Lesbian Fanny gladdens my heart:—You know not how I love her." Wollstonecraft's first novel "", in part, addressed her relationship with Fanny Blood. Perhaps the most famous of these romantic friendships was between Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby, nicknamed the Ladies of Llangollen. Butler and Ponsonby eloped in 1778, to the relief of Ponsonby's family (concerned about their reputation had she run away with a man) to live together in Wales for 51 years and be thought of as eccentrics. Their story was considered "the epitome of virtuous romantic friendship" and inspired poetry by Anna Seward and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Diarist
The Newcastle Eccentrics of the 19th century size and eccentricity was often a magnet for bullies. Archibald was never married, but once apparently found a young maid who lived on the Quayside and of who he said she was almost as canny a woman as his mother. A compliment indeed. Archibald Henderson died 14 May 1828, aged 86 years. Bold Archy appears in several songs including :- One of the Eccentrics in the painting Captain Benjamin Starkey was an inhabitant of the Freeman's Hospital in Newcastle. He told Thomas Allan that he was unable to remember how or when he took, or was given, the title “Captain”.