Lovely Lucy Crowds gathered to say farewell to ‘prettiest, heaviest’ woman
The death and funeral of “Lucy Moore” in Bristol exactly 100 years ago attracted a lot of local attention. She was Bristol’s only Black American resident celebrity, and, it was claimed, the fattest woman in the world. Whether or not she really was is only
LUCY Moore was buried at Arnos Vale on the afternoon of Saturday October 2 1920, and thousands, possibly tens of thousands, lined her route to the cemetery.
Despite the rain, which got worse as the day went on, large crowds gathered outside the Bristol Royal Infirmary, and on Whitson Street, close to the entrance to the hospital mortuary.
Many more gathered at other vantage-points, particularly Lower Maudlin Street, and down on Bristol Bridge. The crowds included unusually large numbers of women and children, their numbers swollen by all the factory girls who had finished work at lunchtime.
When the motor hearse, and funeral cars finally began their journey to Arnos Vale cemetery, they had difficulty getting through the throng.
At some point in the 20th century, funerals stopped being a public spectacle in Bristol. But in 1920, the send-off of some celebrity, wealthy businessman or civic dignitary was a major public spectacle, guaranteed to attract onlookers.
Perhaps, as always when a funeral cortege passed, the men removed their hats as a mark of respect, though press accounts from elsewhere in the country hint at the “unseemly” behaviour of some onlookers.
That should not surprise us, because Lucy Moore was not one of the great and good, and Lucy Moore was not ever her real name.
She had been, according to her own publicity, “the prettiest, handsomest and heaviest lady in the world,” and we have to presume that many of those who turned out to see her off were not so much paying their last respects as just hoping for some sort of spectacle, as they would
have expected had they gone to see her at a fairground.
Lucy Moore is one of the most remarkable and enigmatic footnotes in all of Bristol’s history, her whole life shrouded in mystery and myth.
But then that’s just what you’d expect from anyone who worked in showbiz.
Lucy Moore, aka “The Jersey Lily”, aka “The American Fat Girl” or, to use the stage-name the Bristol newspapers favoured, “Lovely Lucy”, claimed to be the fattest woman in the world. Or her manager did, at least.
She had made a career on the stage and as a fairground sideshow and at one stage was said to weigh almost 48 stone.
In a small biographical pamphlet, she appeared to offer a reward of £1,000 to anyone who could produce a woman heavier than her. Though in fact if you read it carefully, it’s hedged with some legal-ese that would have got her out of it: “£1,000 will be given to any person or persons who can produce a Female of my age and weight.”
The people who gathered to watch Lovely Lucy’s final journey were, then, hoping to see her final performance as a novelty act. As they waited, they speculated with one another as to how large, exactly, the coffin would be.
Lucy had died at the age of 43 following a long battle with cancer during which she had lost over half her weight. Nonetheless, the coffin was wider and longer than most,
and eight men were needed to carry it from the mortuary to the hearse.
The burial records at Arnos Vale give her name as Eliza Elizabeth Moore. During her career she also went by the name Alma Moore.
(It’s also been claimed that her original name might have been Anna Chelton, but this is to confuse her with another famous American “fat woman” who claimed to be bigger than Lucy. Following an amputation, Anna Chelton was fitted with the world’s biggest artificial leg in 1911, and soon regained the seven stone she lost when the leg came off.)
We think that Lucy was born in Lexington, Kentucky to a Black American mother and white English father. She was born normal size but rapidly put on weight as a child.
By the age of 12 she was said to weigh over 27 stone. She was “professionally fat” by the time she was 17, appearing at circuses and fairground sideshows in the United States. Her weight was all the more remarkable considering that she was a very average (for a woman) five feet four inches tall.
“In a good many cases of fat people, you find the flesh soft and flabby, cause by disease - dropsy being the most common complaint. If you have not noticed the solidity and firmness of Miss Moore’s flesh, pay a return visit and convince yourself that she is in reality a mountain of solid humanity.”
According to that same bio
graphical pamphlet, she was touring Europe by the early 1900s, and appeared before many crowned heads. She travelled, we are told, with her own specially adapted suite of rooms.
These claims are questionable, just old-fashioned showmanship. It must have been the same with her occasional use of the stage-name ‘The Jersey Lily’, which was of course the nickname of her more famous contemporary, Lily Langtry.
Indeed, it is possible that most of her showbiz back story is nonsense. It’s very difficult to find many references to her in the UK press in the early 20th century where you would at least expect to see her name featuring in the small print of adverts for fairs and music halls. It seems likely that her previous career was as a minor sideshow, and indeed she might not have worked in showbiz at all until relatively later on in life.
The only substantial coverage we could find was from a Bournemouth newspaper in 1917 – just three years before her death. Her appearance in the town was meant to be an upmarket affair, as the reporter makes clear:
“To see a photo of this lady really conveys no idea of her actual size. The writer who attended one of the receptions given each day was particularly impressed with Miss Moore’s small hands and feet compared with the proportion of her body.
“It is hoped that this exhibition will not be confused with the more
common shows usually associated with country fairs. On the contrary, anyone may see this lady giant without fear of meeting or hearing anything coarse or offensive.”
Why she settled in Bristol, at an address on Constitution Hill, we don’t know. According to one press report, she wanted to retire from public life, and it may be that she came here to live with her sister, Annie Moore, whom press reports described as “a woman of colour.”
Perhaps her weight had caused other health problems which predated her final illness and she needed to be looked after. In any event, it seems unlikely that she had much money left by the time she died as she was buried in a common grave at Arnos Vale. There was no headstone, no memorial.
She spent her final weeks at the BRI where her weight caused a lot of problems, but where we are told she endured her illness cheerfully and the medical staff were able to relieve some of her pain.
At Arnos Vale, a rainstorm swept in as her coffin was lowered, watched by another huge crowd as well as the principal mourners, including her sister Annie and her former manager, Mr G.W. Langdon and his family. The service was led by the Reverend J. Stern of St Peter’s, Clifton, who had known Miss Moore well during her time in Bristol. He said it had been a great privilege to minister to her.
And if any BT readers can tell us more about the mysterious “Lovely Lucy”, we would be delighted to hear from you!