James
Among the C19 antiquarians who recorded 'eccentricity' you may already have
noted William Robinson, who produced several local histories of north and
north east London parishes (Enfield, Tottenham, Stoke Newington and Hackney)
between 1820 and 1842, and also left a multi-volume manuscript for a sequel
for Stepney (now at the London Metropolitan Archives). He was fascinated by
local legends and folk tales - hermits, 'fat boys'; witches. He even
commissioned drawings for engravings of imagined scenes (such as St Dunstan
confronting the devil with hot tongs), and the stuff at LMA includes
pamphlets of his.
The Hackney and Stepney works especially contain an ill-ordered assemblage
also of what he called 'scraps' - and among the robberies, murders,
'remarkable occurrences' culled from old newspaper cuttings there is also
the odd (as it were) 'eccentric'.
In the Hackney work, these occur between 'Extraordinary persons' (the
accomplished Susanna Perwich; a clever thief; Dick Turpin) and accounts of
various robberies. The so-called 'eccentrics' are the following: the
testator of an insulting will; a man who was 'passionately fond' of, and
cultivated the company of, rats; also, interestingly, two men described as
'monsters' (a flasher and a spanker who frequented the churchyard!). Though
it is not quite clear from the arrangement whether the last two are regarded
by WR as sui generis.
Robinson's interest in - you might call it enthusiasm for - all these
varieties of material seems oddly similar - the common thread being a
fascination for anything out of the ordinary (there is also a list, for
example, of burials of residents of great longevity).
Isobel
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