Character guide

Mr. Bensington

major

Also known as Bensington, Mister Bensington

Bensington is the mild, methodical researcher whose study becomes the birthplace of the Food of the Gods, and he spends much of the story wishing it had stayed there. He dreads publicity, squirms under the nickname 'Boomfood,' and would rather investigate quietly than defend his creation before a suspicious public. His anxious hedging against Redwood's and Cossar's boldness makes him the human measure of the discovery's runaway consequences.

Professor Redwood

major

Also known as Redwood, Father Redwood, Professor Redwood

Redwood co-discovers the Food but quickly becomes its most committed advocate, convinced his growing boy must have it regardless of the cost. Where Bensington hesitates, Redwood pushes forward, furnishing a nursery with cathedral-sized doors and dreaming of educating a giant. His fierce paternal ambition makes the abstract experiment personal, and it is his insistence that drives the story past the point of no return.

Cossar

major

Also known as III Cossar, Trust Cossar

Cossar is the practical, exuberant counterweight to Bensington's timidity and Redwood's brooding — a man who gives the Food to all three of his boys without a flicker of doubt. He treats the coming upheaval as obvious and welcome, mocking fears of disturbance as the whimper of 'some sort of little vegetable.' His relentless 'make it so!' energy forces the others to stop deliberating and start acting.

Young Redwood

major

Also known as Giant Redwood, Redwood, The Giant

Young Redwood is the first child of the Food, a boy whose astonishing growth — fifty-nine pounds by six months — shatters his family's ordinary life and forces the discovery into the open. His father plans his education with awe and unease, furnishing a room big enough for a cathedral door. As the most visible of the giant children, he embodies both the promise and the threat that will divide the world around him.

Caterham

supporting

Also known as young Caterham, Mr. Caterham

Caterham is the rising voice of opposition, turning the Food into a political cause by harping on what happens if it escapes again. He is mocked as an alarmist at first, yet his warnings about people thirty-seven feet high who cannot fit inside society's structures give shape to a growing unease. His agitation — amplified by Winkles's loose talk — pushes the Food from laboratory curiosity toward a national crisis.

Dr. Winkles

supporting

Also known as Winkles, Doctor Stephen Winkles, Doctor Winkles

Dr. Winkles is the meddling popularizer whose chatter about the Food does more to inflame public opinion than any deliberate attack. He drops the loaded nickname 'Boomfood,' alarms people with talk of what might happen, and cheerfully angles for a place on the Royal Commission to 'put the whole thing right.' His vanity and loose tongue make him an unwitting ally of Caterham and a thorn in Redwood's and Bensington's sides.

Skinner

supporting

Also known as the Skinner, Mr. Skinner, Mrs. Skinner

Skinner is the practical man on the ground at the experiment's first real test site, writing Bensington cautious letters about feed running short and a milk pudding that went disastrously wrong. He is proud of his management, boastful about the birds he and his wife raised at the other place, and quietly convinced that rank growth always stops. His farm is where the Food stops being a laboratory curiosity and becomes flesh, appetite, and consequence.

Caddles

supporting

Also known as the Caddles, Mrs. Caddles, young Caddles

Young Caddles grows up enormous in Cheasing Eyebright, gentle with chicks and kittens, awkward among ordinary people, and increasingly unable to accept the answers he is given about work, class, and Lady Wondershoot's carriage. His mother parries his questions with the wisdom of the poor while the village around them hardens into fear and blame. He is the story's most human giant: patient, literal, and quietly dangerous because he keeps thinking.

Lady Wondershoot

supporting

Lady Wondershoot rules her corner of Kent from a carriage, dispensing disapproval through coachman and footman and summoning emissaries when the Food's consequences intrude on her estate. She is magnificently certain of her place and utterly unprepared for a world in which villagers' children outgrow her authority. Her collision with Mrs. Skinner and the Caddles family turns a local scandal into the first skirmish between the old order and the new giants.

The Giant Princess

supporting

The Princess has grown up free among upland wastes and mountains, only to find her freedom curtailed by an English public that arrives in brakes and excursion trains to stare. She is lonely in a way no ordinary companion can touch, until young Redwood finds her among the chestnut blossoms at dawn. Their meeting is the story's hinge: two people made for each other by the same discovery, and a future the old world cannot imagine.

Jane

minor

Also known as cousin Jane, Cousin Jane

Mr. Bensington's cousin who manages his household.

Mr. Carrington

minor

Also known as a Mr. Lukey Carrington, Carrington

A journalist who reports on the Food of the Gods.

The Podbourne Doctor

minor

A local doctor who treats the effects of the Food.

The Vicar

minor

Also known as Vicar

A village clergyman who comments on the giant children.

Flack

minor

A local man involved in the village's reaction to the giants.

Mrs. Greenfield

minor

Also known as Greenfield

A villager affected by the Food's spread.

Hickleybrow

minor

Also known as All Hickleybrow

A town where the Food causes giant growths.

Skelmersdale

minor

Also known as little Skelmersdale, Master Skelmersdale

A young boy who consumes the Food and grows.

Witherspoon

minor

A minor official dealing with the giant situation.

Kinkle

minor

A character mentioned in the later parts of the book.

Miss Durgan

minor

Also known as Probably Miss Durgan

A woman who encounters the giant children.

Fulcher

minor

Also known as young Fulcher, old Fulcher

A local farmer who deals with giant pests.

Miss Spinks

minor

A village woman who interacts with the giant children.

Sloppet

minor

Also known as Whereupon little Sloppet

A child who eats the Food and grows.

Georgina Phyllis

minor

A giant child mentioned among the young giants.

Jobbet

minor

A character involved in the giant rat incidents.

Hankey

minor

A person mentioned in connection with the Food.

Albert Edward Caddles

minor

Also known as Albert Edward

The full name of young Caddles, a giant from the village.

Miss Fletcher

minor

A woman who appears in the giant children's story.

John Stickells

minor

Also known as John Caterham, Jack

A character associated with Caterham's political circle.

Tupper

minor

A minor character in the giant narrative.

Dandy

minor

A character mentioned in the village scenes.

Padda

minor

A minor figure in the giant children's world.

Tormat

minor

A minor character in the giant conflict.

Brayvo

minor

A character mentioned in the giant children's adventures.