Edward Bright of Maldon and his coat that seven townspeople could fit into

How can the suit of a very fat man serve the public? When in 1750 the 29-year-old Edward Bright, a stout fellow of Maldon in England, famed for nothing but his remarkable weight, departed this life, the townsfolk acquired a diverting attraction: to squeeze seven persons into Bright's coat. The image of the seven men accommodated in the garments of a departed gentleman of some 280 kilograms became very nearly more famous than the likeness of Edward himself, a good-natured grocer and proprietor of a candle-works. In 2000 Bright's house was marked with a memorial plaque bearing that very canonical drawing of the seven in a single coat. The burial of the stout celebrity in the local church claims particular attention in the recollections of his contemporaries, for it required ingenious contrivances of beams, ropes, pulleys and levers. The gravestone states: “Bright was an honest tradesman, a witty companion, courteous in manner, affable in temper, a loving father and a precious friend.”