DOCTORS AND FAT MAN.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 311, 17 December 1936, Page 3 (Supplement)

DOCTORS AND FAT MAN.

WEIGHED 31 STONE WHEN HE DIED. SIX PORTERS NEEDED TO LIFT HIM. The cause of the extreme obesifx of a former warehouseman, who al the age of 44 weighed 31 stone, is now the subject of investigation bj Loudon doctors.

John David Longshaw, of Kensington Park Gardens, London, died al St. Giles’ Hospital, Camberwell, after a fall.

It took six porters to lift him back an the bed. He succumbed to hear! failure, a post-mortem revealing that his heart weighed 36 ounces. A Camberwell coroner’s jury found that ‘‘Death was due to natural causes.’’

Since the age of eight Longshaw had led a sedentary life. It was after he was 24 that ha put an weight steadily, and at one time he weighed 35 stone. When he was 30, and weighed 20 stone, he played at the Oval for the Stationery Office team, and had several centuries to his credit.

He was then quick and light on his feet.

Longshaw also used to be a cinema fan, but as he became fatter and latter the seats could not accommodate him. Longshaw used to eat ordinary food, but in very large quantities. His normal day’s menu before entering hospital was:— Breakfast: Two or three eggs with three rashers of bacon, bread and butler, coffee. Lunch: A large number of sandwiches, coffee. Tea: Bread and butter, tea.

Supper: One or two pounds of steak, a plateful of vegetables, bread snd butter, fruit, coffee. Longshaw drank about a quart of coffee a day.

In latter years a specially large chair had been made for Longshaw’s use at home; but as he grew bigger and bigger its sides were removed and Its legs shortened. Longshaw was not the heaviest person of recent times.

He was 10 stone lighter than Dick Harrow, of Bromley Kent, xvlio died when appearing at Southend as the heaviest man in the world. When Harrow was buried a crane was needed to lower the flve-foot-wide coffin into the grave.

Mrs Alice May Belcher, of Worthing, weighed 35 stone when she died In 1931.