Richard Barry, 7th Earl of Barrymore, was travelling with his Berkshire militia on 3 March 1793, when his notorious life as a gambler, turfman, and ‘theatric manic’ was cut short. 1 Having larked it over lunch with the landlady at a public house near Folkstone, the earl climbed into his carriage intending to smoke a pipe, when his gun, resting by the leg of his valet, slipped and misfired. The earl, known ubiquitously today as ‘Hellgate’ Barrymore, died a short time later from a horrific head injury, his grotesque disfigurement scarring the recollections of those who attended him.