TED EVANS - WAS THE 'WORLD'S TALLEST MAN' BORN IN DERBYSHIRE?

Until he died aged only 34 in 1958, Ernest Edward 'Ted' Evans was considered 'Britain's Tallest Man' and often billed the 'Tallest Man in the World'. In the 1950s he made a celebrity appearance in Derby, but a United States website takes the local link even further, suggesting that Evans was actually born in Derbyshire. Local historian Peter Seddon decided to investigate further.

'The Giant's Visit to Derby' in the 1950s

The extraordinary photograph on the right was taken in the early 1950s by the photographer R. W. Dudley of Regent Street, Derby.

It depicts 'The Giant's Visit to Derby', recording the moment Ted Evans met a suitably bemused local outside the stage door of the Hippodrome Theatre.

Ernest Edward 'Ted' Evans (1924-1958) was at that time the undisputed 'Tallest Man in Britain', and in publicity material was frequently billed 'The Tallest Man Alive'. Although his height was often ludicrously exaggerated for effect to 'over 9 feet', he was in fact 7 feet 8 and a half inches - still quite tall!

His story is an unusual one, for it is recorded that until the age of 14 Evans was particularly slight - indeed it was said that he harboured an ambition to become a jockey. Only after he suffered a sporting injury did he begin to grow to his extraordinary height, medical opinion concluding that the glands regulating his growth had been in some way super-activated.

Unlike many who experience 'gigantism', Evans's general appearance was in perfect proportion to his height, and he maintained a good level of fitness. In the 1940s he began training to be a boxer, but ultimately succumbed to the proliferation of offers for him to work on the 'promotional circuit'.

While at the Hippodrome Theatre in Derby he also found time to make a guest appearance on the Baseball Ground pitch before a Derby County game. But he travelled much further afield than that - in 1952 he went to America with the Ringling Brothers Circus to whom he had been contracted.

While in the United States, he helped New York City to promote its 1953 'clean up the streets' campaign His appearance with a 20 foot long broom was a perfect adjunct to their slogan - 'Keeping New York City clean is a giant-sized job'.

But Ted Evans's unexpected celebrity was short-lived, for in keeping with many of great height, he died young. His last public appearance was in the Ringling Brothers show at Madison Square Garden, New York, in 1958. Punters paid a dollar to 'stand in line' and meet him in his booth, where he would allow them to remove an embossed ring from his huge finger.

He began to feel ill during his final stint there, but insisted the 'show must go on'. At the end of the run, he got into his car and drove from New York to Sarasota, in Florida. Feeling terribly ill on arrival, he was admitted to the Memorial Hospital there, where he died a few days later at the age of only 34.

Now here is the locally-linked conundrum. There is very little concerning Ted Evans on the internet, and standard sources generally state that he was 'from' Englefield Green in Surrey or Ashford in Middlesex. In 1946 he was said to be living in Wren Avenue, Ashford, and another source says he once lived in Albert Road, Englefield Green. However, a website in America confidently says 'he was born in Derbyshire, England, in 1924'.

Although American 'historians' can be alarmingly prone to guesswork, that would seem to be an odd thing to make up, so it seems likely it came from biographical information furnished by Evans at the time of his United States tour.

With that in mind it is worth checking the General Registry Office birth records for any Ernest Edward Evans born in 1924. As it happens, there is only one Ernest E. Evans listed - in the September quarter returns - and lo and behold, his birth was registered in Chesterfield, to a mother whose maiden name was Agar.

That would have to be quite a 'coincidence' for it not to be 'our man', so it seems more than likely that the one-time 'world's tallest man' was indeed a product of Derbyshire, and that the county has a small claim to fame which local historians have hitherto missed. Evidently he must have moved away from Derbyshire, probably in childhood, and was based in the south at the time he achieved his celebrity.

Perhaps someone with local history knowledge of the Chesterfield area can add something. Or maybe you remember seeing Ted Evans, or even knew him personally? If you have anything to add to this previously unexplored story, just click on 'edit' and begin writing below.

Ted Evans did live in Albert Road in Englefield Green. I was a school boy at St Judes School in Englefield Green from 1945 -1954 He used to come up to the school railings to watch us playing in the playground. He would come on his pushbike, which was specially made for and him, he would place it against the railings and we would go and talk to him and stand next to the bike which seemed huge. The house he lived in was quite tiny with the smallest doors in the road. Unfortunately I can't remember when he left the area but understood he went to America.

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