Is there a future for the English Eccentric?
The great British eccentric is dying out
ben macintyre
Maths genius Simon Norton was one of the last in a line of gifted originals, from Edith Sitwell to Alan Turing
Simon Norton was a mathematical mastermind with an abundance of facial hair who spent most of his life in a messy basement eating tinned mackerel with rice, attempting to improve Britain’s bus routes and working endlessly on an insoluble maths problem called the Monster. As his obituary in
The Times this week noted: “If the word ‘genius’ has any meaning at all, it must apply to Norton — mathematician, prodigy, group theorist, bus timetable enthusiast.” And eccentric.
Norton was not mad. He was brilliant. He did not think his life was odd in any way. He was not playing a role. He was that most rare of creatures, a genuine British eccentric, who did not know that this was what he was.
Britain once had the world’s greatest eccentrics, a resource that produced remarkable artistic and scientific achievements, and was frequently exported to remote corners of the empire. It may be that Britons were able to control vast areas of the globe with comparatively meagre resources because the locals mistook their eccentric behaviour for some sort of magic. Conversely anyone doing anything particularly unusual in foreign parts, usually wearing a pith helmet or pyjamas, was often automatically assumed to be British. ...
The Barmy Army of England cricket supporters is anything but eccentric, since its soldiers all do and sing exactly the same thing. The British army itself, however, has probably produced more eccentrics than any other national institution, with the exception of the aristocracy. Take the one-eyed general Sir Adrian Paul Ghislain Carton de Wiart, VC, who fought in the Boer, First and Second World Wars, suffered wounds to the face, head, stomach, hip, legs and ear, survived two plane crashes, tunnelled out of a POW camp, and ripped off his own fingers because a doctor declined to amputate. When he fell down the stairs in Rangoon and knocked himself out at the age of 68, surgeons took the opportunity to remove some of the bits of shrapnel still lying around in his body. ...
For truly world-class eccentricity few could equal Rev Dr Joseph Wolff, an Anglican vicar born in 1795 who set off on a lifelong odyssey across the Middle East, central Asia and the Caucasus on a mission to convert the heathen and find the ten lost tribes of Israel. Along the way, he argued with Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sunnis and Shias. The consequences were frequently unpleasant. Bandits tied him to the tail of a horse, he was stripped naked three times and came close to being burnt alive.
The murderous Amir of Bokhara was about to throw him into a bug pit, but got such a fit of giggles at the sight of Wolff that he spared his life. Wolff had no idea what the amir was laughing at, since he regarded his behaviour as entirely normal. ...
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-great-british-eccentric-is-dying-out-0kxmgpmk0