Some of the problems are:
what was seen as eccentric in the 19th century might not be seen as
eccentric by us
what we see as eccentric might not have been seen as eccentric in the 19th
century.
19th century writers might well report on people who were thought to be
eccentric whilst being too polite to mention that word.
I presume that what you are doing is studying perceptions of
eccentricity. (In the light of all that, I hope you are going to find some
women thought to be eccentric - that might be very revealing).
I mention these points because in Wolverhampton our best candidate is
Colonel Thorneycroft who, I think, was never actually called eccentric; was
almost certainly thought of at the time as very eccentric; is thought of
these days as a great eccentric; but most of his acts cited as eccentric
seem really very sensible or to have a very sensible core. He was very
highly regarded at the time.
Some examples of his efforts:
he installed central heating in his house, Tettenhall Towers, and had the
pipes in the bedrooms so shaped that boots, shoes and socks could be fitted
over them to dry and warm overnight
he invented a portable ball room that you could put in the street outside
your London house against the windows of your first floor reception room,
thereby extending the dancing space available
he installed a theatre in Tettenhall Towers with a large waterfall feature
as a backdrop. The water was not wasted but used to flush out the house's
drains and sewers. He invented a device to pump scented air into the
theatre.
in times of high unemployment he engaged local men to start digging a lake
in his grounds, piling up the excavated earth in great mounds to make
mounds for taking the distant view. The mounds stayed there until the next
cycle of unemployment when the Colonel would engage unemployed men to use
them for filling up the hole made by the first lot of men. And so on.
he took an early balloon flight, which nearly killed him, but he
immediately went home, invented a mechanism for steering balloons and,
following his usual practice, wrote a long poem about his experience; he
saw Blondin and immediately took up tightrope walking - but with his rope
very near the ground.
when coming home in his carriage he would usually drop the coachman and
grooms off at a nearby pub, buy them half a gallon of beer, and then drive
himself home
he invented a glass umbrella so you could see where you were going in the
rain; a safety bottle opener which protected you if the wine bottle
shattered on opening; playing cards for the blind; and a scheme for
blowing fresh air from the countryside through great pipes into the towns.
It is said that his wife was a restraining influence on him. He was
described by a town councillor as "perhaps the most picturesque figure
possessed by the town" - but I do not know that anyone used the word
"eccentric".
There is a delightful account of him in Geoffrey Hancock, A Tettenhall
History, Broadside, 1991, pp 66-71. The author does point out the other
problem in studying eccentrics: it is difficult to tell which stories
about them are true; and he cites one story - the one about the butler
being made to try out a flying machine - which gets told about many people.
Frank Sharman
Wolverhampton
01902 763246
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