Thomas Topham

In early life he was landlord of the Red Lion Inn, near old St. Luke's Hospital, and although he failed there in business, soon gained profit and notoriety by his feats of strength.

Here, standing on a wooden stage, he raised several inches from the ground three hogsheads of water weighing 1,836 pounds (833 kg), using for the purpose a strong rope and tackle passing over his shoulders.

[4] One night he is said to have carried a watchman in his box from Chiswell Street till he finally dropped his sleeping burden over the wall of Bunhill Fields burying-ground.

Dr. John Theophilus Desaguliers records, among other feats of Topham's witnessed by him, the bending of a large iron poker nearly to a right angle by striking it upon his bare left arm.

He is said to have been usually of a mild disposition; but, excited to frenzy by the infidelity of his wife, he stabbed her and then wounded himself so severely that he died a few days afterwards at the Bell and Dragon on 10 August 1749.