Timothy Dexter, who made a fortune buying useless foreign currency during the War of Independence, sold warming pans and woollen mittens to the West Indies, would surely be a contender for the world’s most eccentric eccentric. Amongst his other crazy ideas, he wrote in his autobiography that what America really needed was an emperor – and he was just the man for the job!

One poet worked best while his feet were on a block of ice. Whistler dyed his rice pudding green and yet another read the Bible to sheep.