I joined the British Transport Police at Brighton in 1973, a month after my 16th birthday, however I was a Police Cadet. William Henry Auger was even younger than me and he joined the Police as a Constable!

William was born on 27^th December 1881 in Cardiff to Henry and Laurette Auger.  Within a few months of his birth, the family moved to London where his father joined the Metropolitan Police. (He was to marry three times and had no less that nineteen children!)

In December 1897 William joined the Great Western Railway Police as a Constable, however he was just 15 years old!    He lied about his age saying he was 20, but how did he get away with it?  The answer was his height – he was nearly seven feet tall! (and wore size 14 boots!)  He had previously spent two years in the Royal Marines and probably used his military papers as proof of his age.

William  was posted to Paddington Station.  Not surprisingly he soon came to the attention of the press and in October 1898 he was interviewed by the Morning Leader. He claimed to be 22 years old (he was 16) and 6 ft 10 inches tall (7 ft 2 inches to the top of his helmet).  The report included a sketch of PC Auger towering over a railway porter.  The newspaper suggested that William contact the army to join the Life Guards and ended by saying “ Police-Constable Auger is a fine figure of a man, good-looking and well-built. The pretty parlour-maids of Paddington have not left him in ignorance of their 

Queen Victoria regularly used Paddington Station and William later claimed that he was noticed by Her Majesty when he was escorting her through the station and that she had nicknamed him ‘Captain’, a title that he was to later use in his career as an entertainer.  Several newspapers including the Daily Express and the Music Hall Review said that he was famous for being the ‘Tallest Policeman in the World’

William’s career as a police officer was to be short lived as he was dismissed in March 1899.  (Maybe his true age was ascertained?)  Shortly afterwards, in 1900 he got married to a girl called Elizabeth Hearne at Lambeth Registry Office. So what job is suited to a 7 foot tall ex-policeman? The answer is seen in the 1901 census where his occupation is recorded as a ‘doorkeeper’ (at the Alhambra Theatre.).

The story goes that one day the newly married couple visited Barnham and Bailey’s Circus and William realised that he was actually taller than the performer who was advertised as the world’s tallest man! He was spotted by the management of the circus and offered a job and in May 1904 the William and Elizabeth sailed to New York. 

His first performance was at a circus located in Madison Square Garden where he was promoted as ‘Captain George Auger – 8 feet 4 inches –  the world’s tallest man!’  I am not sure why he changed his name from William to George at this time although he performed under a number of pseudonyms such as ‘The Cardiff Giant’ and ‘The Colossus of Wales’.

Although William was a ‘freak-show’ performer he was well liked and became hugely  popular.  By this time he was telling people that he was once a guard at Buckingham Palace!   Although William and Elizabeth lived on a farm at Bridgeport, Connecticut, he was performing across the United States and even as far as Cuba.  He became an American citizen in January 1917 but this meant that he was eligible to be drafted into the army, which happened in September 1918, just a few weeks before the end of the war.  Interestingly,  his call-up papers show his height as 7 feet  6 inches.   

‘Captain Auger’, was now a showbiz star and was working for himself. He wrote a comedy play ‘Jack the Giant Killer’ employing his wife and a number of  ‘dwarf actors’.  He even submitted the script to be made into a cartoon. 

By the early 1920s he was being courted by Hollywood and a photograph shows him posing with global film stars Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin.  In 1922 he signed a contract to appear in a movie with comedian Harold Lloyd, but soon after publicity shots were taken William died suddenly.  The cause of death was shown as ‘indigestion’ (!) and nearly 1,000 people crowded the street when a specially made coffin was lowered into the street from the apartment block where he was staying.  He is buried at the Woodlawn Cemetery in New York. Sadly his grave is unmarked. 

As a historian for the British Transport Police I gathered many personal record cards for railway policemen and women. It would be fascinating to see the card for PC AUGER of the Great Western Railway Police at Paddington but they were all lost in an air-raid.  Although it is unlikely that a young police constable would have been ‘Queen Victoria’s bodyguard’ she regularly used Paddington Station and if he was on duty at the time she  could not have failed to have noticed him.  He was almost certainly the country’s tallest (and youngest) police officer at the time.  What shame he died before he got his big break. 

As William had eighteen brothers and sisters it is not surprising that he has relations that are alive today. One of them is the musician Brian Auger who worked with Rod Stewart, Jimi Hendrix, Long John Baldry and Julie Driscoll with whom he duetted on the song ‘Wheels on Fire’.  The song made number five in the charts in 1968 and was later used as the theme tune for ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ .  

Sources: 

The Roath Local History Society

BBC Wales

Ancestry.com

National Newspaper Archives

Find-a-grave.com