Daniel Lambert ( 1770 – 1809) was an English gaol keeper and animal breeder from Leicester, famous for his unusually large size. After serving four years as an apprentice at an engraving and die casting works in Birmingham, he returned to Leicester around 1788 and succeeded his father as keeper of Leicester's gaol. He was a keen sportsman and extremely strong; on one occasion he fought a bear in the streets of Leicester. He was an expert in sporting animals, widely respected for his expertise with dogs, horses and fighting cocks.
At the time of Lambert's return to Leicester, his weight began to increase steadily, even though he was athletically active and, by his own account, abstained from drinking alcohol and did not eat unusual amounts of food. In 1805, Lambert's gaol closed. By this time, he weighed , and had become the heaviest authenticated person up to that point in recorded history. Unemployable and sensitive about his size, Lambert became a recluse.
In 1806, poverty forced Lambert to put himself on exhibition to raise money. In , he took up residence in London, charging spectators to enter his apartments to meet him. Visitors were impressed by his intelligence and personality, and visiting him became highly fashionable. After some months on public display, Lambert grew tired of exhibiting himself, and in , he returned, wealthy, to Leicester, where he bred sporting dogs and regularly attended sporting events. Between 1806 and 1809, he made a further series of short fundraising tours.
In June 1809, he died suddenly in Stamford, Lincolnshire. At the time of his death, he weighed , and his coffin required of wood. Despite the coffin being built with wheels to allow easy transport, and a sloping approach being dug to the grave, it took 20 men almost half an hour to drag his casket into the trench, in a newly opened burial ground to the rear of St Martin's Church. 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".
Early life
Daniel Lambert was born at his parents' house in Blue Boar Lane, Leicester, on 13 March 1770. His father, also named Daniel Lambert, had been 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. The eldest of four children, Daniel Lambert had two sisters, and a brother who died young.
At the age of eight he was a keen swimmer, and for much of his life he taught local children to swim. Lambert's paternal uncle—like his father—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. From his early teens, Lambert was a keen sportsman and by his late teens he was considered an expert in the breeding of hunting dogs.
In 1784, he was apprenticed to Messrs Taylor & Co, an engraving and die casting works in Birmingham owned by a Mr Benjamin Patrick.
Lambert shared his interests and knowledge of sports, dogs and animal husbandry with London's middle and upper classes, and it soon became highly fashionable to visit him, or become his friend. Many called repeatedly; one banker made 20 visits, paying the admission fee on each occasion. During this period of English history no real stigma was attached to obesity, and Lambert was generally considered a wonder to be marvelled at, rather than a freak to be gawped or sneered at. His business venture was immediately successful, drawing around 400 paying visitors per day. His home was described as having the air of a fashionable resort, rather than that of an exhibition, and he was pleased to find that his customers generally treated him with courtesy, and not simply as a spectacle. He insisted on maintaining amongst his visitors an atmosphere of civility and all men entering his rooms were obliged to remove their hats. One visitor refused to remove his "even if the King were present" but Lambert replied that "Then by G——, Sir, you must instantly quit this room, as I do not consider it a mark of respect due to myself, but to the ladies and gentlemen who honour me with their company."
Lambert's popularity inspired an imitator in "Master Wybrants, Mr. Lambert in miniature", exhibited a short distance away in Sackville Street. A handbill described Wybrants as "Master Wybrants the Modern Hercules, who at the age of 4 Months weighed 39 pounds, measured 2 feet round the Body 15 Inches round the thigh and 8 Inches round the Arm, to be seen at the corner of Sackville Street Piccadilly".
People would travel long distances to see him (on one occasion, a party of 14 travelled to London from Guernsey), and many would spend hours speaking with him on animal breeding. A life-sized waxwork of Lambert was displayed in London, where it became extremely popular. Daniel Lambert soon became a popular subject with cartoonists, who often depicted him as John Bull. He mixed well with the upper classes, and on one occasion met King George III. The King's and Lambert's reactions to this meeting are not recorded.
Medical examination
thumb|right|Daniel Lambert during his first exhibition in London|alt=Smartly dressed fat man with dark hair sitting on a chair
Lambert soon came to the attention of the medical profession, and shortly after his arrival in London, the Medical and Physical Journal published an article about him. They confirmed that he weighed , and measured his height as . A thorough medical examination found that his bodily functions worked correctly, and that he breathed freely. Lambert was described as active and mentally alert, well-read, and with an excellent memory. He was fond of singing, and had a normal speaking voice which showed no signs of pressure on the lungs. Doctors found tumefaction of his feet, legs and thighs, and accumulation of fat within the abdomen, but other than scaly and thickened skin on his legs caused by previous attacks of erysipelas, he had no health problems. Lambert told the doctors that he ate normal quantities of ordinary food. He claimed that since about 1795 he had drunk nothing but water, and that even while young, and a regular party-goer, he did not join his fellow revellers in drinking. Lambert claimed that he was able to walk about a quarter of a mile (400 m) without difficulty. He slept regularly for no more than eight hours per night, always with his window open, and was never heard to snore; on waking he was always fully alert within five minutes, and he never napped during the day.
Possible causes
It is impossible to be certain about what caused Daniel Lambert's extreme weight, but it is considered unlikely to have been caused by an endocrine (glandular) or genetic disorder. Other than his weight gain, he showed no symptoms of a thyroid disorder, and none of his many portraits show the moon face of a patient with Cushing's syndrome. Patients with Bardet–Biedl syndrome and Prader–Willi syndrome, genetic syndromes which can lead to obesity in patients, also have learning disabilities and muscular weakness, but all those who knew Lambert agreed that he was highly intelligent, was extremely strong physically, and, except for erysipelas and venous insufficiency (varicose veins) in his legs, did not have any health problems. One contemporary commentator remarked that "Mr. Lambert scarcely knows what it is to be ailing or indisposed". Lambert's only recorded psychological problem was an occasional "depression of the spirits", during his time in London. Although he had an aunt and uncle who were overweight, his parents and surviving siblings remained of normal build throughout their lives.
Consequently, it is likely that Lambert's weight gain was caused not by a physical disorder but by a combination of overeating and a lack of exercise. Although heavily built in his teens, he began to gain weight only when he took up the relatively sedentary job of prison keeper. A biography of Lambert published during his lifetime recounted that "it was within a year of this appointment that his bulk received the greatest and most rapid encrease". Although he claimed to eat little, and to abstain from alcohol, it is likely that a man with his lifestyle and position in society would have eaten large amounts of meat, and drunk beer at social events.
Józef Boruwłaski
After some months in London, Lambert was visited by Józef Boruwłaski, a dwarf then in his seventies. Born in 1739 to a poor family in rural Pokuttya, Boruwłaski was generally considered to be the last of Europe's court dwarfs. He was introduced to the Empress Maria Theresa in 1754, and after a short time residing with deposed Polish king Stanisław Leszczyński, he exhibited himself around Europe, thus becoming a wealthy man. At age 60, he retired to Durham, where he became such a popular figure that the City of Durham paid him to live there and he became one of its most prominent citizens. Boruwłaski had a superb memory, and recalled that Lambert, while still employed by Patrick's die casting works and before he grew fat, had paid to see him in Birmingham. Boruwłaski remarked "I have seen this face twenty years before at Birmingham, but certainly it be another body". He had been told that Lambert's bulk was a hoax, and he therefore felt his leg to prove to himself that it was not. The two men compared their respective outfits, and calculated that one of Lambert's sleeves would provide enough cloth to make an entire coat for Boruwłaski. Lambert enquired after Boruwłaski's wife, Isalina Barbutan, whereupon the latter replied "No, she is dead, and I am not very sorry, for when I affront her, she put me on the mantle-shelf for punishment."
The meeting of Lambert and Boruwłaski, the largest and smallest men in the country, was the subject of enormous public interest; one newspaper reported that "It was Sir John Falstaff and Tom Thumb, which must have afforded a double treat to the curious". Boruwłaski lived to see his 98th year, despite the prediction of the money-lender who sold him his annuity that his small stature would make him prone to illness.
Disillusionment
Although generally respected by London society, the longer Lambert remained there, the more irritable he became. Shy and self-conscious, he was annoyed at repeatedly being asked about the size of his clothes. In answer to one request, to a woman who enquired as to the cost of his coat, he replied "I cannot pretend to charge my memory with the price, but I can put you into a method of obtaining the information you want. If you think proper to make me a present of a new coat, you will then know exactly what it costs". Another interested spectator claimed that since his entrance fee was paying for Lambert's clothing, he had the right to know about it; Lambert replied "Sir, if I knew what part of my next coat your shilling would pay for, I can assure you I would cut out the piece". Lambert calculated in 1806 that a full suit of clothes cost him £20, about £ as of .
Return to Leicester
Lambert had the acumen to refuse the management offers of various impresarios and agents, and by , he had returned to Leicester as a wealthy man. He returned to his favourite pastimes, breeding sporting dogs and fighting cocks. A terrier bitch, for which he was offered 100 guineas (about £ as of ), was said to be the finest in England. He refused to sell the dog, which became his lifetime companion. He began again to attend sporting events, as a report on the Leicester Races of September 1806 noted that "Among the distinguished characters upon the turf we were glad to see our old friend, Mr. Daniel Lambert, in apparent high health and spirits". Although too heavy to follow hunts on horseback, he used a portion of the money earned in London to build up a pack of greyhounds, watching from his carriage as they coursed hares in the Leicestershire countryside.
In December 1806, Lambert went on a brief fundraising tour, and exhibited himself in Birmingham and Coventry. Early the next year he returned to London, and stayed in the fashionable Leicester Square. There he fell ill; his physician Dr Heaviside felt that his illness might have been caused by the polluted London air, and Lambert returned to Leicester. He recovered, and later in 1807, made a series of tours of England.
In summer 1808, Lambert briefly returned to the capital, where he sold a pair of spaniels for 75 guineas (about £ as of ) at Tattersalls. Later that year, he exhibited himself in York. In , he set off on another tour of East Anglia, to conclude in Stamford during the Stamford Races. One account suggests that this tour was intended to be his last, as he was then sufficiently wealthy to retire. While on the tour, Lambert was weighed in Ipswich; his weight was . No longer able to use stairs, he took lodgings on the ground floor of the Waggon & Horses inn at 47 High Street, Stamford on 20 June. A suitably sized grave had been dug, with a sloping approach to avoid the need to lower the coffin from above, but on 23 June, it nonetheless took almost half an hour for twenty men to pull Lambert's enormous coffin into the grave.
upright=1.3|thumb|right|Daniel Lambert's grave|alt=Large gravestone in a churchyard
Lambert's friends paid for a large gravestone, inscribed:
After death
In late 1809, John Drakard released The life of that wonderful and extraordinary heavy man, the late Danl. Lambert, from his birth to the moment of his dissolution, with an account of men noted for their corpulency, and other interesting matter, the first full biography of Lambert to be released after his death. Lambert's position as the heaviest person in recorded history was soon overtaken by the American Mills Darden (1799–1857), but Lambert had by now become a cult figure, and virtually every item connected with him was preserved for posterity. His clothes and possessions were sold at auction to collectors, and many of them are preserved in museums today.
Across England, many public houses and inns were renamed after Daniel Lambert, particularly in Leicester and Stamford. The Daniel Lambert public house at 12 Ludgate Hill, near the entrance to St Paul's Cathedral in London, was well known, and had a large portrait of Daniel Lambert and Lambert's walking stick on display in the lobby. James Dixon, owner of the Ram Jam Inn in Stamford, bought the suit of clothes Lambert had been wearing when he died and put it on display, renaming the inn the Daniel Lambert.
thumb|right|upright|Print of "Daniel Lambert, of surprising corpulency", published in 1821|alt=Smartly dressed fat man with dark hair sitting on a chair
The term "Daniel Lambert" entered common use in English speech and writing, to refer to any fat man. His name continued in this use long after the details of his life had been largely forgotten; in 1852, Charles Dickens remarked that "Lambert's name is known better than his history". Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby compares the obese George IV to Lambert, and William Makepeace Thackeray used the term in Vanity Fair to refer to the obese Joseph Sedley, and in The Luck of Barry Lyndon to refer to the fat servant Tim. As time progressed, "Daniel Lambert" came to mean anything exceptionally large; Herbert Spencer's The Study of Sociology used the phrase "a Daniel Lambert of learning",