When Edward Bright died in 1750 he was ‘supposed to be the biggest and weightiest Man in the World’. Dubbed ‘the fat man at Maldon’, his enormous size made him a local and national celebrity.
Edward Bright – The Fat Man of Maldon
Edward Bright (1721–1750) was a Maldon grocer who became famous throughout Britain because of his extraordinary size. Born at Great Waltham, he was apprenticed to Maldon grocer Joseph Pattisson when he was 12½. He weighed 10 stone 4 pounds then, rising to 24 stone by the end of his apprenticeship. Bright later became a freeman of Maldon, married Mary Browne and established a grocery business in the High Street.
Contemporary accounts describe him as a strong and active man until the final years of his life. By the time he died, aged 29, he was approximately 5 feet 9½ inches tall, with a chest measuring 5 feet 6 inches and a waist of almost 7 feet. His weight was estimated at about 44 stone (616 pounds/279 kg). A contemporary portrait was produced by David Ogborne and subsequently reproduced as engravings.
Bright died on 10 November 1750 after an illness described as “miliary fever”. His unusually large coffin required special arrangements for his removal from the house and burial at All Saints’ Church, Maldon. A contemporary account also praised him as a kind husband, tender father, good master, friendly neighbour and honest man.
References
Coe, T. (1753) ‘An account of the corpulency of Mr Edward Bright’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 48, pp. 189–193.
Mills, V. (2025) ‘The admiration of all people’, Royal Society. Available at: Royal Society (Accessed: 26 August 2026).
All Saints with St Peter, Maldon (2025) ‘History of our Parish and Church’. Available at: All Saints Maldon (Accessed: 26 August 2026).
National Portrait Gallery (n.d.) ‘Edward Bright’. Available at: National Portrait Gallery (Accessed: 26 August 2026).
Fat man of Maldon Edward Bright
Panel no 5 of the Maldon Embroidery features an embroidered image of Edward Bright.
