In June 1809, he died suddenly in Stamford, Lincolnshire. At the time of his death, he weighed , and his coffin required of wood. Despite the coffin being built with wheels to allow easy transport, and a sloping approach being dug to the grave, it took 20 men almost half an hour to drag his casket into the trench, in a newly opened burial ground to the rear of St Martin's Church. While others have since overtaken Daniel Lambert's record as the heaviest person in history, he remains a popular character in Leicester, and in 2009 was described by the "Leicester Mercury" as "one of the city's most cherished icons".