Iron Foot Jack

At the time of the preliminary hearing on 28 August, Neave was described as a phrenologist, aged 48, and living at Robert Street, London NW.

The paper characterised him as an: outstanding figure among the lower strata of Bohemian London where he liked to regard himself as a sort of uncrowned king ...

[8]According to the Express, Neave was an associate of the model Dolores who had posed for Jacob Epstein, and he had organised a "farewell" night for her at one of his clubs shortly before her death (August 1934).

The paper wrote that Neave wished to set up a new Bohemia in London "modelled on the lines of the Latin Quarter night resort".

Several sources speak of his poor personal hygiene, describing him as the man that put the BO in Bohemia,[10] but that it improved somewhat after he married.

He had a juicy cockney accent, boasted of occult powers, and lived with a series of old crones whom he used as an excuse for hinting at Crowleyan sexual virility.

Should a diner be unlucky enough to enter and order that dish, Neave would send a boy to buy fish and chips from the local shop which he would serve nicely presented on a plate.

[12][13] According to the recollections of Julian Davies, no one knew where Neave lived and it was unwise to give him your address in case you acquired an unwanted lodger.

[14] In 1957 he would sit patiently as a character subject for Walter Merynowicz's evening classes in photo-portraiture at Ealing School of Art.

[citation needed] Around 1958 or 59, the musician Ian Dury, who was himself disabled after contracting polio, travelled to Old Compton Street in the hope of meeting "Iron Foot Jack", about whom he had heard.

[20] It was whilst having his portrait painted by Timothy Whidborne that he dictated his memoir The Surrender of Silence a copy of which he gave to the author Colin Wilson in 1957.

Neave as "Iron Foot Jack" is one of the characters that Harry Preston meets in Colin Wilson's semi-autobiographical novel Adrift in Soho.

[3] “Iron Foot Jack” makes several appearances in the film version of Colin Wilson’s Adrift in Soho directed by Pablo Behrens.