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A wildly exaggerated publicity image of Hannah Dale c.1889.
Author's collection.
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Hannah
Dale, 'the Staffordshire Giantess' as she became known, was born in in the village of Mow Cop on the 23rd February 1881. She was the daughter of 31 year
old miner Thomas Dale and 28 year old Elizabeth Dale, nee Oakes of
Dales Green, Mow Cop, and was their fourth child, Hannah having a brother and two sisters older than herself. All the family were normal average-sized folk, her father weighed 10 stone, and her mother was only 8 stone in weight and their other children were likewise quite ordinary. At the time of her birth Hannah too seemed to be a normal child, so small it was said that she could fit into a quart jug, but at the end of three months she began to develop very rapidly and this growth continued throughout her short life. Within a few years she had outstripped her older siblings in weight, and though she started out enjoying a perfectly normal childhood Hannah was
growing taller and broader and soon became something of an attraction
in the out-of-the-way village.
It is unclear when Hannah's parent's first started exhibiting their rapidly expanding child to a paying public, but she was certainly something of an attraction for the crowds when at the age of eight flyers such as the one seen here were advertising her for exhibition. Though depicted on the flyer as a veritable giant, Hannah was at this time actually only 4ft 4ins tall, but weight-wise she was prodigious, already weighing more than most grown men, so big that the family home at Oakes Bank, Dales Green had to have the doors widened. By the time she reached ten years of age, Hannah had grown to 4ft 11ins tall, had a 55-inch chest and her thighs measured 3ft around while the vaccination marks on her arms had stretched out to the size of small plates. Looking at her it was easy to forget that she was so young, but many papers were happy to point out that she was still very much a child, at her happiest playing with the other children in and around Mow Cop.
'She
is a bright, attractive, and talkative child, and plays as other
children do of her own age. For her enormous weight she is very
active, but if she accidentally stumbles and falls she cannot get up
without assistance. Dolls are her great delight, and in making their
apparel she exhibits considerable dexterity and intelligence... She
has no special diet, but dines with the other members of the family,
consuming as much food as a healthy man, and sleeping on an average
twelve to fourteen hours each night. On the railway she travels with
a half-ticket, a privilege to which she is entitled, but which often
causes her father to supply his name and address to irate ticket
collectors, who entertain an honest suspicion about a giantess who
takes up as much space as three ordinary persons would occupy.'
South Wales Echo, 16 June 1892, p.2
At
the time of her death, Hannah Dale, was 5ft 3ins tall, weighed 32st
6½lbs, and measured 5ft. 8in around the waist. Her size caused
difficulties when it came to her funeral at St Thomas Church, Mow
Cop, on 10 June. Her coffin was huge, its size demonstrated prior to her funeral by the undertaker, a Mr Boon, having five young men lying down sideways in it and easily closing the lid over them. Together
with the corpse, this finally weighed 6cwt, (48 stone, or nearly 305 Kg) and took up a double
plot. It required thirteen people to carry and then lower the little
girl's coffin into the grave.
Nearly 2,000 people, many of them friends and neighbours and other locals who had watched Hannah grow up assembled to witness the funeral. The inscription on her gravestone read:
IN LOVING MEMORY OF
HANNAH
The beloved daughter of
THOMAS & ELIZABETH DALE
Of Dales Green Mow Cop
WHO DIED JUNE 2ND (sic) 1892
AGED 11 years & 3 months.
HERE LIES MY DUST THE CHILD OF WONDER
I BID FAREWELL TO ALL BEHIND
AND NOW I DWELL JUST OVER YONDER
IN HEAVEN WITH GOD SO GOOD AND KIND
ALSO WILLIAM & WALTER their sons
WHO DIED IN INFANCY
Reference: Philip R. Leese, Mow Cop: Living on the Hill; Staffordshire Sentinel, 11 June; South Wales Echo, 16 & 22 June 1892; Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough, 22 June 1892, p.4; Hampshire Advertiser, 16 July 1892, p.7.