Jane Bunford - 7 feet 11 inches (241 cm)

Jane Bunford (also known as Ginny Bunford or Jinny Bunford - 26 July

1895-1 April 1922) is the tallest person ever recorded in English medical
history. She was the tallest woman in the world during her lifetime, and
she still may hold four further records - that she was twice the tallest
living person in the world, - around 1914 (after Machnow had died, and
before Bernard Coyne overtook her) and between 20 May 1921 and 1
April 1922 (after Bernard Coyne's death until Ginny died). There is more
information about the tallest person in the 20th century on
our Statisticspage. She may also have had the longest hair in Britain
during her lifetime.

Jane Bunford continues to be one of the most mysterious giants to have

lived during the 20th Century. No photographs, if any still do exist of her,
have ever been seen by or shown to the general public. Jane was listed in
the Guinness Book of Records between 1972 and 2001, and they only
published a photograph of her skeleton and a copy of her death
certificate, which they obtained on 10 February 1972. A copy of it
appeared at the foot of page 11 in the 1972 publication.

Introduction

Jane's parents were John Bunford (March 1856-December 1916) and Jane
Bunford nee Andrews, (1857-November 1913) of Bartley Green,
Northfield, Birmingham, UK. Her father was a metal caster. Known as
"Jinny" Bunford, Jane was an ordinary, quiet, shy and well-behaved child
who enjoyed good health during the first 11 years of her life. While Jane
was quite tall for her age, her growth rate was not unusual.

Life changing accident

In June 1906, she stood 5 ft (1.52 m) tall but in October of that year,
Jane's life changed forever, when she fractured her skull after falling off
her bicycle and hitting her head on the pavement. Although the 11-year-
old Jane couldn't have known it at the time, the injury permanently
damaged her pituitary gland, releasing an excess of growth hormone
which sent her growth patterns out of control. The accident also indirectly
led to her death in April 1922. It was not until 1915, nine years after her
accident that scientists definitely determined that the pituitary gland is
responsible for producing growth hormones in humans, and though the
problem was identified, no treatment was available for hyperpituitarism
during Jane's lifetime.

School

Jane attended St. Michael's Secondary School in Bartley Green. At school

she displayed a talent for embroidery, but some pupils picked on Jane
after her accident, mainly because of her abnormal growth and height.
Also, the desks and chairs became too uncomfortable for her to sit at. As
a result of both factors, Jane's parents took her out of school before her
13th birthday on 26 July 1908. That day Jane was measured, in her bare
feet, as being 6 ft 6 in tall or 1.98 m. Two years after that, around the time
of her 15th birthday in July 1910, Jane hit the 7ft (2.13 m) mark. Four
years later, in 1914, she was measured at 7 feet 8 inches (2.33 m) tall. On
her 21st birthday Jane was measured at 7 ft 10 in (2.39 m) tall, her peak
standing height.

Life as a giantess

Jane rejected several opportunities to benefit financially from her size and
appearance. She had dead straight auburn hair, which she grew until it
was 8 ft 1 in long. She wore it in two plaits and it came down to her
ankles, according to the 1972 edition of the Guinness Book of Records.
When loose it fell around her like a cloak reaching the ground. She
refused an offer from a man who wished to purchase her hair for a small
fortune. She also rejected offers to appear in various shows for what were
large sums of money at the time.

Spurning offers to become wealthy, Jane worked at a Cadburys chocolate

factory for a time after leaving school, though in the April 1911 Census,
she is listed as "Jinny Bunford", aged 15, and under occupation there is
nothing listed.

Jane's mother died in November 1913, at the age of 56, and after her
father died three years later, Jane moved from Adams Hill, Bartley
Green, to Jiggins Lane, Bartley Green, where she lived until her own
death. She took holidays away from Bartley Green, to visit relatives or
the seaside.

Jane, however, in her final years, became a recluse. She hated the
attention her size brought her, and her spine developed a severe curvature
through not being able to support her huge body. Due to this, Jane could
not stand fully erect towards the end of her life. This also developed
because she had to stoop and bend down often when passing through
doors. This condition is often seen in very tall people and occurred in
both Eddie Carmel and John F. Carroll, who like Jane, grew normally
during their early years. She now was also in constant pain because of
joint problems and other ailments.

Death

Jane's final measurement, taken in March 1922, was 2.31 m (7 ft 7 in),

estimated at 2.41 m (7 ft 11 in), if she had not developed the spinal
curvature. After taking the measurement, Jane's doctor informed the
medical school of Birmingham University that she did not have long to
live and he was proved to be correct. Jane died at her home on 1 April
1922, her death being registered two days later.
Jane's funeral was held at St Michaels and All Angels Church, Bartley
Green, on 5 April 1922. According to undertaker's records published in
General Practitioner, her coffin was 8 ft 2 in long and was probably the
longest ever used for a UK funeral. It was locked in the church overnight
on 4/5 April 1922.

Four schoolboys who carried her coffin from the church to the graveyard
remarked later that it felt strangely light for someone of Jane's size but
they didn't inquire why. If they had, the later outrage of the whereabouts
of Jane's skeleton may have been avoided. However if Jane's full body
had been buried on 5 April 1922, then she almost certainly would never
have been listed in the Guinness Book of Records half a century later and
probably would have been consigned to anonymity forever.

1971 scandal

Nothing was reported or written about Jane Bunford during the next half-
century. No obituary or verses appeared in the local newspaper when she
died, and outside friend and family circles, she appeared to have been
forgotten. That all changed in 1971 when the Guinness Book of Records
heard about the skeleton of a giantess that was on display in the
anatomical part of Birmingham University.

The October 1971 edition of the Guinness Book of Records published a

photograph of Jane's skeleton. They didn't say it belonged to her, but that
the identity of the skeleton "remains a 50-year-old secret". The edition
revealed was that it belonged to an "Unidentified giantess who died in
Northfield, Birmingham, England in 1921 aged c. 24 years", and noted
that the "Skeleton has a mounted height of 7 feet 4 inches but she had a
severe curvature indicating a height of c. 7 feet 9 inches when alive. A
note on page 304 said "The most recent research into the identity of the
Northfield giantess indicates that she died in 1922".

Measurements of Jane Bunford's skeleton were obtained in 1971. They

were -- Chin to top of head, 10.75 in (27.31 cm). Arm span = 8 ft 1.25 in
(247.02 cm). Length from top of head to waist, 3 ft 0.75 in (93.35 cm).
Length from top of head to crotch, 3 ft 11 in (119.38 cm). Wrist to tip of
middle-finger, 10.5 in (26.67 cm). Length from waist to heel, 4 ft 10.25 in
(147.96 cm). Heel to tip of big toe, 13 inches (33.02 cm).

Birmingham University initially declined to reveal the skeleton's identity,

but interest had been awakened by the photograph. The "50-year-old
secret" was uncovered, as Jane was the only giantess living in the
Northfield area who fitted its description, and as a result of the publicity,
in November 1971 the University were forced to admit that the skeleton
was that of Jane Bunford's, whose story was featured on ATV towards the
end of 1971 and in a brief Daily Mirror article on 3 February 1972, with a
headline stating "Body snatch mystery of Giant Jane".
Although Birmingham University admitted the skeleton's identity, they
still refused to state how they obtained it. According to a February 1972
General Practitioner article, the University refused to allow any more
photographs to be taken, further information was withheld and questions
from journalists were not permitted, at the request of the head of the
Bunford family.

In the General Practitioner article, Jane's relatives denied that they had
sold or given her body to medical science. It is not known whether her
siblings were aware of the removal when she died or if they gave
permission for the medical school to remove it. Both of Jane's parents
died several years before, and some of her siblings were dead by the time
the controversy arose over her skeleton's whereabouts.

According to her death certificate, Jane died of hyperpituitarism and

gigantism. In October 1972, the Guinness Book of Records listed Jane
Bunford as being Britain's tallest recorded woman. For the next nine
years she was named as the tallest female recorded in medical history,
and was listed in that publication for the next 30 years as the tallest
women in British medical history.

Memories of Britain's tallest person

When interviewed in January 1972, elderly residents of Bartley Green

remembered Jane Bunford as a woman with a deep voice but a gentle
nature. A man from Birmingham who wrote to the Daily Mail newspaper
on 22 September 2008 said two of his maiden aunts were contemporaries
of Jane, and went to the same school, and they said she was a kind, gentle
and shy girl who was much loved by younger children.

She often baby-sat young children in the area, as a favour for neighbours,
and several people in their old age recalled seeing her clean the upstairs
windows of her cottage while standing on the pavement, such was her
reach. Jane had a close friend named Emma, who was a dwarf and lived
nearby.

A second funeral

As the 20th Century drew to a close, plans arose for a plaque to be

erected in Bartley Green to commemorate her life. Her cousin opposed
the erection of the plaque whereas others wanted it to be as tall as Jane
was when she was alive. Neither party got their way. A seven-foot plaque
in commemoration of Jane "Ginny" Bunford was placed on the wall of
Bartley Green Local Library on 10 April 2000, almost exactly 78 years to
the day after her death. However the wall was 7 ft 11 in (2.41cm) high, as
tall as Jane was.

Despite the controversy over the 1971 discovery, Jane's skeleton

continued to be displayed at Birmingham University until 2005, when her
family managed to regain it, after changes in the Data Protection Act.
Before then, they were not allowed access to see the skeleton as it being
used for medical purposes.

At some point between January and June 2005, after a private second
funeral, and an absence of 83 years, she was finally buried in her family
plot. However, no headstone marks Jane's grave to this day. Only her
mother has a headstone.

Birmingham University's Medical School confirmed in 2007 that: "The

skeleton of Jane Bunford is no longer in the Medical School. We
disposed the anatomy collection two years ago and the skeleton of Jane
Bunford at that time was buried."