The metal cast has a lidded compartment in it - possibly for snuff. Photo Manx National Heritage

A museum on the Isle of Man has acquired a curious life-sized metal cast of the hand of Arthur Caley, the mysterious ‘Manx Giant’.

The cast was donated to the Manx Museum in Douglas by Mrs Nancy K Smith, the widow of the late Dr James Smith Jr, a surgeon and collector of arcade games and carnival memorabilia in America.

Although there are several similar casts in existence of the Victorian giant this latest artefact is particularly unusual. It has a small compartment in the top of the hand with an engraved lid on it, and museum staff think it may have been a snuff holder for a bar or shop counter.

Caley ended up in America as 'Colonel Ruth Goshen' in the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Photo Franklin Township Public Library, New Jersey

A small metal hoop on the wrist suggests it could have been hung up or chained down to stop customers stealing it. The engraving reads, “A model of the late Arthur Kaley’s hand, the Manx Giant stood 7’8” aged 22 years.”

The cast now forms part of the museum’s display on Arthur Caley in its Lower Folk Gallery, helping to tell the tale of this remarkable man.

It was originally believed that Arthur Caley was born in Sulby on the Isle of Man in 1829 and that after being exhibited as a giant in London from 1852 he died in Paris the following year.

There were contemporary suspicions about his death, however, as his life had been insured for £2,000, a huge amount of money at the time. It transpired that Caley was actually born in Sulby in 1824 and rather than dying in France he moved to America and joined the renowned Barnum & Bailey Circus.

Caley's life was full of mysteries and contradictions. Photo Franklin Township Public Library, New Jersey

He appeared as ‘Colonel Ruth Goshen, the Palestinian Giant’ and finally died in 1889 in Middlebush, New Brunswick. His tombstone strangely puts his birth date as 1837 and the cast itself was obviously produced after Caley’s presumed death in 1853. Although he was billed as standing at 7’11” and the cast says 7’8””, it is likely that he was around the not-unsubstantial 7’5”.

“Arthur Caley was quite literally a larger-than-life character and is proof that fact is frequently stranger than fiction,” said Yvonne Cresswell, Curator of Social History for Manx National Heritage. “If anyone tried to write a film plot with all the twists and turns that you find in Arthur Caley’s life story, it would be turned down as being too fantastic and bizarre to be believable.”

In fact, a film crew has already shown an interest in Caley’s story, as the Canadian TV show Ancestors In The Attic recently visited Manx National Heritage to trace a viewer’s family links to him.