PECULIAR POSTCARDS
JAN BONDESON shares another deltiological discovery from his prodigious collection of postcards. This month’s pictorial blast from the past tells the story of Fred Kempster, the English giant who just wouldn’t stop growing
11. FREDERICK THE GREAT
Frederick John Kempster was born in the London suburb of Bayswater in 1889, the second youngest boy in a large family. On Christmas Day 1897, his father, the milkman Joseph Kempster, died of asthma and bronchitis aged just 50, and his mother soon struggled to support her children. In September 1898, Fred and his younger brother George were placed in the care of Barnardo’s orphanage, and were soon sent to Canada to fend for themselves as servants or farm labourers. It was in Manitoba that Fred started growing prodigiously. In 1904, he was returned to England since he was incapable of farm labour due to weakness of the knees. Barnardo’s paid for an operation, but it had little effect, and the young giant became lame in his left leg and had to wear a special support shoe. In 1905, he was set to work at Barnardo’s Youth Labour House in the Commercial Road, where he learnt to become a basket maker.
The postcards of Fred reproduced here show that by 1908 or 1909, when he was just 19 years old, he had begun a showbusiness career, touring Britain to be exhibited in sideshows. In May 1911, when he took part in a parade of giants at the Festival of Empire, held at the Crystal Palace to celebrate the coronation of GeorgeV, he stood 7ft 3in (220cm) in his stockinged feet, and was the most impressive giant on show. By this time, his daytime employment as a basket maker was at Barnardo’s Garden City for Boys at Woodford in Essex. The following month, he joined Astley’s American Circus and went on an extended tour of Britain. While not on tour, he lived with his sister Susan in Essex or his sister Ruth in Bath.
In 1912 or 1913, Fred went on tour in Germany, billed as ‘Frederick the Great, the English
Giant’. By this time, he was more than 7ft 9in (236cm) tall. In March 1914, he returned to Germany, being exhibited with Brunhilde the German Giantess, some midgets, and the legless dwarf Mr Goy. The tour was still on at the outbreak of the Great War, but on 1 August the Polizei came to call, ordering all German and Austrian performers to the barracks, leaving five people
– the American manager Otto Heineman, Mr Goy the dwarf and his wife and attendant, and Fred himself – to be interned. In late September, when the Germans had deported these undesirable aliens to Holland, Fred gave interviews to the London newspapers about his wartime ordeal. He volunteered to join the Army, but he was turned down due to his gigantic stature and indifferent health. In September 1916, he was on show in Sheffield from 2pm until 10pm each day; admission cost two pence, although wounded soldiers could see him for free.
Fred then spent a year at the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic in Queen Square, with an unspecified nervous complaint. Once, the hungry giant inadvertently ate 17 large sandwiches, the ration for the entire hospital ward, before asking the sister for some cake. When he was exhibited in Blackburn, he contracted influenza, and he died from pneumonia on 15 April 1918, aged just 29. He was 8ft 4in (254cm) tall at the time of his death. The 9ft- (274cm) coffin had to be removed from the hotel where he had been staying through the window and transported to the cemetery in a hearse lacking its rear panel; after ten tonnes of earth had been excavated from the 10ft(3m) long grave, it took 14 strong men to lower the coffin into it.
This is an edited extract from Jan Bondeson’s book The Lion Boy and Other Medical Curiosities (Amberley Publishing, Stroud 2018).