Thomas Legge: Irish Adventurer Turned Fakir

Abstract

Thomas Legge, from Donaghdee in Ulster (Northern Ireland), developed an interest in Indian alchemy and divination and ended his days as a fakir, living naked in an empty tomb in the deserts of Rajasthan outside Jaipur. A life like that of his father, a respectable businessman who ran a modest shipping business, did not hold any attraction for the youthful Legge. At heart he yearned for excitement and adventure and spurned his father’s attempts to set him up in a business. Wanderlust got the better of Thomas and he ran away from home and joined the Swallow, a sloop of war heading for Madras.