The story of Daniel Lambert – the fattest man in England

A century ago, excess weight was a problem of wealthy people who could afford excesses in nutrition. Therefore, when in the 18th century the commoner Daniel Lambert suddenly got fat– it became a real sensation. Now, centuries later, no one will know what happened to him. We can only wonder at the facts from the life of this unusual person.

Daniel Lambert was born in 1770 in Leicester, Leicestershire in a poor English family. His childhood passed the same way as other guys - Daniel spent whole days in the forests surrounding his hometown, fished with friends, and when he got older, he went hunting. The guy was distinguished by strength and agility, swam well and ran faster than many peers.

When Lambert turned 14, his carefree childhood ended. So that his family, where there were several other children, could make ends meet, he went to Birmingham and got a job there at a factory where engraved belt buckles and buttons were produced.

But the demand for the company's products was not great and soon it went bankrupt. Daniel was left without a job and had to return to his native Leicester, where he began helping his father, who worked as a jailer. When the guy turned 21, he replaced his father at the post and began to guard the prisoners. In his spare time, Lambert played sports - he swam and lifted weights, keeping himself in excellent physical shape.

Around the same time, Daniel began to gain weight. Just three years after returning from work, he weighed 200 kg and continued to recover. Despite this, the young man continued to exercise and could boast of excellent results. Lambert's contemporaries claimed that he could easily shoulder a log weighing 250 kg and walk a couple of miles with it.

It seemed that the extra weight did not weigh down Lambert at all – he retained flexibility and energy. The man swam a lot and taught this wisdom to local children, and when he warmed up before physical exercises, he easily sat down on the splits, surprising others. They say the big guy could swim across the river, holding two adult men on his back. In his spare time, Daniel continued to be interested in hunting, which he always went on horseback.

Lambert's strength and courage were legendary. One of them tells that one day a menagerie came to Leicester and Daniel went to look at the animals. When he was standing in the crowd and looking at a trained bear, his dog broke off the leash and attacked the beast. The bear easily threw the animal away, but the keeper of the menagerie decided to make a show. He removed the muzzle from the bear so that he could deal with the dog in front of hundreds of onlookers.

Lambert had to stand up for his pet. He jumped up to the bear and started hitting him with a pole torn from the fence, but it didn't help. Then the strongman had no choice but to hit the predator in the face with his fist, from which he fell dead. The beloved dog was saved, and Daniel became a real local legend and people came to look at him.

Unfortunately for Lambert, his weight continued to increase. At the age of 31, the man weighed 250 kg, and the horse stopped supporting him. Because of this, the Englishman was forced to give up his favorite hobby – hunting. In 1805, the prison closed and Daniel was left without a job. Having remarkable strength, he could easily find something to do, but the weight prevented this – he barely passed through the doors and it became difficult for him to walk.

The 50 pounds received as severance pay in prison was quickly coming to an end and something had to be done urgently. Having lost his job, Lambert led a hermit's lifestyle – he did not have a wife, and he almost did not leave the house. At the same time, he was often pestered by uninvited guests – after the incident with the bear, many wanted to see the mighty giant and shake his hand.

At first, such attention annoyed Lambert and he avoided meetings with fans in every possible way, but then he realized that his fame was a way to earn money and made a decision. A not entirely pleasant case helped him in this. Desperately ashamed of his weight, Daniel refused to weigh, but one day his friends outwitted him.

They invited him to attend cockfights and put him in a carriage. The cunning men drove the cart onto a large scale weighing carts with grain, and suddenly jumped out. Since the weight of the cart was known to them, it was easier to determine the weight of the fat man. It turned out that Lambert gained 320 kg! For the beginning of the 19th century, it was a phenomenal weight, especially for a poor man.

After this incident, Lambert decided that if he could not earn in another way, he would show himself at fairs for money. For a modest man who had worked physically all his life, it was not an easy decision, but there was no other way out. Having borrowed money, Lambert went to London, where he rented an apartment in Piccadilly. He received guests at home - those who wanted to see the fattest man in the kingdom just came and paid one shilling.

Lambert often started conversations with guests – an intelligent and reasonable man, who was well versed in hunting, was an excellent conversationalist, which contributed to the growth of his popularity. Daniel's fame was so great that he was honored with a visit by King George III himself.

Most of the guests behaved delicately, but there were exceptions. Some visitors asked incorrect questions that angered the fat man. Most of all, he did not like being asked about how much he eats and how he buys his clothes. At the same time, we must pay tribute to the man, he always kept calm and did not be rude to visitors. To one woman who asked about the cost of his coat, Lambert replied very wittily:

In 1806, Daniel Lambert began touring the cities of England, showing himself at squares and fairs. He was making good money, but the extra weight was making itself felt more and more. The man's health deteriorated so much that he was forced to go to the doctors, which he had never done before in his life.

The doctors examined the giant and weighed him, but could not help. Lambert 's weight in 1807 was 320 kg with a height of 180 cm . Doctors recognized that Lambert is a healthy young man with an excellent memory and a strong nervous system, but could not determine the cause of his excess weight.

Meanwhile, Daniel was getting worse. If once he could walk several miles with a huge load and not get tired, now his limit was a modest 400 meters, after which he was forced to sit down and rest. In addition, the man had severe shortness of breath, which tormented him even at rest.

Daniel Lambert died in 1809 at the age of only 39. The doctors of that time could not determine the cause of his death, and the friends of the deceased did not allow an autopsy of the body. Today, experts suggest that he died of pulmonary thromboembolism, because before his death, Daniel complained of difficulty breathing and a strong heartbeat.

Lambert died in a foreign country, while on tour, and his death caused the owners of the hotel a lot of inconvenience. They had to dismantle part of the wall so that the undertakers could take the body out of the room. Daniel's coffin could not be carried on his shoulders and had to be equipped with wheels.

Grave grave was also not suitable - a huge and heavy coffin, weighing together with the deceased more than half a ton, it was impossible to lower into the grave just like that. Therefore, a special pit was dug in the cemetery with an inclined exit, along which the coffin was simply rolled down. Despite this, it took 20 people to bury Lambert's body. The following words were carved on the tombstone:

For some time, Daniel Lambert was considered the heaviest inhabitant of the planet, but soon his record was broken by American Mills Darden, who weighed 460 kg. But for the British, their compatriot has always remained the most-the most. In Leicester, several buildings and companies bear Lambert's name, and his personal belongings are kept in the city's Newark Houses Museum. In the Stamford Museum, you can see a life-size figure of a fat man in clothes completely repeating the original one.

It remains to add that against the background of modern fat men, Daniel Lambert would seem elegant as a cypress tree. For example, Mexican Manuel Uribe in his "best years" weighed more than 590 kg.