“Help, help, quick, quick or I shall be dead,” the drowning man cried but as soon as his rescuers pulled him aboard their boat he delivered the most vile abuse at them and dived back into the water!

Once more they dragged him to the surface, this time by his hair, and thrusting him down on the boat, one firmly held him down while the others furiously paddled ashore. 

Once more, he was less than grateful and had to be forcibly detained on straw until police re-inforcements took him away.

The extraordinary drama played out about 100 yards from Millbrook Church, Southampton, in late June 1853 was relayed to the magistrates when the unknown man was brought before them before removed to the County Lunatic Asylum for assessment.

A few days later, he returned to court where his wife identified him as John Leary Jackson who had of late been a master bricklayer plying his trade in Woolwich, London.

But he was a frustrated actor who had a taste for drama and sought the limelight, giving up his trade to join a travelling 
show called the ‘Royal Pavilion’ that travelled the land, at times joining fairs, to put on their 
plays.

“He is one of their most prominent characters,” she explained. “He received and enjoyed the nightly applause of such audiences.

But he read and studied so had and diligently that his mind has become affected and he has lost his reason.”

With her approval, magistrates ordered Jackson to be detained at the asylum until his condition improved.