John Elwes: The Miser Who Inspired Dickens

You may not recognize the name John Elwes, but you almost certainly know his literary and cartoon heirs— Ebenezer Scrooge (the cold-hearted miser at the center of Charles Dickens’s 1843 classic A Christmas Carol), and Scrooge McDuck (the fabulously wealthy yet miserly uncle of Donald Duck). Both were modelled, at least in part, on this extraordinary 18th-century Englishman whose avarice was so extreme that it became a national curiosity. Born into immense wealth yet living as if penniless, Elwes’s life was a study in contradiction— a man who hoarded riches but dressed in rags, who lent vast sums yet refused himself a fire on a freezing night, and whose eccentricities would inspire one of the most famous misers in fiction.

Ebenezer Scrooge sitting by the fireplace. Illustration by John Leech. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Fear of Spending

John Elwes was born on April 7, 1714, into privilege. His father, Robert Meggot, was a prosperous brewer in Southwark who left behind a comfortable fortune. His mother, Amy Meggot, was the daughter of the distinguished Sir Gervase Elwes, 1st Baronet of Stoke College. From birth, John was heir to both money and social standing. Yet, as fate would have it, he also inherited something far less enviable: a morbid dread of poverty that turned into an obsession with hoarding.

It was said that his mother’s fear of destitution bordered on madness. According to his biographer Edward Topham, she “starved herself to death.” The young John, though well educated at Westminster School, grew up absorbing this attitude toward money. This cautious approach was hardened into compulsion after he came under the influence of his uncle, Sir Harvey Elwes.

The Miser’s Apprentice

Sir Harvey Elwes was infamous in his own time for his extreme thrift. Though a baronet with extensive estates, he lived like a pauper—eating scraps, wearing patched clothing, and sleeping without fire even in the bitter cold. When John came of age, he visited his uncle’s estate in Suffolk, and what began as a social visit turned into an apprenticeship in miserliness. Hoping to win his uncle’s favour and secure his inheritance, John began imitating Sir Harvey’s habits with unnerving fidelity.

The two misers would dine together on a single small bird or a piece of mouldy cheese, then spend the evening railing against other people's extravagances while sharing a single glass of wine. They went to bed as soon as daylight faded to avoid wasting candles. Sir Harvey’s habits grew more extreme with age, and John followed dutifully along, even to the point of sleeping in damp clothes rather than waste coal drying them. When Sir Harvey died in 1763, Elwes inherited his uncle’s estate—worth about £250,000, an enormous fortune at the time. But by then, his transformation was complete. Though now one of the richest men in England, he had acquired a permanent disgust for comfort.

John Elwes

A Gentleman of Tattered Appearance

Elwes’s miserliness did not stop at personal discomfort—it shaped every aspect of his life. He refused to buy new clothes, wearing garments until they literally fell apart. When rain soaked him to the skin, he would sit in wet clothes until they dried on him. He mended his coats with bits of paper or old cloth, often taken from discarded garments. On one occasion, his shabby attire was so unkempt that a passersby mistook him for a beggar and slipped a coin into his hand.

Despite his appearance, Elwes moved in respectable circles. He was acquainted with many aristocrats and even spent time at the court of George III. But his aversion to spending often made his visits a spectacle. Once, when invited to a dinner party, he refused to take a cab and walked several miles through the rain to save the fare, arriving at the table drenched and splattered with mud.

Elwes owned several fine properties, including estates at Marcham, Berkshire, and Stoke College in Suffolk. Yet he let them rot. Roofs leaked, walls crumbled, and entire wings of his homes fell into disrepair because he refused to hire workmen. When rain poured through his ceilings, he moved his bed to a dry corner rather than fix the roof.

He ate whatever could be had cheaply. One oft-repeated story tells of him retrieving a half-eaten moorhen from a roadside ditch, brushing it off, and instructing his servants to cook it. On another occasion, he dined for several days on a piece of game so decayed that even his servants could not bear the smell.

Even Elwes' health was limited by expense. In common with many misers, he distrusted physicians, preferring to treat himself in order to save paying for one. He once badly cut both legs while walking home in the dark, but would only allow the apothecary to treat one, wagering his fee that the untreated limb would heal first. Elwes won by a fortnight and the doctor had to forfeit his fee.

A Miser in Parliament

In 1772, John Elwes entered Parliament as the Member for Berkshire. His election expenses were famously meagre—just eighteen pence. Chosen in a by-election as a compromise candidate to replace Thomas Craven, Elwes went on to serve three consecutive terms, holding his seat unopposed until he voluntarily stepped down in 1784.

True to his nature, Elwes aligned himself with neither political faction, voting according to his own whims and convictions. Throughout his twelve years in the House of Commons, he never once rose to speak. His fellow members, amused by his singular wardrobe, joked that he could never be accused of being a “turncoat,” since he owned only one coat to begin with.

His parliamentary duties required frequent travel to Westminster, which he undertook in typically frugal fashion—riding a thin, weary horse and carefully selecting routes that avoided turnpike tolls. He carried with him a hard-boiled egg for sustenance, stopping beneath a hedge midway through his journey to eat or nap before continuing on. After a dozen years of service, Elwes quietly retired, unwilling to spend even a penny to defend his seat.

His miserliness, however, did not extend to others in the usual way. Elwes was curiously generous to those who borrowed money. He lent thousands of pounds to friends and acquaintances, often without recording the loans. Many never repaid him. In the end, it is estimated he lost over £100,000 through his careless generosity. On one notable occasion Elwes, unsolicited, lent Lord Abingdon £7,000 to enable him to place a bet at Newmarket. On the day of the race, Elwes rode on horseback to the racetrack with nothing to eat for fourteen hours save a piece of pancake which he had put into his pocket two months earlier and which he swore to a startled companion was "as good as new".

Decay and Self-Deprivation

Despite his eccentricities, Elwes fathered two sons out of wedlock—George and John—whom he adored. He was a surprisingly affectionate father, though he could not bear to spend money on their education or comfort. Elwes maintained that "putting things into people's heads is the sure way to take money out of their pockets".

After retiring from Parliament, Elwes turned his full attention to the art of miserliness, wandering restlessly among his numerous estates. His properties, once grand, were left to decay as he steadfastly refused to spend a farthing on repairs. He would often join his tenants in the fields after harvest, gleaning stray ears of corn to supplement his meals. To save the cost of heating, he dined with his servants in the kitchen, sharing their fire rather than lighting one elsewhere. Even in the depths of winter, he sat shivering through his meals without a flame, insisting that eating provided “exercise enough” to keep him warm.

This obsession with economy nearly cost him his life. On one occasion, while residing alone in one of his neglected houses, Elwes fell gravely ill and vanished from notice. His nephew, Colonel Timms, alarmed by his disappearance, inquired at Elwes’s bankers and acquaintances but found no trace of him. Finally, a pot boy recalled seeing an “old beggar” enter a stable adjoining an uninhabited property on Great Marlborough Street and lock the door behind him. Suspecting the worst, Timms went there and, receiving no answer to his knocks, summoned a blacksmith to force the lock. Inside, he discovered his uncle lying delirious with fever in a cold, damp basement—half-dead but still clutching his hoarded savings.

Towards the end of his life, Elwes grew feverish and restless, hoarding small quantities of money in different places, continually visiting all the places of deposit to see that they were safe. He began suffering from delusion, fearing that he would die in poverty.

Elwes died on November 26, 1789, at the age of seventy-five, leaving behind an estate worth more than £500,000—an astronomical sum at the time, equivalent to tens of millions today. Much of it went to his sons and his nephew. His biographer, Edward Topham, who knew him personally, published The Life of John Elwes in 1790, a best-selling account that immortalized his astonishing thrift and oddities for posterity.

From Elwes to Scrooge

Elwes’s fame persisted well after his death. His peculiarities—his decaying mansion, his tattered clothes, his hoarded fortune—became symbols of miserly folly in Georgian England. Newspapers and pamphlets recounted his habits with both amusement and moral outrage.

Charles Dickens, born half a century later, almost certainly encountered these tales. When he created Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (1843), the parallels were striking: both men were wealthy yet joyless, obsessed with money yet terrified of losing it, and both lived in self-imposed isolation surrounded by decay. Dickens’s Scrooge, however, finds redemption—a luxury John Elwes never sought.