1 November 1664: News of the Tadcaster boy-giant
Oliver Heywood. 1883. The Rev. Oliver Heywood, B.A., 1630-1702, Vol. 3/4. Ed. J. Horsfall Turner. Bingley: T. Harrison. Get it:
.Excerpt
There is a boy about two miles from Tadcaster that is not five years of age, whose stature is above an ell high, his thigh is three quarters about, his face is like a man’s, with much hair upon it, he hath capacity for employment as a man, and eats as much as another ordinary man, as is able to carry the third part of a full horse-load of any thing. This November 1, 1664. Many people go to see him, a gentleman offered his father £40 to let him take up his son to London, and keep him well, and deliver him safely to him again, but he refused.
To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.
Abbreviations:
- ER: East Riding
- GM: Greater Manchester
- NR: North Riding
- NY: North Yorkshire
- SY: South Yorkshire
- WR: West Riding
- WY: West Yorkshire
Comment
Comment
Something is wrong here: an ell is short for his age. Who was he?
Something to say? Get in touch
Original
There is a boy about two miles from Tadcaster that is not five years of age, whose stature is above an ell high, his thigh is three quarters about, his face is like a man’s, with much hair upon it, he hath capacity for employment as a man, and eats as much as another ordinary man, as is able to carry the third part of a full horse-load of any thing. This November 1, 1664. Many people go to see him, a gentleman offered his father £40 to let him take up his son to London, and keep him well, and deliver him safely to him again, but he refused.
110 words.
Tags
Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.
- Ell (1)
· - Freak (2) ·
- Gigantism (2) ·
- Heywood, Oliver (1630-1702) (34), Bolton-born nonconformist minister and diarist, active in the West Riding, resident at Northowram, ejected for his beliefs ·
- Tadcaster (9) ·
Similar
- 28 March 1692: On Easter Monday Francis Pemberton, Vicar of Bradford, sits all day in a Haworth pub, collecting his Easter dues, while Oliver Heywood preaches for next to nothing
- 14 March 1787: Death of Levi Whitehead, centenarian walker and runner of Bramham, near Wetherby
- 2 March 1665: A sighting of the northern lights at Northowram (Halifax) recalls the eve of the civil war
- 10 January 1675: George Aislabie, profiteering registrar of the York ecclesiastical court and assiduous duellist, challenges the wrong man
- 24 February 1673: Oliver Heywood regrets impulsively baptising the child of an irresponsible Quaker father
- 18 June 1664: Jane Thompson of Craven, “a swinish drunkard,” dies of a barely-treated compound fracture
- 5 April 1674: An anonymous message to a preacher
- 24 January 1680: Miners rob, murder and burn a pit-owning nonconformist minister and his mother and maid at Beeston (Leeds)
- 3 November 1826: “Nimrod” of London gets to know a coachman during a journey from Leeds to York
- 23 October 1679: Presbyterian emotion at Gisburn, Ribble Valley (WR/Lancs)
Search
Donate
Music & books
The Headingley Gallimaufrians: a choir of the weird and wonderful.
Music from and about Yorkshire by Leeds's Singing Organ-Grinder.
RSS feed
Bluesky
Extwitter