Through the kindness of Sir William Throckmorton, its present owner, we are able to give our readers, in the illustration shown at the bottom of the previous page, a photograph of this wonderful coat. The garment was a large hunting-coat of the then admired dark Wellington colour, a sort of a damson tint. It had been completed in the space of thirteen hours and ten minutes, the wager thus being won with an hour and three-quarters to spare.
To commemorate the event, the two sheep who were the victims of Mr. Coxeter's energy were killed and roasted whole in a meadow near by, and distributed to the public, together with 120 gallons of strong beer, this latter being the gift of Mr. Coxeter.
Our next illustration is a photograph of Mr. Charles Coxeter, of Abingdon, Berks, the only living eye-witness to this feat. He is the younger brother to the weaver of the cloth, long since dead, who is shown in our second illustration. His present age is ninety-three. When approached on the subject he said he well remembered the event, and recalls with pleasure seeing the workmen dine off portions of the sheep, in a barge on the river near the mill. The original mill unfortunately no longer stands, having long since been destroyed, a more modern mill now occupying the site.
We now give an illustration of the silver medal which was struck in honour of the occasion. It is worded as follows:—
"Presented to Mr. John Coxeter, of Greenham Mills, by the Agricultural Society, for manufacturing wool into cloth and into a coat in thirteen hours and ten minutes."
Mr. Coxeter was a very enterprising individual, for seemingly not content with this wonderful achievement, not many years after, in connection with the public rejoicings for peace after the Battle of Waterloo, he had a gigantic plum-pudding made, which was cooked under the supervision of twelve ladies. This monster pudding measured over 20ft. in length, and was conveyed to his house on a large timber waggon, drawn by two oxen, which were highly decorated with blue ribbons. The driver was similarly ornamented, and bore aloft an old family sword of state, presumably to give éclat to the occasion. Arrived at its destination, the pudding was cut up in the celebrated old mill-yard at Greenham, and distributed to all and sundry, those who had the good fortune to partake of it pronouncing the pudding to be "as nice as mother makes 'em."
BILL PRINTED FOR THE GREAT EXHIBITION OF 1851.
The famous coat, which has found a resting-place in a glass case in Sir William Throckmorton's hall, was exhibited at the great International Exhibition of 1851, where it attracted a great deal of attention, a few copies of the old engravings from which our first two illustrations are reproduced being eagerly bought up. Our last photograph shows the bill which was printed for that exhibition.