John Mytton
Encyclopedia
John Mytton was a notable British
eccentric
and Regency
rake
.
squire
s with a lineage that stretched back some 500 years before his day. The surname may have originated as "Mutton" or be associated with the village of Mytton, near Forton Heath, just a few miles west of Shrewsbury. As with many of his ancestors and privileged peers, Jack was privately educated subsequent his expulsion from both Westminster
and Harrow
. Mytton would later attempted to serve in both parliament
and the 7th Hussars
, a cavalry regiment. His father, also named John, died young, at the age of 30, when Jack was but two years of age. As heir, "Mad Jack" subsequently inherited the family seat at Halston Hall, Whittington (near Oswestry
in Shropshire), which was worth £60,000 (£4.3 million today [2006]), and also received an annual income of £10,000 (over £716,000 today [2006]) from rental and agricultural assets.
, but was expelled only a year after matriculation for fighting a master at the school. He was then sent to Harrow school
from where he was also expelled three days later. He was subsequently educated by a disparate series of private tutors whom he tormented with practical jokes that included, but which were not limited to, leaving a horse in one tutor's bedroom.
Despite having achieved very little academically, Jack was granted entry to Cambridge University, where he brought with him 2,000 bottles of port
to sustain himself during his studies. He would, however, leave Cambridge without having graduated, because he found university life boring. After leaving Cambridge he embarked on The Grand Tour
through Europe's major cultural capitals, as was customary for members of families of a high social standing.
he was commissioned into the army
, and therefore joined the 7th Hussars, whose uniform was particularly elaborate and ornate even by the standards of the time. As a young officer, a Cornet
, he spent a year with the regiment in France as part of the occupation army after Napoleon's defeat; a period in which he spent his time gambling and drinking before resigning his commission. He later returned to his country seat in Britain and took on the duties and obligations of a country squire, which was meant to prepare him before he received his full inheritance upon becoming 21 years old. Upon receiving it he set about spending his inheritance at an unsustainable rate.
, a tradition in his family with Myttons having been returned as MPs previously. He secured his seat through the expediency of encouraging his constituents to vote for him by offering them £10 notes and through spending £10,000 (£750,000+ would be a modern equivalent) he became MP for Shrewsbury
. He found political debate boring and attended parliament only once and apparently for just 30 minutes.
Instead he indulged his enjoyment for horse racing and gambling and enjoyed some success at both, mainly by first buying already successful race horses such as the horse Euphrates which was already a consistent winner and entering it in The Gold Cup at Lichfield in 1825, which Euphrates duly won. Jack had the horse's portrait painted by William Webb and exhibited at the Royal Academy
in 1825.
In 1826, as a result of a bet, he is said to have ridden his horse into the Bedford Hotel (later Midland Bank), opposite the Town Hall in Leamington Spa, up the grand staircase and onto the balcony, from which he jumped, still seated on his horse, over the diners in the restaurant below, and out through the window onto the Parade.
On a freezing winters day he would lead his small army of stable lads on rat hunts, each stable boy equipped with ice skates.
At Halston, he would get out of bed in the middle of the night, take off his flimsy nightshirt and set off completely naked but carrying his favourite gun across the frozen fields towards his lake. Here he would ambush the ducks, fire a few shots and return to bed apparently none the worse for his ordeal. He frequently got up again half an hour later - stripped off and went through the whole process again. His most extraordinary day's shooting came when... he got fed up waiting for the birds to come within range, stripped naked, sat on the ice and slowly shuffled forward on the slippery surface until he was within range. It took over an hour but he never caught a cold or seemed in the least unwell after this or indeed after any of his naked shooting exploits.
He had a wardrobe consisting of 150 pairs of hunting breeches, 700 pairs of handmade hunting boots, 1000 hats and some 3,000 shirts.
He also had numerous pets in his manor. Including some 2,000 dogs comprising fox hounds and other breeds such as gun dogs, pointers and retrievers, his favourites were fed on steak and champagne. Some dogs wore livery, others were costumed.
A favourite horse Baronet had full and free range inside Halston Hall, and would lie in front of the fire with Jack.
The reputation of Mad Jack was already sealed but he continued to confound and surpass his eccentric behaviour by lying between the hooves of dangerous and nervous horses. His life was described as "a series of suicide attempts".
He sought thrills through reckless driving of carriage
s. He would drive his gig
at high speed at an obstacle like a rabbit hole only to see if it would turn over. Once he tested if a horse pulling a carriage could jump over a tollgate. It could not. He managed to survive these incidents without serious injuries. It was said of Mad Jack that "not only did he not mind accidents, he positively liked them". He raced around the country roads in a four horse gig tearing across crossroads and around hairpin corners with total disregard for his own safety or any other road users. In one anecdote he was driving his gig with a new companion, of whom Mad Jack enquired whether he had ever been upset in a gig. No the man replied "Thank God, I have never been upset in one". "What!!" cried Mytton, "What a damn slow fellow you must have been all your life!" and promptly drove the gig up a sloping bank at full speed tipping himself and his passenger out.
On another occasion he invited a local Oswestry
Parson and Doctor to dine at Halston. As they left on horseback, replete and at nightfall he quickly donned a highwayman's
garb and mask, complete with a brace of pistols and by a circuitous route caught up with them at the edge of his estate, where he burst from cover fired both pistols over their heads and called "Stand and deliver!" and related the tale of them galloping for their lives with him hard on their heels.
who disturbed his hunt and the bare knuckle fight lasted 20 rounds before the miner gave up. He arrived at a dinner party at Halston Hall riding a bear
and when he tried to make it go faster the beast bit into his calf. His biographer 'Nimrod', Charles James Apperley
described it thus: '‘He once rode this bear into his drawing-room, in full hunting costume. The bear carried him very quietly for a time; but on being pricked by the spur he bit his rider through the calf of his leg.’' Despite being bitten, Mad Jack kept the bear Nell as a pet. However, it later attacked a servant and Jack had it killed.
a day with a helping of brandy
. He managed to kill one of his horses, Sportsman, by making it drink a bottle of port.
Rather than sit down to a formal dinner every evening he would sustain himself throughout the day with 'pounds of filbert
s' when in season, a type of hazelnut, or dine with his tenant farmers eating full fat bacon and quaffing a quart of ale beside their fire before returning to Halston Hall, where his cook and servants would have prepared a full dinner which he would now be unable to eat.
Mytton was an enthusiastic dog-fighter and gambled on the outcome of fights between bulldogs, mastiffs and terriers. He also apparently beat his own fearless bulldog with his bare fists, a dog whose favourite method of quelling his opponents was to put a vice-like bite on their snouts. He is also said to have bitten fighting dogs with his own teeth, even standing upright with a mastiff held in his own jaws without using his hands to support the weight. He was also rumored to have put his wife’s lapdog on the fire in a jealous rage, burning it to death. Though witnesses claim what actually happened was he threw the dog high in the air, caught him and his butler yelled 'sir you will kill him'. Many rumours were started about Mytton many of which were unfounded.
races when the wind blew them away. His workmen and tenants regarded him as a generous man. Over fifteen years he managed to spend his inheritance and then fell into deep debt. He totally ignored the advice of close friends and of official advisers such as his agent. His agent had calculated that if he could but reduce his expenditure to £6,000 pa for the next six years his estate would not have to be sold. Jack considered this option for a mere minute before replying "You tell Longueville (the agent) I wouldn't give a damn to live on £6,000 a year!" His fate was sealed at that point. At first creditors were hard pressed to find the services of a bailiff who was prepared to take the risk of arresting Mad Jack but in 1830 he fled to France to avoid his creditors, prison and court.
He had married, taking his first wife, a Baronet's daughter, in 1818 but she died in 1820. His second wife Caroline Giffard ran away in 1830. His wives bore him children who he would affectionately toss into the air as babies and pelt with oranges.
In Calais he fell in with a company of shady English adventurers whose occupations kept them by necessity away from English justice. He had met an attractive 20 year old woman on Westminster Bridge and immediately offered her £500 per annum to be his companion and flee with him to France. She took up his offer, which says a lot for his charisma, influence and personality. This woman, Susan, stayed with him for the two years until his death.
During his stay in France he tried to cure his hiccups by setting his shirt on fire. It did work but only the intervention of his friends spared him more serious injuries from burns. Nimrod was present at this event:
‘"Damn this hiccup!!" said Mytton as he stood undressed on the floor, apparently in the act of getting into bed “but I’ll frighten it away”; so seizing a lighted candle applied it to the tail of his shirt – it being a cotton one – he was instantly enveloped in flames. A fellow guest and Mytton’s servant beat out the flames: "The hiccup is gone, by God!", said he and reeled, naked, into bed'. From bed he quoted Sophocles in Greek the beautiful passage "wherein Oedipus recommends his children to the care of Creon" according to Apperley / Nimrod.
Apperley visited Mytton in his room the next morning, to find him ‘not only shirtless, but sheetless, with the skin of his breast, shoulders and knees of the same colour as a newly singed bacon hog’.
After a couple of years he decided to return to England and ended up in the King's Bench
debtor's prison
in Southwark, London. He died there in 1834 a 'round shouldered, tottering old-young man bloated by drink. Worn out by too much foolishness, too much wretchedness and too much brandy' in one account.
The Literary Gazette
's review of Nimrod's biography contrasted the youthful Mytton:
Nimrod, Charles James Apperley, a neighbour, fellow hunting devotee, close friend and peer felt compelled to record the life of Mad Jack in 'The Memoirs of the Life of the Late John Mytton, Esquire, of Halston, Shropshire, formerly MP for Shrewsbury, High Sheriff for the Counties of Salop & Merioneth (1821), Major of the North Shropshire Yeomanry Cavalry ; with Notices of his Hunting, Shooting & Driving'.
Published in 1837 this often reprinted series of articles written by Nimrod in The New Sporting Magazine sell for thousands of pounds when originals or early reprints come up at auction.
Maybe the last word on the life of Mad Jack Mytton should be left to Nimrod, a man who knew him well and had a full and lengthy insight into the enigma that was John Mytton : 'It was his largeness of heart that ruined Mr Mytton, added to the lofty pride which disdained the littleness of Prudence'. But it was also Nimrod who asked:
Harriet Emma Charlot was born to his first wife (Harriet Emma) c.1818
He married his second wife Caroline Gifford on 29 October 1821 and she had a daughter and four sons: Barbara Augusta (b. 9 August 1822), John Fox Fitz-Giffard (b. 20 November 1823), Charles Orville January (b. 1825), Euphrates Henry April (b. 1826) and William Harper (b. April 1827). Euphrates and Charles died young but his two other sons and both daughters survived him. Barbara Augusta in 1847 married Colonel Poulett George Henry Somerset, son of Lord Charles Henry Somerset, a younger brother of the 6th Duke of Beaufort
.
There is also a well known portrait of Mytton on horseback, by William Webb, and numerous illustrations, by H. Alken and T.J. Rawlins, appear in Nimrod's "Life of John Mytton".
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
eccentric
Eccentricity (behavior)
In popular usage, eccentricity refers to unusual or odd behavior on the part of an individual. This behavior would typically be perceived as unusual or unnecessary, without being demonstrably maladaptive...
and Regency
English Regency
The Regency era in the United Kingdom is the period between 1811—when King George III was deemed unfit to rule and his son, the Prince of Wales, ruled as his proxy as Prince Regent—and 1820, when the Prince Regent became George IV on the death of his father....
rake
Rake (character)
A rake, short for rakehell, is a historic term applied to a man who is habituated to immoral conduct, frequently a heartless womanizer. Often a rake was a man who wasted his fortune on gambling, wine, women and song, incurring lavish debts in the process...
.
Family
John "Mad Jack" Mytton was born to a family of ShropshireShropshire
Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...
squire
Squire
The English word squire is a shortened version of the word Esquire, from the Old French , itself derived from the Late Latin , in medieval or Old English a scutifer. The Classical Latin equivalent was , "arms bearer"...
s with a lineage that stretched back some 500 years before his day. The surname may have originated as "Mutton" or be associated with the village of Mytton, near Forton Heath, just a few miles west of Shrewsbury. As with many of his ancestors and privileged peers, Jack was privately educated subsequent his expulsion from both Westminster
Westminster School
The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...
and Harrow
Harrow School
Harrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London.. The school is of worldwide renown. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243 but the Harrow School we know today was...
. Mytton would later attempted to serve in both parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
and the 7th Hussars
7th Queen's Own Hussars
The 7th Queen's Own Hussars was a cavalry regiment in the British Army, first formed in 1690. It saw service for three centuries, before being amalgamated into The Queen's Own Hussars in 1958....
, a cavalry regiment. His father, also named John, died young, at the age of 30, when Jack was but two years of age. As heir, "Mad Jack" subsequently inherited the family seat at Halston Hall, Whittington (near Oswestry
Oswestry
Oswestry is a town and civil parish in Shropshire, England, close to the Welsh border. It is at the junction of the A5, A483, and A495 roads....
in Shropshire), which was worth £60,000 (£4.3 million today [2006]), and also received an annual income of £10,000 (over £716,000 today [2006]) from rental and agricultural assets.
Education
As a young boy, Jack was sent to Westminster SchoolWestminster School
The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...
, but was expelled only a year after matriculation for fighting a master at the school. He was then sent to Harrow school
Harrow School
Harrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London.. The school is of worldwide renown. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243 but the Harrow School we know today was...
from where he was also expelled three days later. He was subsequently educated by a disparate series of private tutors whom he tormented with practical jokes that included, but which were not limited to, leaving a horse in one tutor's bedroom.
Despite having achieved very little academically, Jack was granted entry to Cambridge University, where he brought with him 2,000 bottles of port
Port wine
Port wine is a Portuguese fortified wine produced exclusively in the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. It is typically a sweet, red wine, often served as a dessert wine, and comes in dry, semi-dry, and white varieties...
to sustain himself during his studies. He would, however, leave Cambridge without having graduated, because he found university life boring. After leaving Cambridge he embarked on The Grand Tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...
through Europe's major cultural capitals, as was customary for members of families of a high social standing.
The Army
Upon his return from his Grand TourGrand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...
he was commissioned into the army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
, and therefore joined the 7th Hussars, whose uniform was particularly elaborate and ornate even by the standards of the time. As a young officer, a Cornet
Cornet (military rank)
Cornet was originally the third and lowest grade of commissioned officer in a British cavalry troop, after captain and lieutenant. A cornet is a new and junior officer.- Traditional duties :The cornet carried the troop standard, also known as a "cornet"....
, he spent a year with the regiment in France as part of the occupation army after Napoleon's defeat; a period in which he spent his time gambling and drinking before resigning his commission. He later returned to his country seat in Britain and took on the duties and obligations of a country squire, which was meant to prepare him before he received his full inheritance upon becoming 21 years old. Upon receiving it he set about spending his inheritance at an unsustainable rate.
Back to Shropshire
In 1819 he entertained ambitions of serving in ParliamentParliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
, a tradition in his family with Myttons having been returned as MPs previously. He secured his seat through the expediency of encouraging his constituents to vote for him by offering them £10 notes and through spending £10,000 (£750,000+ would be a modern equivalent) he became MP for Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury is the county town of Shropshire, in the West Midlands region of England. Lying on the River Severn, it is a civil parish home to some 70,000 inhabitants, and is the primary settlement and headquarters of Shropshire Council...
. He found political debate boring and attended parliament only once and apparently for just 30 minutes.
Instead he indulged his enjoyment for horse racing and gambling and enjoyed some success at both, mainly by first buying already successful race horses such as the horse Euphrates which was already a consistent winner and entering it in The Gold Cup at Lichfield in 1825, which Euphrates duly won. Jack had the horse's portrait painted by William Webb and exhibited at the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
in 1825.
In 1826, as a result of a bet, he is said to have ridden his horse into the Bedford Hotel (later Midland Bank), opposite the Town Hall in Leamington Spa, up the grand staircase and onto the balcony, from which he jumped, still seated on his horse, over the diners in the restaurant below, and out through the window onto the Parade.
Hunting
Another obsession was fox hunting. Jack had hunted his own pack of hounds from the age of ten. Mytton would go hunting in any kind of weather. His usual winter gear was a light jacket, thin shoes, linen trousers and silk stockings - but in the thrill of the chase he could strip down and continue the chase naked. He is also recorded as crouching naked in snow drifts and swimming winter rivers in full spate. He also continued hunting despite being unseated and sustaining broken ribs -"unmurmuring when every jar was an agony".On a freezing winters day he would lead his small army of stable lads on rat hunts, each stable boy equipped with ice skates.
At Halston, he would get out of bed in the middle of the night, take off his flimsy nightshirt and set off completely naked but carrying his favourite gun across the frozen fields towards his lake. Here he would ambush the ducks, fire a few shots and return to bed apparently none the worse for his ordeal. He frequently got up again half an hour later - stripped off and went through the whole process again. His most extraordinary day's shooting came when... he got fed up waiting for the birds to come within range, stripped naked, sat on the ice and slowly shuffled forward on the slippery surface until he was within range. It took over an hour but he never caught a cold or seemed in the least unwell after this or indeed after any of his naked shooting exploits.
He had a wardrobe consisting of 150 pairs of hunting breeches, 700 pairs of handmade hunting boots, 1000 hats and some 3,000 shirts.
He also had numerous pets in his manor. Including some 2,000 dogs comprising fox hounds and other breeds such as gun dogs, pointers and retrievers, his favourites were fed on steak and champagne. Some dogs wore livery, others were costumed.
A favourite horse Baronet had full and free range inside Halston Hall, and would lie in front of the fire with Jack.
The reputation of Mad Jack was already sealed but he continued to confound and surpass his eccentric behaviour by lying between the hooves of dangerous and nervous horses. His life was described as "a series of suicide attempts".
He sought thrills through reckless driving of carriage
Carriage
A carriage is a wheeled vehicle for people, usually horse-drawn; litters and sedan chairs are excluded, since they are wheelless vehicles. The carriage is especially designed for private passenger use and for comfort or elegance, though some are also used to transport goods. It may be light,...
s. He would drive his gig
Gig (carriage)
A gig, also called chair or chaise, is a light, two-wheeled sprung cart pulled by one horse.-Description:Gigs travelling at night would normally carry two oil lamps with thick glass, known as gig-lamps. Gig carts are constructed with the driver's seat sitting higher than the level of the shafts. ...
at high speed at an obstacle like a rabbit hole only to see if it would turn over. Once he tested if a horse pulling a carriage could jump over a tollgate. It could not. He managed to survive these incidents without serious injuries. It was said of Mad Jack that "not only did he not mind accidents, he positively liked them". He raced around the country roads in a four horse gig tearing across crossroads and around hairpin corners with total disregard for his own safety or any other road users. In one anecdote he was driving his gig with a new companion, of whom Mad Jack enquired whether he had ever been upset in a gig. No the man replied "Thank God, I have never been upset in one". "What!!" cried Mytton, "What a damn slow fellow you must have been all your life!" and promptly drove the gig up a sloping bank at full speed tipping himself and his passenger out.
On another occasion he invited a local Oswestry
Oswestry
Oswestry is a town and civil parish in Shropshire, England, close to the Welsh border. It is at the junction of the A5, A483, and A495 roads....
Parson and Doctor to dine at Halston. As they left on horseback, replete and at nightfall he quickly donned a highwayman's
Highwayman
A highwayman was a thief and brigand who preyed on travellers. This type of outlaw, usually, travelled and robbed by horse, as compared to a footpad who traveled and robbed on foot. Mounted robbers were widely considered to be socially superior to footpads...
garb and mask, complete with a brace of pistols and by a circuitous route caught up with them at the edge of his estate, where he burst from cover fired both pistols over their heads and called "Stand and deliver!" and related the tale of them galloping for their lives with him hard on their heels.
Scandal
Contemporary society found his behaviour scandalous. Once he picked a fight with a tough Shropshire minerMiner
A miner is a person whose work or business is to extract ore or minerals from the earth. Mining is one of the most dangerous trades in the world. In some countries miners lack social guarantees and in case of injury may be left to cope without assistance....
who disturbed his hunt and the bare knuckle fight lasted 20 rounds before the miner gave up. He arrived at a dinner party at Halston Hall riding a bear
Bear
Bears are mammals of the family Ursidae. Bears are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans, with the pinnipeds being their closest living relatives. Although there are only eight living species of bear, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Northern...
and when he tried to make it go faster the beast bit into his calf. His biographer 'Nimrod', Charles James Apperley
Charles James Apperley
Charles James Apperley , English sportsman and sporting writer, better known as Nimrod, the pseudonym under which he published his works on the chase and on the turf, was born at Plasgronow, near Wrexham, in Denbighshire, North Wales in 1777.- Youth :Charles James Apperley was the second son of...
described it thus: '‘He once rode this bear into his drawing-room, in full hunting costume. The bear carried him very quietly for a time; but on being pricked by the spur he bit his rider through the calf of his leg.’' Despite being bitten, Mad Jack kept the bear Nell as a pet. However, it later attacked a servant and Jack had it killed.
Drinking
Mytton was also a drinking man and could drink eight bottles of port winePort wine
Port wine is a Portuguese fortified wine produced exclusively in the Douro Valley in the northern provinces of Portugal. It is typically a sweet, red wine, often served as a dessert wine, and comes in dry, semi-dry, and white varieties...
a day with a helping of brandy
Brandy
Brandy is a spirit produced by distilling wine. Brandy generally contains 35%–60% alcohol by volume and is typically taken as an after-dinner drink...
. He managed to kill one of his horses, Sportsman, by making it drink a bottle of port.
Rather than sit down to a formal dinner every evening he would sustain himself throughout the day with 'pounds of filbert
Filbert
Corylus maxima, the Filbert, is a species of hazel native to southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia, from the Balkans to Ordu in Turkey....
s' when in season, a type of hazelnut, or dine with his tenant farmers eating full fat bacon and quaffing a quart of ale beside their fire before returning to Halston Hall, where his cook and servants would have prepared a full dinner which he would now be unable to eat.
Mytton was an enthusiastic dog-fighter and gambled on the outcome of fights between bulldogs, mastiffs and terriers. He also apparently beat his own fearless bulldog with his bare fists, a dog whose favourite method of quelling his opponents was to put a vice-like bite on their snouts. He is also said to have bitten fighting dogs with his own teeth, even standing upright with a mastiff held in his own jaws without using his hands to support the weight. He was also rumored to have put his wife’s lapdog on the fire in a jealous rage, burning it to death. Though witnesses claim what actually happened was he threw the dog high in the air, caught him and his butler yelled 'sir you will kill him'. Many rumours were started about Mytton many of which were unfounded.
Decline
Mytton was spendthrift and cared little about warnings that his money was running out. He would drop bank notes in his estate and gave his servants lots of spending money. Visitors to his estate would find banknotes secreted around the grounds, whether left on purpose or simply lost by the drunken or distracted squire was uncertain. Once he lost his racetrack winnings - several thousand pounds - at DoncasterDoncaster
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"...
races when the wind blew them away. His workmen and tenants regarded him as a generous man. Over fifteen years he managed to spend his inheritance and then fell into deep debt. He totally ignored the advice of close friends and of official advisers such as his agent. His agent had calculated that if he could but reduce his expenditure to £6,000 pa for the next six years his estate would not have to be sold. Jack considered this option for a mere minute before replying "You tell Longueville (the agent) I wouldn't give a damn to live on £6,000 a year!" His fate was sealed at that point. At first creditors were hard pressed to find the services of a bailiff who was prepared to take the risk of arresting Mad Jack but in 1830 he fled to France to avoid his creditors, prison and court.
He had married, taking his first wife, a Baronet's daughter, in 1818 but she died in 1820. His second wife Caroline Giffard ran away in 1830. His wives bore him children who he would affectionately toss into the air as babies and pelt with oranges.
In Calais he fell in with a company of shady English adventurers whose occupations kept them by necessity away from English justice. He had met an attractive 20 year old woman on Westminster Bridge and immediately offered her £500 per annum to be his companion and flee with him to France. She took up his offer, which says a lot for his charisma, influence and personality. This woman, Susan, stayed with him for the two years until his death.
During his stay in France he tried to cure his hiccups by setting his shirt on fire. It did work but only the intervention of his friends spared him more serious injuries from burns. Nimrod was present at this event:
‘"Damn this hiccup!!" said Mytton as he stood undressed on the floor, apparently in the act of getting into bed “but I’ll frighten it away”; so seizing a lighted candle applied it to the tail of his shirt – it being a cotton one – he was instantly enveloped in flames. A fellow guest and Mytton’s servant beat out the flames: "The hiccup is gone, by God!", said he and reeled, naked, into bed'. From bed he quoted Sophocles in Greek the beautiful passage "wherein Oedipus recommends his children to the care of Creon" according to Apperley / Nimrod.
Apperley visited Mytton in his room the next morning, to find him ‘not only shirtless, but sheetless, with the skin of his breast, shoulders and knees of the same colour as a newly singed bacon hog’.
After a couple of years he decided to return to England and ended up in the King's Bench
King's Bench Prison
The King's Bench Prison was a prison in Southwark, south London, from medieval times until it closed in 1880. It took its name from the King's Bench court of law in which cases of defamation, bankruptcy and other misdemeanours were heard; as such, the prison was often used as a debtor's prison...
debtor's prison
Debtor's prison
A debtors' prison is a prison for those who are unable to pay a debt.Prior to the mid 19th century debtors' prisons were a common way to deal with unpaid debt.-Debt bondage in ancient Greece and Rome:...
in Southwark, London. He died there in 1834 a 'round shouldered, tottering old-young man bloated by drink. Worn out by too much foolishness, too much wretchedness and too much brandy' in one account.
The Literary Gazette
Literary Gazette
The Literary Gazette was a British literary magazine, established in London in 1817 with its full title being The Literary Gazette, and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences. Sometimes it appeared with the caption title, "London Literary Gazette". It was founded by the publisher Henry Colburn,...
's review of Nimrod's biography contrasted the youthful Mytton:
Nimrod, Charles James Apperley, a neighbour, fellow hunting devotee, close friend and peer felt compelled to record the life of Mad Jack in 'The Memoirs of the Life of the Late John Mytton, Esquire, of Halston, Shropshire, formerly MP for Shrewsbury, High Sheriff for the Counties of Salop & Merioneth (1821), Major of the North Shropshire Yeomanry Cavalry ; with Notices of his Hunting, Shooting & Driving'.
Published in 1837 this often reprinted series of articles written by Nimrod in The New Sporting Magazine sell for thousands of pounds when originals or early reprints come up at auction.
Maybe the last word on the life of Mad Jack Mytton should be left to Nimrod, a man who knew him well and had a full and lengthy insight into the enigma that was John Mytton : 'It was his largeness of heart that ruined Mr Mytton, added to the lofty pride which disdained the littleness of Prudence'. But it was also Nimrod who asked:
Offspring
Mytton left a number of children.Harriet Emma Charlot was born to his first wife (Harriet Emma) c.1818
He married his second wife Caroline Gifford on 29 October 1821 and she had a daughter and four sons: Barbara Augusta (b. 9 August 1822), John Fox Fitz-Giffard (b. 20 November 1823), Charles Orville January (b. 1825), Euphrates Henry April (b. 1826) and William Harper (b. April 1827). Euphrates and Charles died young but his two other sons and both daughters survived him. Barbara Augusta in 1847 married Colonel Poulett George Henry Somerset, son of Lord Charles Henry Somerset, a younger brother of the 6th Duke of Beaufort
Duke of Beaufort
Duke of Beaufort is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created by Charles II in 1682 for Henry Somerset, 3rd Marquess of Worcester, a descendant of Charles Somerset, 1st Earl of Worcester, illegitimate son of Henry Beaufort, 3rd Duke of Somerset, a Lancastrian leader in the Wars of the...
.
Images
A print, of a portrait of John Mytton, was published by Ackerman in 1847 – 13 years after the squire's death. These were marked "JOHN MYTTON ESQ. HALSTON SALOP ~ from an original picture in the possession of John Bishton Minor Esq. Astley House Pradoe, guardian of JFG Mytton, this engraving of his ward's late father" When the print was published John jnr would have been 24 years old and would have inherited what was left of the estate.There is also a well known portrait of Mytton on horseback, by William Webb, and numerous illustrations, by H. Alken and T.J. Rawlins, appear in Nimrod's "Life of John Mytton".
Modern References
- Remarkably, Jack Mytton has served as the inspiration for the Jack Mytton WayJack Mytton WayThe Jack Mytton Way is a long distance footpath and bridleway for horseriders, hillwalkers and mountain bikers in mid and south Shropshire, England. It typically takes a week to ride on horseback....
a long distance bridleway for riders, mountain bikers and walkers which runs for 116 kilometres / 72 miles through South and Mid Shropshire. There is much ironyIronyIrony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
in his name linked to a venture dedicated to healthy outdoor living. - More appropriately there is a public housePublic houseA public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
named after him in the canalside village of Hindford near WhittingtonWhittington, ShropshireWhittington is a village in north west Shropshire, England.The civil parish of Whittington has a population of 2,490 as of the 2001 census. The village of Whittington is in the centre of the parish, and two smaller villages, Hindford to the north-east and Babbinswood to the south, are also within...
very near his country house at Halston Hall. - A hotel, The Mytton & Mermaid, or Mermaid Hotel, on the River Severn at Atcham near Shrewsbury also bears his name and has a bar, Mad Jacks Bar, named in his honour. His funeral cortege halted there on its way to the chapel at Halston.
- There are eight roads, closes, avenues and lanes in Shropshire bearing the Mytton name.
- Mad Jack's life bears comparison with a contemporary, Beau BrummellBeau BrummellBeau Brummell, born as George Bryan Brummell , was the arbiter of men's fashion in Regency England and a friend of the Prince Regent, the future King George IV...
, whose life describes a similar arc. - The Jack Mytton Run, an annual streakingStreakingStreaking is the act of running nude through a public place.-History:On 5 July 1799, a Friday evening at 7 o'clock, a naked man was arrested at the Mansion House, London, and sent to the Poultry Compter...
event by nude students, happens on the University of MinnesotaUniversity of MinnesotaThe University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
campus in Minneapolis, MinnesotaMinneapolis, MinnesotaMinneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...
across Northrup Mall on the first class day following spring break. It is reported to have begun in 1999. In 2009, the multi-year streak was ended when campus police deterred the run.