Druid Priest William Price

Dr. William Price (1800-1893) led a highly eccentric life. Some details from an article about him on bbc.co.uk:

• He "ate no meat, drank mainly champagne, eschewed the wearing of socks and prescribed a vegetarian diet for his patients instead of medicine."
• He had a liking for outlandish costume, "notably a fox-skin headdress with the legs and tails hanging down over his shoulders and back."
• "He became fascinated by the old druidic rites and even held druidic ceremonies at the rocking stone outside Pontypridd."

Price in 1884 wearing his druid attire. Source: MarkBerePeterson.com

However, his main claim to fame is that he helped to bring about the legalization of cremation in Britain.

Supporters of cremation had been trying to get it legalized throughout the nineteenth century. But Price caused the issue to come to a head by burning the body of his five-month-old son, Jesus Christ, on a funeral pyre, after the child had died a natural death. Yes, he had named his son Jesus Christ, or "Iesu Grist" in Welsh.

Price was arrested and charged with the crime of illegal cremation. His eventual acquittal led directly to the passage of the Cremation Act, which made it legal to burn bodies in Britain.

When Price himself died in 1893 he was cremated on a giant funeral pyre as thousands of spectators watched.

However, it's worth noting that while cremation is now legal (and commonplace) in the UK and USA, open-air pyres aren't legal, as far as I know.

More info: wikipedia

Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 04, 2022 - Comments (1)
Category: Death, Eccentrics, Nineteenth Century

Stramonium Cigarettes:  Smoking to Relieve Asthma

Long professional article on their history here.

The relevant info at Wikipedia.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Feb 01, 2022 - Comments (2)
Category: Nature, Patent Medicines, Nostrums and Snake Oil, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Diseases

The Golden Age of Patents

Alex is a master at finding oddball inventions that received a patent. Surely one of his spiritual ancestors must have been Wallace Peck, who did a humorous book that imagined such inventions.

You can read the whole text here.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Jan 30, 2022 - Comments (0)
Category: Humor, Inventions, Patents, Books, Nineteenth Century

Muir’s Improved Pub

In 1865, temperance advocate William Muir obtained a British patent (No. 1 for 1865) for what he called "Improvements in the construction of public houses." Although whether they were actually improvements depended, I suppose, on one's point of view.

Muir wanted to improve pubs first by constructing their front walls out of plate glass in order to make the interior visible to people passing by. This, he believed, would "to a great extent check drunkenness and the indecent behaviour of the persons obtaining refreshment."

Second, he wanted to make the entrances only two feet wide in order "to prevent, as far as possible, the entrance of females with extensive steel crinolines." Why prevent women wearing crinolines? He didn't elaborate. Was this some kind of code for keeping prostitutes out of the pubs?

I don't think many publicans rushed to adopt his improvements.

More info about William Muir

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jan 21, 2022 - Comments (4)
Category: Inebriation and Intoxicants, Patents, Nineteenth Century

Secret Shoulder Straps

Source.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Jan 09, 2022 - Comments (2)
Category: Body Modifications, Fashion, Inventions, Nineteenth Century

A Wild Man of Alabama

Society does not tolerate outsiders and hermits very well.

Source: The True Democrat (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania)16 Mar 1853, Wed Page 2

Posted By: Paul - Fri Jan 07, 2022 - Comments (5)
Category: Regionalism, Vigilante Justice, Hermits, Dogs, Nineteenth Century

What Demoralized the Barber Shop

Trollops disconcert some gentlemen. It's amazing the customer in the chair did not have his throat cut.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Dec 28, 2021 - Comments (0)
Category: Public Indecency, Women, Nineteenth Century, Hair and Hairstyling

Odd Showers

Read it here.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Dec 14, 2021 - Comments (3)
Category: Animals, Supernatural, Occult, Paranormal, Weird Facts, Weird Studies and Guides, Books, Natural Wonders, Nineteenth Century

Artwork Khrushchev Probably Would Not Have Liked 40

Raymond Duchamp-Villon.

His Wikipedia page.

Sculpture page.

Posted By: Paul - Wed Dec 08, 2021 - Comments (2)
Category: Animals, Avant Garde, Statues and Monuments, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century

A History of Mechanical Horses

Read the piece here.

There should be a separate article on mechanical horses in literature. My favorite one occurs in these two novels by Roger Zelazny.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Nov 30, 2021 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Inventions, Literature, Fantasy, AI, Robots and Other Automatons, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century