A Giant's Tale, Part Three: On the Road Again
by Clifton Bertram
Across the Medicine Line: Tales From the 49th Parallel.
The articles in ‘Across the Medicine Line’ are written in hopes of learning more about how North America came to be. How our peoples lived, ate, drank, travelled, loved, fought and thought during the time between the discovery, founding and solidification of our long partnership and our current society. We believe that learning these stories can further strengthen the many ties that bind our two nations and better understand – or even heal! – the divisions that still separate us.
In Part Two, we followed Charles Freeman’s triumphant conquest of the bare-knuckle boxing world in England, including his defeat of The Tipton Slasher and his subsequent retirement from prize-fighting to become a barman and travelling strongman performer.
Brighton, Worthing and Victorian Seaside Bathing Culture
Taking his act to England’s south coast in May of 1845, Charles Freeman performed in the seaside resort town of Brighton. It had been a popular vacation destination ever since Dr. Richard Russell published an influential treatise touting the benefits of seawater as a cure-all a century earlier. No less than King George IV was attracted by the waters, building a fabulous and exotic Moghul-inspired Royal Pavilion in the middle of the former fishing village.
The Royal Pavilion at Brighton. Built by King George IV from 1787-1823 and located at the centre of Brighton, it is visited by thousands today.
By the time Freeman appeared there, the resort town was booming like never before. The completion of the London & Brighton Railway had reduced travel time from London so drastically that crowds of day trippers swarmed there on weekends, escaping the bad airs of the capital. They so overcrowded the beaches and piers that a few years after Freeman’s visit, Queen Victoria would sell the Royal Pavilion because of a lack of privacy.
Londoners Flocked to Brighton. This image from Regency.org shows bathing pavilions on the beach, as well as the view to the east of The Chain Pier. Brighton’s piers were originally built for cross-channel packet boats and steamships but became popular promenades with bazaars, shops and exotic attractions.
We don’t know exactly which venues Freeman performed in during his stay at Brighton, but five years earlier, equestrian and showman William Batty had opened a circus on Minghell Street, three blocks from the beach. Travelling circuses like Circus Ginnett also stopped at the resort, so often that the Ginnett family would eventually establish a permanent foothold in the town with its Park Crescent Hippodrome. Accommodating 3,000 people, it featured elephants, bulls, deer, a hundred horses, jugglers and clowns.
Either location would have served admirably to host Freeman’s strongman show.
After Brighton, Freeman moved 20 kilometres down the coast to Worthing, another seaside resort village popular since the turn of the century, with the key attractions being the Royal Baths and several amusement piers.
The Royal Baths at Worthing. Built to attract aristocrats seeking to take Dr. Richard Russell’s ‘seawater cure’, it was only one of a number of attractions for visitors. They are pictured here in 1849, 5 years after Freeman would have walked this beach.
Also like Brighton, by 1845, rail travel led to a boom in the same year that Freeman visited, probably travelling on the Brighton and Chichester Railway and arriving at the brand-new Worthing Station on a train pulled by a locomotive named ‘Ercombert’. Here, too, travelling circuses frequently stopped to take advantage of the throngs of tourists, making them a likely venue for Freeman’s performances.
There were also performance venues like the Ann Street Theatre, operated by showman Thomas Trotter, owner of the Royal Baths. Finally, there were any number of drinking establishments that would serve the gregarious giant, both catering to his fondness for spirits and offering a forum to show off his feats of strength.
While the more sedate seaside town had fewer of the glittering gin palaces – designed for high-turnover, standing-only gin drinking – such as could be found in London, there was no shortage of taverns and pubs. The most storied of these was The White Horse, opened in 1610 and still operating in 2026 as The George and Dragon. Freeman would almost certainly have found his way to this historic watering-hole, whether professionally or on his own time.
The George & Dragon, Worthing’s Oldest Public House. In Freeman’s time it was called The White Horse, and it was just the sort of cozy spot he would have sought out.
We are told that by this time he would have been experiencing respiratory problems, but as a healthy athlete of 25, he probably brushed them off. Or possibly, covered them up with an extra helping of the new Boodles Dry Gin that had just come on the market.
The Isle of Wight and the Breathing of the Moon
From Worthing, the next stop on Freeman’s tour took him 90 km east to the Isle of Wight, another fashionable resort destination, if slightly harder to reach. It was the Isle of Wight to which Queen Victoria would later frequent after selling the Royal Pavilion in Brighton.
By now it was October, and Freeman would have taken the train from Worthing to either Portsmouth or Southampton, there transferring to a steam-powered packet boat. Coughing smoke as it crossed the Solent – the tidal strait separating the island from the mainland – the steam packet quickly crossed the two miles of dark open water, a seasoned ferryman at the helm confidently navigating the complex currents.
The young man who grew up among the herons, bitterns and wood ducks of Middlesex County, and the ring-beaked gulls of Lake Erie, could not have failed to notice how the oystercatchers and plovers inhabiting the shore gave way to seabirds: black-headed gulls and dark-bellied brent geese just arriving after a 3,000 mile journey from the deathly cold of Siberia to reach their wintering grounds.
The salt and the cool sea air might have relieved some of the nagging breathing problems he had been experiencing, and the cry of the gulls probably reminded him of home. It’s tempting to think he would have been optimistic about his Isle of Wight engagement as he neared Ryde Pier, jutting a half-mile into the strait as a concession to the wide range of the tides.
The Venerable Bede, an English historian writing in the 8th century, called tides ‘The Breathing of the Moon’, observing how the sea swells, covers the coast, and then draws back as if exhaling with the lunar cycle. We know he visited the Solent, and witnessed how ocean tides clashed with river currents. The clashing of the resulting primary and secondary tidal waves there produces a unique double high tide that extends the high-tide window to two hours. It’s not hard to imagine that the Venerable Bede had such a sight in mind when he coined his poetic term. One wonders if Freeman experienced the same.
If he arrived at low tide, a half-mile stretch of mud, seaweed and bone-white flats would have surrounded him as he made his way from the end of the pier to the hansom-stands on dry land. From there, it would be a short carriage ride to his hotel of choice – probably Yelf’s Hotel. It had a bar-room that Freeman would have enjoyed, as well as a wine and spirits store across the street. When not performing or regaling guests at Yelf’s, he might have made his way to the 85-year-old seaside Beach Tavern, one of the oldest establishments on the island, coughing occasionally and enjoying spirits to the rhythmic sound of waves lapping relentlessly against the bar-room’s walls stony walls.
The truth is, we don’t have much information about how he spent his time on the Isle of Wight. It would be nice to think he found enough time to venture into the countryside. The mildest and sunniest climate in England, the island’s rural interior charmed visitors with green fields, rolling hills and what the tourism authority calls “some of the most enchanting woodlands and forests in the UK”.
In October, Autumn heather bloomed purple beneath a canopy of oak, ash, beech, weeping willow and maple, and it sounds very much like his home in Middlesex County. If he did manage to see the countryside, it’s easy to believe he would have shed a fond tear of homesickness, nostalgia or both.
Ningwood Common on the North-West Quarter of the Isle of Wight. The rural Canadian boy raised in the Carolinian forest of Southwestern Ontario would have felt at home in these leafy woods.
We also know nothing about his performances on the Isle of Wight. We don’t know where he was engaged, for how many nights, or how he was received. What we do know is that it was here where he put on his final act. Falling extremely ill and unable to continue, he was transported back across the Solent to Winchester Hospital, just north of Southampton.
There, in the historic city – Alfred the Great ruled Wessex from there until his death in 899 – Charles Freeman, the American Giant – more properly called the Jamestown Giant of Southwestern Ontario in Canada – would die of ‘consumption’.
The White Plague and its Influence on the Modern Goth Subculture
Some accounts called his respiratory condition pneumonia, but it was most often reported to be ‘consumption’. In the middle of the 19th century, that typically meant tuberculosis. A bacterial infection, tuberculosis was typically contracted after contact with infected persons. It was most often found in crowded conditions like shelters and prisons – or busy saloons. Those who come into contact with the bacteria may show no symptoms, a condition referred to as ‘latent tuberculosis’. They would be relatively unaffected because a healthy immune system can easily fight off infection. But, if the immune system is suppressed – for example by alcohol abuse – symptoms will often surface.
I encountered a newspaper clipping from a St. Thomas, Ontario newspaper article about Freeman that put it like this:
“All the success. however, was too much for a smalltown Ontario boy used to less extravagant fare. He died In Winchester Hospital Oct. 18, 1845 of consumption. Too much wine, women and song appeared to have done in the champ at the tender age of 25.
Excess finally decked the young Canadian nobody In the world could beat.”
Winchester Hospital, Where Charles Freeman Died. Today it serves patients under the name Royal Hampshire County Hospital.
An insightful coda to Charles Freeman’s life comes in the form a publication called Medico-Chiurgical Transactions of the Royal Medical and Chiurgical Society of London, published the following year.
“This man came over to England in 1842, and in the November of that year, trained for a prize-fight; I [Mr. Hutchinson] examined him immediately before his professional engagement, when he might be considered in his ‘best condition’. His powers were as follows: vital capacity, 434 cubic inches; height 6 ft. 11 in.; weight 19 stone, 5 lb.; circumference of his chest, 47 inches; inspiratory power, 5*0 inches; expiratory power, 6*5 inches.”
Medico-Chirurgical Transactions. A reputable medical journal, it is among the most authoritative sources about Freeman’s height, weight and measurements.
This entry is of particular interest since it establishes Freeman’s height, scientifically, as 6 ft., 11 in. rather than the 7 ft., 3 in. height of his promotional circulars. It also serves, Mr. Hutchinson notes, as a scientific baseline of Freeman in ‘his best condition’.
The journal goes on to note Freeman’s decline upon later checkups.
“I then examined him in the same way as before, twenty times at various intervals, during which his vital capacity varied from 390 down to 340, and the mean of all the observations was 344 cubic inches, a decrease of 90, or more than 20 per cent ; his respiratory power had decreased one-fifth, and his weight 2 stone. At this time I took him to two physicians well skilled in auscultation [listening to the heart and lungs], and they both affirmed that they could not detect any organic disease.”
The last point is important, because at the time there would have been no reliable, non-invasive way to diagnose tuberculosis with any certainty; there wouldn’t be one for almost four decades. An article in the Journal of Preventive Medicine and Hygiene, published in 2017, tells us:
“The famous scientist Robert Koch was able to isolate the tubercle bacillus. Using the methylene blue staining recommended by Paul Ehrlich, he identified, isolated and cultivated the bacillus in animal serum. Finally he reproduced the disease by inoculating the bacillus into laboratory animals.
Robert Koch presented this extraordinary result to the Society of Physiology in Berlin on 24 March 1882, determining a milestone in the fight against TB.”
As welcome as Koch’s findings were, they were much too late for young Charles Freeman and many thousands of others. By the 18th century in Western Europe “TB had become epidemic with a mortality rate as high as 900 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants per year, more elevated among young people. For this reason, TB was also called ‘the robber of youth’.”
In the 18th century, it was also nicknamed ‘The White Plague’, for the extreme paleness eventually exhibited by its victims. Other symptoms included frequent mild fevers that manifested as pink cheeks, bright eyes, red lips and weight loss. Paradoxically, the physical appearance of tuberculosis sufferers became fashionable. Alicea Hibbard and Annette Lopez Rosa wrote an article in the journal of the American Society of Microbiology in 2025 called Tuberculosis and the Fatal Beauty of Romanticism. In their article, they noted:
“…the characteristic consumptive appearance of TB victims was the predominant European beauty standard...reinforced by the fact that many influential figures of the time were victims of the disease, including the poets John Keats and Eliabeth Barrett Browning, the Bronte Family and the composer Frederic Chopin…this obsession with a tragic and beautiful death worked its way into fashion, literature, theater and visual art.”
As just one example of many in their article, the authors cite a painting famous during Victorian times, Ophelia by John Everett Mills, saying: “…she is pale and fragile with bright red lips and posed like a saint in a state of ecstasy. She possesses all the ethereal beauty and tragedy of the idealized consumptive woman.”
‘Ophelia’ by John Everett Mills, painted 1851 and 1852. Hibbard and Rosa tell us she is “a symbol of the tragic, beautiful woman dying for love.”
Author Sean Cunningham wrote an article in 2016, titled ‘How Tuberculosis Shaped Victorian Goth Fashion’, describing how the era evolved a rigid ‘mourning culture’: social and clothing cues and rituals, whose purpose was to help society process the high rates of mortality. Black wardrobe, usually silk crepe; brooches, rings or watch chains fashioned from the hair of the deceased loved one; jet jewelry, carved from black fossilized coal; post-mortem photography; and, ‘memento mori’ consisting of symbolism like skulls, bones, skeletons, hourglasses, melting or guttering candles, wilting flowers, and clocks.
Tragic loss was draped in a specific fashion code that reinforced the wan physical appearance exhibited by the deathly ill.
“The sheer number of deaths coupled with the Victorian sense of decorum caused a need for fashionable black mourning attire…Victorians came to romanticize tuberculosis, even idealizing those suffering from it. (Bizarrely, the disease was believed to enhance the beauty of women, since as they would waste away, they’d grow so white and skinny.) The result was a culture that championed those who were thin, pale, and very likely dressed in black.”
Cunnigham goes on to suggest that the resulting aesthetic influenced the modern Gothic subculture of the late 1970s and 1980s (which itself coincided with the emergence of the Aquired Immune Deficiency (AIDS) pandemic).
Bassist Patricia Morrison of The Gun Club, Sisters of Mercy and The Damned. Is tuberculosis at least partially responsible for the aesthetic of Goth subculture?
The website for the online alternative Gothic clothing shop ‘Dark Attitude’ features an article called ‘From Page to Petticoat: the Literary Origins of Victorian Gothic Style’, in which a solid line is drawn between contemporary Goth fashion and the 19th century Gothic novels written by Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, and Bram Stoker. In this reading, it’s no coincidence that Stoker’s novel ‘Dracula’ – whose main character is a pale European noble – became a hit movie in the hands of Francis Ford Coppola in 1992.
‘Dark Attitude’ also talks about ‘mourning culture’, saying “The Goth subculture reclaimed this funeral chic, transforming it from a temporary state of grief into a permanent aesthetic choice. The elegant, all-black ensemble of a Victorian mourner is, in many ways, the purest form of the Goth look. This is where the deep connection between the color black and gothic fashion was solidified.”
More Pale, Black-Clad Goth Pioneers. From left to right: Peter Murphy of Bauhaus; Siouxsie Sioux of Siouxsie and the Banshees; Robert Smith of The Cure.
Returning to our narrative, Mr. Hutchinson, the surgeon who had examined Freeman in 1842 and 1844, fell out of touch with the strongman. He would not hear of him again until receiving an account from a Mr. Paul, surgeon to the county hospital in Winchester in October 1845.
"Freeman was admitted into this hospital on the 8th of October, in an extreme state of debility and exhaustion; he was reduced almost to a skeleton, complained of cough, and was expectorating pus in large quantities. Percussion on the anterior part of the chest under the clavicles, gave, on the right side, a very dull sound; on the left one, much clearer, but still I think less resonant than natural ; I made but one attempt at auscultation, but could come to no conclusion, from a rather singular reason, — the ribs were so large, the intercostal spaces so wide, and so sunk in from the extreme state of emaciation to which Freeman was reduced, that I could not find a level space large enough to receive the end of the stethoscope; could not, in short, bring its whole surface into contact with the chest. Freeman's great debility, and the clearness of the diagnosis from other sources, prevented my repeating the attempt. Freeman, after death, measured 6 ft. 7-1/2 in., and weighed 10 st. 1 lb.”
This recorded weight amounts to about 140 pounds or just under 64 kg. He had lost 131 pounds, or more than 59 kg since he was first examined! Perhaps even more shocking, he had shrunk in height by some 3-1/2 in. This last observation might point to a condition called Pott’s Disease, where tuberculosis bacteria travel in the bloodstream from the lungs the spine, infecting the bones of the spinal column and the intravertabrate discs, the shock-absorbing pads in between each vertebra. Destroyed bone tissue causes vertebral collapse, directly leading to a loss of height.
Cemetaries and Museums
After Freeman’s death, his former mentor Ben Caunt had him buried in the West Hill cemetary in Winchester, per his wishes. The funeral occurred on October 23, paid for by Caunt, who was the chief mourner. The grave was marked by a bare, flat slab. 15 years later, an obelisk 10 ft. tall, was placed on the spot, paid for by American boxer John Heenan, in tribute.
The obelisk on Freeman’s grave at West Hill Cemetery, Winchester. Was Freeman’s grave robbed when this marker was placed? (Photo: New York Almanack)
At an indeterminate point afterward, Freeman’s skeleton appeared in the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. It was exhibited next to the skeleton of the ‘Irish Giant’ Charles Byrne (at 8 ft., 4 in., an even taller specimen) secured by the museum upon his death in 1783.
Charles Freeman’s Skeleton. Displayed (at left) in the Hunterian museum next to the skeleton of the Irish giant Charles Byrne. The two flank the skeleton of Sicilian dwarf Caroline Crachami. (Photo copyright Dr Clifford Williams – used with permission.)
The Hunterian Museum is named after surgeon and anatomist John Hunter, who had amassed a massive collection of anatomical and pathological specimens. When he died in 1793, the British government purchased his collection and in 1799 entrusted it to the Royal College of Surgeons (then known as the Corporation of Surgeons).
We don’t know exactly how the museum got custody of Freeman’s remains. But we do know that in that era, unlike today’s more responsible curatorship, unscrupulous methods were often employed. We know that was certainly true in the case of Charles Byrne. The Irishman’s last will and testament requested he be buried at sea because he was terrified that he would fall into the hands of anatomists, a fate usually reserved for clients of the hangman. The New York Almanack tells us that when John Hunter learned of Byrne’s death:
“…he bribed the undertaker and had the body stolen before reaching the coast. After treatment, Charles [Byrne] was put on display as part of Hunter’s anatomical collection. Once obliged to put himself on view in order to earn a living, Byrne remained an exhibit in death. The “chirurgical fraternity” showed no mercy.”
It’s not a stretch to believe that similar unorthodoxy was involved in securing Charles Freeman’s remains.
The Hunterian Museum closed for renovations in 2017, and before it re-opened in March 2023, the Royal College of Surgeons issued the following media release, reflecting a degree of sensitivity and their awareness of modern scruples:
“John Hunter (1728-1793) and other anatomists and surgeons of the 18th and 19th centuries acquired many specimens in ways we would not consider ethical today and which are rightly subject to review and discussion.
During the period of closure of the Museum the Board of Trustees of the Hunterian Collection discussed the sensitivities and the differing views surrounding the display and retention of Charles Byrne’s skeleton. The Trustees, with the approval of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, agreed that:
· Charles Byrne’s skeleton will not be displayed in the new Hunterian Museum.
· The skeleton will be retained as it is an integral part of the Hunterian Collection and will be available for bona fide research into the conditions of acromegaly and gigantism.”
Despite extensive research, I was unable to determine the fate of Charles Freeman’s remains. Have they also been removed from public viewing? Are they going to be retained for study as they have indicated they will do with Byrne? Will they return his remains to Winchester?
I have emailed the Royal College of Surgeons with queries about all of these issues, but at the time of writing, I have not received a response. I will update this post if and when I learn more.
The Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.
The Fate of Big Ben and the Tipton Slasher
The month before Freeman’s death, Ben Caunt had defended his title against William Thompson, losing on a disqualification after 93 rounds. He would not box again until 12 years later, when he fought Nat Langham to a draw after 60 rounds. He died of pneumonia on September 10, 1861.
William ‘The Tipton Slasher’ Perry continued to pursue his career in bare-knuckle boxing. In 1850 he defeated Tom Paddock to claim the title, which was at that point disputed, being claimed at the same time by Ben Caunt’s old nemesis William Abednego ‘Bendigo’ Johnson.
Photograph of William ‘The Tipton’ Slasher Perry in a Later Bout. His distinctive stance is a result of a bout of childhood rickets.
He went on to claim the championship again by defeating Harry Orme. By then, the championship was simultaneously being claimed by Perry and four other men: Harry Broome (brother of Perry’s manager Johnny), Harry Orme, Tom Paddock and Aaron Jones. Perry finally lost his championship claim definitively when he was defeated on June 16 1857 by Tom Sayers. In addition to the belt, he also lost his pub in Spon Lane, having sold it and wagering the proceeds on the outcome.
After losing the title he became landlord of the Bricklayer's Arms tavern in Wolverhampton and retired from boxing. He died at his home, Old Tollgate House, Bilston of alcoholism and pulmonary congestion on 24 December 1880.
What Does Charles Freeman’s Tale Tell Us?
So, what can we conclude from the story of Charles Freeman? First, any claim that Charles Freeman, ‘the American Giant’, was the real first heavyweight champion of the world is untrue and simply a product of the promotional license that was common to the era. He was not the world heavyweight champion for because he was not the American champion, Perry was not – despite the bluster of his claims – was not the English champion. In fact, Freeman’s manager, Ben Caunt, was the legitimate English heavyweight champion at the time. Finally, titles were not supposed to change hands as a result of a foul, so even if Perry had been the champion, no ‘belt’ would have resulted from their match.
Nor was he American. Rather, he was born in Smoke’s Corners, Middlesex County, Ontario, part of the Talbot Settlement land grant that would eventually be separated into today’s Elgin County. The specificity of innumerable details archival details – right down to the lot number (42) on which his father’s log cabin was built – makes this conclusion a near certainty.
The question of whether he was really a giant is a bit tougher, especially since claims of his height of 7 ft. 3 in. were proven to be an exaggeration. Dictionary definitions are vague, with Oxford saying only that a giant is “…an unusually large person...”. By those standards, and considering the average height of his peers at the time would have been a foot and a half shorter…it can almost certainly be argued that he qualified as a giant.
From a historical, metaphorical perspective, we can argue that he was a giant. In only a few years, Charles Freeman went from a millhand in a frontier backwater to touring the world as an international attraction and accumulating an undefeated record.
It can be argued that he set the pattern for future heavyweights, from early modern legends like Sugar Ray Robinson and Joe Louis to later stars like Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson and Floyd Mayweather Jr. He arguably contributed to the emergence of the sport of body-building. He was an early participant in industrial era mass-entertainment that would ultimately result in Vaudeville, modern cinema and major league sporst.
And he may even have contributed, in some small way, to the suffragette movement that ultimately gave women the vote, not to mention the Goth fashion craze that started in the late 1980s and continues to this day.
Best of all, he did it with a particularly Canadian humility, grace and good nature that endeared him to all those he met.
A giant, indeed.
Across the Medicine Line: Tales From the 49th Parallel.
The articles in ‘Across the Medicine Line’ are written in hopes of learning more about how North America came to be. How our peoples lived, ate, drank, travelled, loved, fought and thought during the time between the discovery, founding and solidification of our long partnership and our current society. We believe that learning these stories can further strengthen the many ties that bind our two nations and better understand – or even heal! – the divisions that still separate us.
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