & Co, an engraving and die casting works in Birmingham owned by a Mr Benjamin Patrick. The engraved buckles and buttons in which Patrick’s factory specialised became unfashionable, and the business went into decline. Lambert returned to Leicester around 1788 and succeeded his father as keeper of the gaol, and became an expert in the breeding of hunting dogs. In 1806, poverty forced Lambert to put himself on exhibition to raise money. He took up residence in London, charging spectators to enter his apartments to meet him, and visiting him became highly fashionable. After some months on public display, Lambert grew tired of exhibiting himself, and returned, wealthy, to Leicester in September 1806. In about 1793, Lambert’s weight began to increase steadily, and by 1794 he weighed 32 stone.
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This page is based on the article Daniel Lambert published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 01, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
