Here is well-authenticated evidence of long service from Sussex. At Battle is the gravestone of Isaac Ingoll, who died April 2, 1798, aged 120 years; his register is to be seen in the parish, and he lived 101 years in the service of the Webster family, of Battle Abbey, having entered it at the age of 19.[[64]]
Philip Palfreman, who had been box-keeper at the first Covent Garden Theatre in Garrick’s time, died in 1768, aged 100: he almost lived in the theatre, and by his thrift saved a fortune of 10,000l. In 1845 died William Ward, aged 98, of the Sun Fire Office, London, where he had filled a situation seventy years.
Jockeys, from the severe effects of training, are proverbially short-lived; yet John Scott, of Brighton, once a jockey, reached the age of 96.
Great pedestrian feats have been performed by very old men. Mr. M’Leod, of Inverness, who died 1790, aged 102, two years previously walked from Inverness to London (five hundred miles) in nineteen days: he had served in Marlborough’s wars.
On May 28, 1802, a lunatic named James Coyle, 47 years old, was admitted a patient into St. Patrick’s (Swift’s) Hospital, Dublin: he continued there upwards of fifty-eight years, and eventually died July 17, 1860, at the age of 105. There can surely be no mistake as to this great age.
Peter Breman, of Dyott-street, St. Giles’s, London, is one of the few instances on record of long life attained by tall men: he stood 6 feet 6 inches high, and was in the army from the age of 18 nearly until his decease, in 1769, at the age of 104 years. Another tall man, Edmund Barry, of Watergrass-hill, Ireland, died 1822, aged 113: he was 6 feet 2 inches in height, and walked well to the last.
One John Minniken, of Maryport, Cumberland, who died 1793, aged 112, was remarkable for the fast growth and profusion of his hair, which he sold, in successive croppings, to a hairdresser of the town, for a penny a day, during the remainder of his life; and more than seventy wigs were made of Minniken’s hair.
Among aged persons of diminutive stature was Mary Jones, of Wem, Salop, who died 1773, aged 100: she was only 2 feet 8 inches in height. Elspeth Watson, of Perth, who died 1800, aged 115, did not exceed 2 feet 9 inches in height, but was bulky in person.
Old age can rarely withstand intense grief. John Tice, of Hagley, Worcestershire, having recovered from a fall out of a tree when he was 80 years old, and from being much burned when he was 100, after the death of his patron, Lord Lyttleton, became so depressed in spirits, that he took to his bed and died. Sir Francis Burdett had withstood the storms and tumults of political life for more than half a century, and had reached the age of 74, when his dear wife died, Jan. 10, 1844: from that instant Sir Francis refused food or nourishment of any kind, and he died of intense grief on the 23d of the same month: both were buried in the same vault, in the same hour, on the same day, in the church of Ramsbury, Wilts.
Cardinal Fleury, the great French minister, who died in 1743, had attained the age of 90. For fourteen years he essentially contributed to the peace and prosperity of France; but the three last years of his administration were unfortunate. On the death of the Emperor Charles XI., in 1740, without male issue, a war ensued respecting the imperial succession, the calamitous events of which preyed on the Cardinal’s mind and occasioned his death.