Mad, bad and even more dangerous to know than Lord Byron, true British eccentric ‘Mad Jack’ Mytton did it all – and he did it his way.

Born in 1796 – and dying dissolute in a debtors’ prison in his thirties – Regency rake and Shropshire squire John Mytton began earning his “Mad Jack” nickname from an early age.

For some, getting expelled from Westminster School for fighting one of the masters might have been seen as youthful high spirits, but Mytton’s swift expulsion from Harrow soon afterwards suggested a deeper commitment to rebelliousness that extended beyond the school gates – putting a horse in one of his private tutor’s bedrooms, for instance. Despite a total lack of academic interest, Jack somehow got into Cambridge, where he prepared for undergraduate study by shipping in 2,000 bottles of port. He left without a degree.

Having come into a family fortune that brought him an annual income equivalent to £750,000 today, Mytton got himself elected an MP by offering voters £10 (a hefty sum then) to vote for him. Having spent the equivalent of £750,000 to enter Parliament, he then spent just 30 minutes there before deciding it was too boring for him.

Mytton’s love of gambling led to some bizarre stunts. In 1826, he won a wager by riding a horse into the Bedford Hotel in Leamington Spa, up its grand staircase and onto the balcony, from where he jumped over the diners below, out through the window and on to the Parade.

His desire for an adrenaline rush led to him putting mad ideas to the test without any fear of injury. He once decided to find out whether it was possible for a horse pulling a carriage to jump over a tollgate and discovered, at the cost of some injury to himself plus a wrecked carriage, that the answer was a definite “no”. His love of a dare extended to others too. He enjoyed giving local children sums ranging from half a crown to half a guinea for anyone prepared to roll down a local hill.

His idiosyncrasies extended to fox hunting, which he did in all weathers. In winter, if he got hot during a chase he would strip off and ride naked through snow drifts and swollen rivers. Not that he was against clothing: his wardrobe consisted of 150 pairs of breeches, 700 pairs of handmade boots, 1,000 hats and 3,000 shirts.

No one knows whether Mytton was inebriated the evening he scandalised a gathering of neighbours by riding a bear into his drawing room, wearing full hunting costume

Mytton’s eccentricity extended to his treatment of animals. He fed steak and champagne to favoured dogs – from the 2,000 or so he kept – and let Baronet, his favourite horse, wander inside Halston Hall. The horse also enjoyed lying in front of the fire with Mytton.

Drink may have fuelled some of his stunts, given his average consumption of eight bottles of port a day, plus a liberal partaking of brandy. No one knows whether Mytton was inebriated the evening he scandalised a gathering of neighbours by riding a bear into his drawing room, wearing full hunting costume. The bear, amazingly, carried him quietly for a time until his rider decided to stick his spurs in, at which point it bit Mytton’s leg before going on to attack one of his servants.

Mytton’s lax attitude to money meant that visitors to his estate often found banknotes lying around, which they were free to pocket. The result was that, after 15 years of madcap extravagance, “Mad Jack” had blown his entire fortune. Rather than try to live within his means, he fled to France to avoid his debtors, although not until he had persuaded an attractive 20-year-old woman he had met on Westminster Bridge to come with him.

During a stay in Calais, Mytton suffered an attack of hiccups, which he decided to cure with the age-old trick of “a fright” – though in his case, this meant setting his nightshirt on fire and being enveloped in flames. However, after a servant had beaten out the flames, Mytton proudly proclaimed: “The hiccup is gone, by God!” and reeled off to bed, naked. Thank you, and goodnight.

A very British insurer