Last week I went to visit a dear friend in the lovely market town of Oakham and had the opportunity to visit the outside of a house that once belonged to another very special person. The smallest man in the smallest county in England, Jeffery Hudson. However though he was physically tiny, he lived a life that would seem impossible full to many of us today.
Jeffery Hudson was born in Oakham in 1619. He was only 18 inches (48 cm) tall until he was 30 years of age. Then he started to grow again but he never exceeded 3 feet 6 inches (106cm). He was considered one of the ’wonders of the age’ because of his extreme but well-proportioned smallness.
His family were all typical size. His father was keeper of the baiting bulls for George Villiers. Duke of Buckingham. Lady Katherine Manners, the Duke’s wife, took the nine year-old Jeffery into her household, where he wore silks, and had two servants.
At a lavish banquet for King Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria, Jeffery appeared from a pie placed before the Queen dressed in a miniature suit of armour. The Queen was delighted and the Duke and Duchess offered Hudson to her as a gift.
Jeffery fought with the Royalists in the English Civil War and fled with the Queen to France. Growing tired of being treated as a fool and a jester he vowed that he wanted to be taken seriously and make more of himself. Obviously someone didn’t take him seriously and to preserve his honour, Jeffery challenged his opponent to a duel.
Even now poor Jeffery was not taken seriously and his opponent came in to battle with something akin to water pistol. Jeffrey shot the man dead with a clean hit through his temple but all of this caused something of a ruckus and having been fortunate to escape with his life, Jeffrey returned to England.
Sadly he was captured by Barbary pirates and spent 25 years as a slave in North Africa before being ransomed back to England in around 1669. Not many people in Britain (let alone the world) know that white Britons were often captured by raiding ships and taken away as slaves to Africa.
When finally back home Jeffrey lived in Oakham for several years, then returned to London during the feverish period of the Popish Plot, set on by fellow Oakham native Titus Oates. As a Catholic, Hudson was imprisoned. He was released in 1680, two years before his death and was buried in an unmarked Catholic paupers’ grave.
It is thought that Jeffery is in the inspiration for the folklore character, little Tom Thumb and if you are in London you can visit many other similar places on my The Nursery Rhyme Tour of London.
Stephen Liddell 