English Eccentrics and Eccentricities was written by John Timbs

John Timbs

John Timbs , English antiquary, was born in Clerkenwell, London.He was educated at a private school at Hemel Hempstead, and in his sixteenth year apprenticed to a druggist and printer at Dorking. He had early shown literary capacity, and when nineteen began to write for the Monthly Magazine...

 and published first in two volumes by Richard Bentley in New Burlington Street, London, in 1866. It remains both entertaining light reading and a source of biographical incident, sometimes rarely repeated on unusual people of the late 18th and early 19th century, from celebrities to recluses, religious notables to country astrologers, pop authors to tragedians.

As Timbs lays out his purpose in his preface:

"GENTLE READER, a few words before we introduce you to our MODERN ECCENTRICS. They may be odd company: yet, how often do we find eccentricity in the minds of persons of good understanding. Their sayings and doings, it is true, may not rank as high among the delicacies of intellectual epicures as the Strasburg pies among the dishes described in the Almanack des Gourmands; but they possess attractions in proportion to the degree in which 'man favours wonders.' Swift has remarked, that 'a little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious, and low.' Into the latter extremes Eccentricity is occasionally apt to run, somewhat like certain fermenting liquors which cannot be checked in their acidifying courses.

"Into such headlong excesses our Eccentrics rarely stray; and one of our objects in sketching their ways, is to show that with oddity of character may co-exist much goodness of heart; and your strange fellow, though, according to the lexicographer, he be outlandish, odd, queer, and eccentric, may possess claims to our notice which the man who is ever studying the fitness of things would not so readily present.

"Many books of character have been published which have recorded the acts, sayings, and fortunes of Eccentrics. The instances in the present Work are, for the most part, drawn from our own time, so as to present points of novelty which could not so reasonably be expected in portraits of older date. They are motley-minded and grotesque in many instances; and from their rare accidents may be gathered many a lesson of thrift, as well as many a scene of humour to laugh at; while some realize the well remembered couplet on the near alliance of wits to madness.

"A glance at the accompanying Table of Contents, and the Index to each volume, will, it is hoped, convey a fair idea of the number and variety of characters and incidents to be found in this gallery of MODERN ECCENTRICS.

"It should be added, that in the preparation of this Work, the Author has availed himself of the most trustworthy materials for the staple of his narratives, which, in certain cases, he has preferred giving ipsissimis verbis of his authorities to "re-writing" them, as it is termed; a process which rarely adds to the veracity of story-telling, but, on the other hand, often gives a colour to the incidents which the original narrator never intended to convey. The object has been to render the book truthful as well as entertaining."

Volume One

• The Beckfords
  William Thomas Beckford
  William Thomas Beckford , usually known as William Beckford, was an English novelist, a profligate and consummately knowledgeable art collector and patron of works of decorative art, a critic, travel writer and sometime politician, reputed to be the richest commoner in England...
  
   and Fonthill
  Fonthill Abbey
  Fonthill Abbey — also known as Beckford's Folly — was a large Gothic revival country house built around the turn of the 19th century at Fonthill Gifford in Wiltshire, England, at the direction of William Thomas Beckford and architect James Wyatt...
  
  
• Alderman Beckford's Monument Speech, in Guildhall
• Beau Brummel
• Sir Lumley Skeffington, Bart
  Sir Lumley Skeffington, 2nd Baronet
  Sir Lumley St. George Skeffington, 2nd Baronet, was a British nobleman, fop and playwright.He attended Newcome's School in Hackney, where he acquired a taste for drama; in May 1802 he presented a five-act comedy at Covent Garden entitled The Word of Honour, followed the next season by another at...
  
  
• "Romeo" Coates
  Robert Coates (actor)
  Robert Coates , often called Romeo Coates, was a West Indian-born heir to significantly profitable, sugar-growing slave plantations. As a young adult, he emigrated to England...
  
  
• Abraham Newland
  Abraham Newland
  Abraham Newland was the chief cashier at the Bank of England from 1782 to 1807. The expression "an Abraham Newland" came to mean a bank note, because without his signature no Bank of England note was genuine....
  
  
• The Spendthrift Squire of Halston, John Mytton
  John Mytton
  John Mytton was a notable British eccentric and Regency rake.- Family :John "Mad Jack" Mytton was born to a family of Shropshire squires with a lineage that stretched back some 500 years before his day...
  
  
• Lord Petersham
  Charles Stanhope, 4th Earl of Harrington
  Charles Stanhope, 4th Earl of Harrington was an English peer and man of fashion, styled Viscount Petersham until 1829....
  
  
• The King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands
  Sandwich Islands
  Sandwich Islands was the name given to the Hawaiian Islands by James Cook on one of his voyages in the 1770s. James Cook named the islands after John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, a supporter of Cook's voyages...
  
  
• Sir Edward Bering's Luckless Courtship
• Gretna Green
  Gretna Green
  Gretna Green is a village in the south of Scotland famous for runaway weddings. It is in Dumfries and Galloway, near the mouth of the River Esk and was historically the first village in Scotland, following the old coaching route from London to Edinburgh. Gretna Green has a railway station serving...
  
   Marriages
• The Agapemone
  Agapemone
  Agapemone, or "The A" was a Christian religious group and community founded in 1846 by Reverend Henry Prince in Spaxton, Somerset, England. He had been fired earlier in his career for his 'radical teachings'. The Agapemonites predicated the imminent return of Jesus Christ...
  
  , or Abode of Love
• Singular Scotch Ladies
• Mrs. Bond, of Hackney
• John Ward, the Hackney Miser
• "Poor Man of Mutton"
• Lord Kenyon's
  Baron Kenyon
  Lord Kenyon, Baron of Gredington, in the County of Flint, is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1788 for the lawyer and judge Sir Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baronet. He served as Master of the Rolls and as Lord Chief Justice of England. Kenyon had already been created a Baronet, of...
  
   Parsimony
• Mary Moser
  Mary Moser
  Mary Moser was an English painter and one of the most celebrated women artists of 18th century Britain. One of only two female founding members of the Royal Academy , Moser is particularly noted for her depictions of flowers.-Life and career:London-born Moser was trained by her Swiss-born artist...
  
  , the Flower-painter
• The Eccentric Miss Banks
• Thomas Cooke, the Miser, of Pentonville
• Thomas Cooke, the Turkey Merchant
• "Lady Lewson," of Clerkenwell
• Profits of Dust-sifting and Dust-heaps
• Sir John Dinely, Bart.
• The Rothschilds
• A Legacy of Half-a-million of Money
• Eccentricities of the Earl of Bridgewater
• The Denisons, and the Conyngham Family
• "Dog Jennings"
• Baron Ward's Remarkable Career
• A Costly House-warming
• Devonshire Eccentrics
• Hannah Snell
  Hannah Snell
  Hannah Snell was a British woman who disguised herself as a man and became a soldier.Hannah Snell was born in Worcester, England on 23 April, 1723. Locals claim that she played a soldier even as a child. In 1740, she moved to London and later married James Summs on 6 January, 1744.In 1746, she...
  
  , the Female Soldier
• Lady Archer
• Modem Alchemists
• Jack Adams, the Astrologer
• The Woman-hating Cavendish
• Modern Astrology "Witch Pickles"
• Hannah Green; or, "Ling Bob"
• Oddities of Lady Hester Stanhope
  Lady Hester Stanhope
  Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope , the eldest child of Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope by his first wife Lady Hester Pitt, is remembered by history as an intrepid traveller in an age when women were discouraged from being adventurous.-Early life and travels:Lady Hester was born and grew up at her...
  
  —primarily her beliefs in her place in prophecy and her peculiar form of astrology
• Hermits and Eremitical Life
• The Recluses of Llangollen
  Ladies of Llangollen
  The Ladies of Llangollen were two upper-class women from Ireland whose relationship scandalised and fascinated their contemporaries.-Early lives:...
  
  
• Snuff-taking Legacies
• Burial Bequests
• Burials on Box Hill
  Box Hill, Surrey
  Box Hill is a summit of the North Downs in Surrey, approximately south west of London. The hill takes its name from the ancient box woodland found on the steepest west-facing chalk slopes overlooking the River Mole. The western part of the hill is owned and managed by the National Trust, whilst...
  
   and Leith Hill
  Leith Hill
  Leith Hill to the south west of Dorking, Surrey, England, reaches above sea level, the highest point on the Greensand Ridge, and is the second highest point in south-east England, after Walbury Hill near Hungerford, West Berkshire, high....
  
  
• Jeremy Bentham
  Jeremy Bentham
  Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism...
  
  's Bequest of his Remains
• The Marquis of Anglesey's Leg
• The Cottle Church
• Horace Walpole's Chattels saved by a Talisman — believed to be the polished black coal scrying mirror of Dr. Dee
• Norwood Gipsies
• "Cunning Mary," of Clerkenwell
  Clerkenwell
  Clerkenwell is an area of central London in the London Borough of Islington. From 1900 to 1965 it was part of the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury. The well after which it was named was rediscovered in 1924. The watchmaking and watch repairing trades were once of great importance...
  
  
• "Jerusalem Whalley "
• Father Mathew and the Temperance Movement
  Temperance movement
  A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
  
  
• Eccentric Preachers
• Irving a Millenarian
• A Trio of Fanatics
• The Spenceans
• Joanna Southcote, and the Coming of Shiloh
• The Founder of Mormonism
  Mormonism
  Mormonism is the religion practiced by Mormons, and is the predominant religious tradition of the Latter Day Saint movement. This movement was founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. beginning in the 1820s as a form of Christian primitivism. During the 1830s and 1840s, Mormonism gradually distinguished itself...
  
  
• Huntington, the Preacher
• Amen Peter Isnell
• Strangely Eccentric, yet Sane
• Strange Hallucination
• "Corner Memory Thompson "
• Mummy of a Manchester Lady
• Hypochondriasis
• "The Wonder of all the Wonders that the World ever wondered at"
• "The Princess Caraboo
  Princess Caraboo
  Mary Baker was a noted impostor who went by the name Princess Caraboo. She pretended to be from a faraway island and fooled a British town for some months.-Biography:...
  
  "
• Fat Folks. Lambert and Bright
• A Cure for Corpulence
• Epitaphs on Fat Folks
• Count Boruwlaski, the Polish Dwarf
• The Irish Giant
• Birth Extraordinary
• William Button's "Strong Woman"
• Wildman and his Bees
• Lord Stowell's Love of Sight-seeing
• John Day and Fairlop Fair
• A Princely Hoax

Volume Two

STRANGE SIGHTS AND SPORTING SCENES

• Sir John Waters's Escape
• Colonel Mackinnon's Practical Joking
• A Gourmand Physician
• Dick England, the Gambler
• Brighton
  Brighton
  Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
  
   Races, Thirty Years since
• Colonel Hellish
• Doncaster
  Doncaster
  Doncaster is a town in South Yorkshire, England, and the principal settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster. The town is about from Sheffield and is popularly referred to as "Donny"...
  
   Eccentrics
• "Walking Stewart"
• Youthful Days of the Hon. Grantley Berkeley
• What became of the Seven Dials
  Seven Dials
  Seven Dials is a small but well-known road junction in the West End of London in Covent Garden where seven streets converge. At the centre of the roughly-circular space is a pillar bearing six sundials, a result of the pillar being commissioned before a late stage alteration of the plans from an...
  
  
• An Old Bailey
  Old Bailey
  The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...
  
   Character
• Bone and Shell Exhibition
• "Quid Eides? "
• "Bolton
  Bolton
  Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, in the North West of England. Close to the West Pennine Moors, it is north west of the city of Manchester. Bolton is surrounded by several smaller towns and villages which together form the Metropolitan Borough of Bolton, of which Bolton is the...
  
   Trotters "
• Eccentric Lord Coleraine
• Eccentric Travellers
• Elegy on a Geologist

ARTISTS

• Gilray
  James Gillray
  James Gillray , was a British caricaturist and printmaker famous for his etched political and social satires, mainly published between 1792 and 1810.- Early life :He was born in Chelsea...
  
   and his Caricature
  Caricature
  A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
  
  s
• William Blake
  William Blake
  William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
  
  , Painter and Poet
• Nollekens, the Sculptor
• The Young Roscius
• Hardham's "No. 37"
• Rare Criticism
• The O. P. Riot
  Old Price Riots, 1809
  The Old Price Riots of 1809 were caused by rising prices at the new Theatre at Covent Garden, London, after the previous one had been destroyed by fire. Covent Garden was one of two “patent” theatres in London in the nineteenth century, along with Drury Lane...
  
  
• Origin of "Paul Pry"
• Mrs. Garrick
• Mathews, a Spanish Ambassador
• Grimaldi
  Joseph Grimaldi
  Joseph Grimaldi , was an English actor and comedian who is perhaps best known for his invention of the modern day whiteface clown. He chiefly appeared at Drury Lane in pantomime where his greatest success was appearing in Harlequin and Mother Goose; or the Golden Egg and followed with a successful...
  
  , the Clown
• Munden's
  Joseph Shepherd Munden
  Joseph Shepherd Munden , English actor, was the son of a London poulterer, and ran away from home to join a strolling company....
  
   Last Performance
• Oddities of Dowton
• Liston in Tragedy
• Boyhood of Edmund Kean
  Edmund Kean
  Edmund Kean was an English actor, regarded in his time as the greatest ever.-Early life:Kean was born in London. His father was probably Edmund Kean, an architect’s clerk, and his mother was an actress, Anne Carey, daughter of the 18th century composer and playwright Henry Carey...
  
  
• A Mysterious Parcel
• Masquerade Incident
• Mr. T. P. Cooke in Melodrama and Pantomime
• "Romeo and Juliet" in America
• The Mulberries, a Shakspearian Club
• Colley Cibber
  Colley Cibber
  Colley Cibber was an English actor-manager, playwright and Poet Laureate. His colourful memoir Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber describes his life in a personal, anecdotal and even rambling style...
  
  's Daughter
• An Eccentric Love-passage
• True to the Text
• Monk Lewis
• Person's Eccentricities
• Parriana: Oddities of Dr. Parr
• Oddities of John Horne Tooke
  John Horne Tooke
  John Horne Tooke was an English politician and philologist.-Early life and work:He was born in Newport Street, Long Acre, Westminster, the third son of John Horne, a poulterer in Newport Market. As a youth at Eton College, Tooke described his father to friends as a "turkey merchant"...
  
  
• Mr. Canning's Humour
• Peter Pindar. Dr. Wolcot
• The Author of "Dr. Syntax "
• Mrs. Radcliffe and the Critics
• Cool Sir James Mackintosh
• Eccentricities of Cobbett
• Heber, the Book-collector
• Sir John Soane lampooned
• Extraordinary Calculators
• Charles Lamb
  Charles Lamb
  Charles Lamb was an English essayist, best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare, which he produced with his sister, Mary Lamb . Lamb has been referred to by E.V...
  
  's Cottage at Islington
• Thomas Hood
• A Witty Archbishop
• Literary Madmen
• A Perpetual-motion Seeker
• The Romantic Duchess of Newcastle
• Sources of Laughter
• Busby's Folly and Bull Feather Hall
• Old Islington Taverns
• The Oyster and Parched-pea Club
• A Manchester Punch-house
• "The Blue Key"
• Brandy in Tea
• "The Wooden Spoon"
• A Tipsy Village
• What an Epicure eats in his Life-time
• Epitaph on Dr. Maginn
• Greenwich Dinners
• Lord Pembroke's Port Wine
• A Tremendous Bowl of Punch
• Long Sir Thomas Robinson
• Lord Chesterfield's Will
• An Odd Family
• An Eccentric Host
• Quackery Successful
• The Grateful Footpad
• A Notoriety of the Temple
• A Ride in a Sedan
• Mr. John Scott (Lord Eldon)
  John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon
  John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon PC KC FRS FSA was a British barrister and politician. He served as Lord Chancellor of Great Britain between 1801 and 1806 and again between 1807 and 1827.- Background and education :...
  
  in Parliament
• A Chancery Jeu-d'Esprit
• Hanging by Compact
• The Ambassador Floored
• "The Dutch Mail"
• Bad Spelling
• A "Single Conspirator"
• A Miscalculation
• An Indiscriminate Collector
• The Bishop's Saturday Night
• "Rather than otherwise"
• Classic Soup Distribution
• Alphabet Single Rhymed
• Non Sequitur and Therefore