shoe

Charles O’ Brien or Bryne was born in the village of Littlebridge, Ireland in 1761, to a mother described as a ‘stout woman with a strong voice’, both of his parents were of average stature and he was average sized at birth and during infancy. His increase in size accelerated during his childhood and teenage years when he was discovered by Joe Vance, who became his manager. He was exhibited at local fairs and at the age of 21 his height was publicised as 8ft 4”. He travelled from Ireland to the UK and was first exhibited in Edinburgh where he was a success. It was rumoured that he was able to light his pipe with a street lamp. Londoners had a soft spot for giants; they were the stuff of legends and evoked fear and wonder. Exaggerated tales of proportion and feats of strength and Charles O’ Brien was the tallest the capital had seen yet for he stood a whole 2 feet taller than the average Londoner. The newspapers lost no time in describing him as the ‘Modern Living Colossus’. He was advertised in the Morning Herald as the “Irish Giant, To be seen this, and every day this week, in his large and elegant room in Spring Gardens. Mr Bryne, the surprising Irish giant, who is allowed to be the tallest man in the world, his height is 8ft 2 inches and in full proportion accordingly and only 21 years of age.”

He captivated Londoners overnight, such was the notoriety of O’Brien that he is even mentioned by Charles Dickens in David Copperfield. The passage mentions a woman of short stature and says “…But her face, as she turned it up to mine, was so earnest; and when I relieved her of her umbrella ( which would have been an inconvenient one for the Irish Giant0 , she wrung her little hands in such an afflicted manner; that I rather inclined towards her.” ( pp522 Chapter 32 Penguin classic edition)

Contemporary pamphlets’ state his voice sounded like thunder and that tall man walked under his arm. The public paid as much as half a crown to view him. All initial reports were complimentary, within weeks he had even met the King and Queen at Kew, soon however a report was published that his appearance looked unwholesome, indeed his health had always suffered and as a result of his new found fame and income he had taken to drink and shows frequently had to be cancelled for this reason, in order to increase his audience the price of admittance was dropped down to a shilling. His spirits lowered even more by rumours of competition, Patrick Cotter was a new giant and was touring, and he was said to be even bigger, and had begun to advertise himself as a second cousin of Charles, even adopting the same surname of O’ Brien! There was also the novelty of the Knipe twins, who at 6ft 7’’ were not as tall as Charles but were double the attraction.

One memorable account tells of an evening in April 1783 when O’ Brien had gone on a drinking spree in a Haymarket tavern carrying with him all of his earnings since he had arrived in London, the next morning he found that the bank notes had been stolen- this blow lowered his spirits even more and he sought comfort more often in bouts of drinking.

At this time he had been brought to the attention of the most eminent of London surgeons’ John Hunter, who had been following O’Briens career with particular interest as he was eager to observe any deviations from the norm, Hunter was keen to make O’ Brien’s acquaintance. This fascination soon became obsessional and O’Brien was living and exhibiting a mere 5 minutes walk from Hunters house, temptingly near . Hunter, who has been called the founder of scientific surgery, had begun collecting and research into zoology and comparative anatomy during the 1760’s. His collection included many a strange animal such as 2 headed cows and multiple tailed lizards. His reputation as a collector of the unusual was as well known as his curiosity for scientific study through dissection. Hunters’ colleagues were allied to gangs of body snatchers as they supplied the corpses needed for such study. The only way scientists could obtain corpses for study was through theft or from the hangman. The horror people felt at the prospect of dissection was partly because of religious and folk beliefs about bodily resurrection after the last judgement as well as its unsavoury associations with crime and disgrace. It is not known if Hunter had approached Charles O’Brien directly but Hunter had a man named Howison in his employ who was tasked to follow O’ Brien around in case he should suddenly die. Giants had a reputation for short lives, Hunter was prepared to bide his time and it was simplicity itself for Howison to stalk his movements as he was literally head and shoulders above all other Londoners. O’Brien was aware of Hunter’s scheme and had a great fear of being dissected and seeking desperately for a way to outwit Hunter and Howison he left London as a precaution travelling to the coast. Here it is alleged he promised his remaining savings to some fishermen because he wanted them to bury him at sea in a lead coffin anonymously where the medical men could not find his corpse.

When O’Brien died in 1783, the event was immediately reported in the London newspapers: “ Charles O’ Brien, aged 22, the famous Irish Giant, whose death is said to have been precipitated by excessive drinking, to which he was always addicted, but more particularly since his late loss of almost all of his property, which he had invested in a single bank note of £700. His last moments it has been said he requested that his ponderous remains might be thrown into the sea, in order that his bones be placed far out of the reach of the surgical fraternity.” What is definite is that there was a scramble to procure the body and this filled many newspaper columns. The fishermen collected his body, but somehow Howison intervened, got the fishermen drunk and bribed them to deliver the body direct to Hunters house In Earl’s Court. Another less dramatic version states that Hunter merely bribed a London Undertaker £500 in order to obtain the body and drove it back himself hidden under straw in a cart wearing nothing but a funeral shroud. How O’Brien’s body was procured may never be resolved but arrive at Hunters underground laboratory it did. Here Hunter prepared it by boiling it in an immense copper kettle down into a jumble of bones and then he reassembled and prepared it for his collection. It was a further 4 years before Hunter exhibited the skeleton, where he was to be the centrepiece of his collection.

His size when measured after death was 7ft 7” proving that it was exaggerated during his lifetime by 7 inches in total. His remains are still on display at The Hunterian Museum, London and we own one of his hand stitched leather shoes.

The question of Charles O’Brien’s gigantism wasn’t resolved until 1909 when the giant’s cranium was sawn open for examination and a great enlargement of the pituitary fossa was found- this was due to a pituitary tumour growing upwards and forwards, this of course is curable today. A new medical article published this year (Lancet January 2011) which mentions Charles O’ Brien. A team from Barts Hospital, London have examined the teeth of O’ Brien and successfully extracted his DNA. This research concluded that he had a rare and mysterious genetic mutation called AIP which had been identified in 2006. AIP is the root cause of tumours forming in the pituitary gland- which potentially leads to gigantism. ( gi-gant-ism) This research was carried out after a northern Irish family had been tested in 2008 and shown to carry the AIP mutation. Doctors acting on this new found information found that 5 other Northern Irish families were found to possess AIP and that they all shared a common ancestor- that of Charles O’Brien. So perhaps his rival of fellow Irish Giant, Patrick Cotter’s suggestion that they were related was after all more than an advertising strategy.