Great British Eccentrics Multiple Choice Quiz | 10 Questions

Answer: A bull

Hirst was an interesting character who rose from a humble background to make a fortune speculating in farm produce.

He had a legendary love of animals, teaching an otter to fish(!) and keeping a kennel of pigs that he had trained as foxhounds. He regularly attended the Doncaster races in a carriage pulled by four Andalusian mules, and disturbed local gentry by turning up to dinner with his pet bear, Nicholas.

Awkward to a fault, he bowed to no man and when presented to King George III, stuck his hand out to be shook instead. The king was massively amused, fortunately, and fell to talking stock breeding with him.

Answer: Sitting upright in an armchair, holding a glass of claret

You would be confronted by the hefty frame of the dead squire, sat in his favorite armchair, wearing a top hat and with a glass of claret in his hand. He had a belief that if he died, his remains would enter the food chain and he might therefore one day be eaten by his relatives.

The floor of the mausoleum would be scattered with broken glass, so 'when the devil comes to claim his own he might at least cut his feet'. So mind where you step.

Answer: A vast network of underground rooms and tunnels

The Duke was a kindly though reclusive eccentric, often having underground works done to create work during hard times. During the Crimean War he arranged for a shipload of food to be sent out to British troops and donated £4000 to soldiers' hospitals.

There are over 15 miles of tunnels and interconnected rooms under Welbeck, some of them wide enough for two carriages to pass abreast. Most of them have fallen into disrepair or collapsed, sadly.

Answer: A revolver for shooting wasps

Sir George occupied that narrow borderline between eccentric and mad as a hatter. Not only did he invent the wasp-shooting revolver (which can still be seen at Rennishaw Hall in Derbyshire), he also oversaw the creation of the Sitwell Egg, a ball of chopped meat and rice in a synthetic lime shell, and a musical toothbrush that played 'Annie Laurie' when used.

He also tried to get Eton College to take estate produce in lieu of money for his son Osbert's school fees.

Answer: Twenty geese and twenty turkeys

Unfortunately, the turkeys dropped out after a mere three miles.

A veteran of the American War of Independence, Hanger had a reputation for betting on anything. He lost so much in a fifteen year career as a gambler that in 1798 he was sentenced to debtor's prison.

On getting out of prison, he appalled society by turning his back on his aristocratic set and becoming a coal merchant and a confirmed champion of democratic ideals, to the extent of alienating his close personal friend, the Prince Regent!

Answer: William Topaz McGonagall

McGonagall was beyond doubt one of the worst poets in the English language, with no formal training, no ear for rhyme or scansion and absolutely no talent except an unintentional ability to make people laugh. Try looking some of his poetry up on line; it doesn't disappoint.

He also dabbled in acting, notably as the lead in Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' where in an 1872 production of the play, he got so carried away in the final duel with MacDuff that he refused to die, reducing the actor playing opposite him to tears.

The English Comedian Spike Milligan was a huge devotee of his, going so far as to star as the poet in a 1974 film 'The Great McGonagall'.

Answer: Orde Wingate

Wingate had suffered a rather unusual upbringing; it certainly left its mark on him.

He was an expert on guerilla warfare. In 1943, he led the first of two 'Chindit' expeditions against the Japanese in Burma, his troops equipped according to his ideas on irregular warfare which he had gained on service in Ethiopia and Palestine. Although not a great success in military terms, they showed the reeling Empire forces that the Japanese were not invincible in the jungle.

Answer: Sir William Erskine, 2nd Baronet

The son of Scottish nobility, Sir William had a reputation, first for rashness, then outright madness. On hearing that Erskine was being despatched to the war against Napoleon in Spain as a brigade commander, Wellington complained that he "generally understood him to be a madman." An official at Horse Guards, the War Office of the time, wrote in reply that "No doubt he is sometimes a little mad, but in his lucid intervals he is an uncommonly clever fellow; and I trust he will have no fit during the campaign, though he looked a little wild as he embarked." He was a disaster as a general, and after a series of costly mistakes Wellington, unable to dismiss Erskine due to his political clout, tried to post him to places where he could do the least harm.

In 1813 Erskine resigned his command, and shortly after threw himself through a high window in Lisbon for reasons even he himself could not understand.

Answer: Freddie Mercury's birthday cake

'I Stole Freddie Mercury's Birthday Cake' was the title of Malcolm's autobiography. He had had an interesting career, running the famous (and fearful) Tunnel Club in Blackheath, London, where many British alternative comedians got their start, taking part in a semi-obscene naked balloon dance act with two friends ('The Greatest Show on Legs') and opening a pub on a converted barge at Rotherhithe on the River Thames. It was while he and Legs were appearing at Freddie Mercury's birthday party and they were locked out of the room with the A-list guests that he decided to steal FM's large and heavy birthday cake. Read the autobiography for the full, hilarious story.

One night, drunk as he usually was, he fell into the river and drowned. As one close associate commented, 'It's probably how he would have wanted to go'.

Answer: Vivian Stanshall

Viv Stanshall, reckoned by Stephen Fry to be the most quintessentially English of all eccentrics, was the son of a strict and rather humourless ex-RAF officer, whose insistence on proper diction gave young Viv a rich and distinctive 'proper' English accent, at odds with the Teddy Boy circles he moved in.
He achieved fame with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, fronting the band through five albums, then went on to a varied career which included creating the chorus of grotesques of 'Rawlinson End', which grew from short interludes on John Peel's radio show to a series of BBC radio plays, three spoken word albums and a VERY strange film starring Trevor Howard and Viv himself. He also had some fame as the MC on Mike Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells' (and the drunk on the outro, a role he didn't have to rehearse for).

He died in a house fire in 1995 and the world seems a poorer place without him.