Biography
Born in Market Weighton within the East Riding of Yorkshire, William was the fourth son in a family of thirteen and weighed 14 pounds (6.35 kg) at birth. His father, a master tailor measured 5 feet 9 inches, while his siblings and mother Anne were of average size, although one sister who died in an accident at age 16 was tall.
He was said to have been teased at school because of his height, though many students were scared of him. Teachers at the school were said to have punished misbehaving students by getting Bradley to lift them onto high cross beams, until the teacher decided to have them taken down again. After leaving school he worked on a farm near the town of Pocklington, earning less than 50p a week.
Read more about this topic: William Bradley (giant)
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A biography is like a handshake down the years, that can become an arm-wrestle.”
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