Peter the Wild Boy | |
---|---|
Born | Birth name unknown c. 1713 |
Died | February 1785 (aged 71–72) |
Other names | Peter the Wild Man |
Known for | feral child |
Peter the Wild Boy (born c. 1713; died 22 February 1785) was a German boy who was found in 1725 living wild in the woods near Hamelin (Electorate of Hanover), the town of the Pied Piper legend. The boy, from Hanover in northern Germany, is of unknown parentage and had been living an entirely feral existence for an unknown length of time, surviving by eating forest flora; he walked on all fours, exhibited uncivilized behaviour and could not be taught to speak a language. It's been speculated that he suffered from the very rare genetic disorder Pitt–Hopkins syndrome.
Peter was found in the Hertswold Forest by a party of hunters led by George I while on a visit to his Hanover homeland and brought to Great Britain in 1726 by order of his daughter-in-law Caroline of Ansbach, the Princess of Wales. [1] [2]
After Peter's transportation to Britain, curiosity and speculation concerning Peter was excited in London. The craze was the subject of a biting satire by Jonathan Swift, and of another entitled The Most Wonderful Wonder that ever appeared to the Wonder of the British Nation, which has been attributed to Swift and John Arbuthnot. Daniel Defoe also wrote on the subject in his pamphlet Mere Nature Delineated . [3] Scottish philosopher and judge James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, in his Origin and Progress of Language presents Peter as an illustration of his theory of the evolution of the human species.
Caroline, Princess of Wales took an interest in Peter's welfare, and in 1726, after the initial public curiosity began to subside, she arranged for Dr Arbuthnot to oversee his education. All efforts to teach him to speak, read or write failed.
The interior designer and painter William Kent included a depiction of Peter in a large painting of King George I's court that today hangs on the east wall of the King's Staircase at Kensington Palace in London. Peter is shown wearing a green coat and holding oak leaves and acorns in his right hand. [4]
After he was discharged from the supervision of Dr Arbuthnot, he was entrusted to the care of Mrs. Titchbourn, one of the Queen's bedchamber women, with a handsome pension annexed to the charge. Mrs. Titchbourn usually spent a few weeks every summer at the house of Mr. James Fenn, a yeoman farmer, at Axter's End, in the parish of Northchurch, Hertfordshire. Peter was left there in the care of Mr. Fenn, who was allowed £35 a year for his support and maintenance. After the death of Mr. Fenn, Peter was transferred to the care of James's brother, Thomas, at another farmhouse, called Broadway, where he lived with the several successive tenants of that farm and worked as a farmhand, sustaining on the same government pension to the time of his death.
In the late summer of 1751, Peter went missing from Broadway Farm and could not be traced. Advertisements were placed in newspapers offering a reward for his safe return. On 22 October 1751, a fire broke out in the parish of St Andrew's in Norwich. As the fire spread, the local gaol became engulfed in smoke and flame. The frightened inmates were hastily released and one aroused considerable curiosity on account of his remarkable appearance, excessively hirsute and strong, and the nature of the sounds he made, which led some to describe him as an orangutan. Some days later, he was identified as Peter the Wild Boy, possibly through a description of him in the London Evening Post. He was returned to Thomas Fenn's farm, and had a special leather collar with his name and address made for him to wear in future, should he ever stray again. [5]
Peter lived to an estimated 70 years of age, having been visited in 1782 by Burnett. He was said to have a healthy complexion with a full white beard, while acquiring a taste for food beyond plants and enjoying the simple things of life. He had picked up limited speech, capable of saying his name, "King George" and humming a few songs, while understanding what Burnett had said to him, a far cry from his past feral self. There is a portrait of the "Wild Boy", depicting a handsome old man with a white beard, in Caulfield's Portraits of Remarkable Persons.
Peter died on 22 February 1785 at his residence and is buried in Northchurch. His grave can still be seen in the churchyard of St Mary's Church, Northchurch, directly outside the main door to the church. [5]
In 2007, a blue heritage plaque was placed at the Wild Man pub in Bedford Street, near St Andrew's in Norwich, commemorating Peter and his association with the district. [6]
On 20 February 2013, it was announced by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport that the grave was to be given Grade II listing on the advice of English Heritage. [7]
In 2011, the condition that afflicted Peter the Wild Boy was suspected to be the chromosomal disorder Pitt–Hopkins syndrome, a condition identified only in 1978, nearly 200 years after Peter's death. [8] Various physical attributes of Peter's which are evident in the Kensington Palace portrait have been matched to the condition, such as his curvy "Cupid's bow" lips, his short stature, his coarse, curly hair, drooping eyelids and thick lips.
An item on the BBC Radio 4 programme Witness History broadcast in March 2011 examined the history of Peter the Wild Boy, tracing his life in Northchurch and later in Berkhamsted, where a leather and brass collar designed to identify Peter in case he should wander away from the village and inscribed "Peter the Wild Man" is preserved at Berkhamsted School. [5] [9]
George I was King of Great Britain and Ireland from 1 August 1714 and ruler of the Electorate of Hanover within the Holy Roman Empire from 23 January 1698 until his death in 1727. He was the first British monarch of the House of Hanover.
William Kent was an English architect, landscape architect, painter and furniture designer of the early 18th century. He began his career as a painter, and became Principal Painter in Ordinary or court painter, but his real talent was for design in various media.
John Gay was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera (1728), a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peachum, became household names.
John Arbuthnot FRS, often known simply as Dr Arbuthnot, was a Scottish physician, satirist and polymath in London. He is best remembered for his contributions to mathematics, his membership in the Scriblerus Club, and for inventing the figure of John Bull.
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James Norwich Arbuthnot, Baron Arbuthnot of Edrom,, is a British Conservative Party politician. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Wanstead and Woodford from 1987 to 1997, and then MP for North East Hampshire from 1997 to 2015.
Sir John Pringle, 1st Baronet was a British physician who has been called the "father of military medicine".
James Burnett, Lord Monboddo was a Scottish judge, scholar of linguistic evolution, philosopher and deist. He is most famous today as a founder of modern comparative historical linguistics. In 1767 he became a judge in the Court of Session.
Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, was the son of Princess Anne and her husband, Prince George of Denmark. He was their only child to survive infancy. Styled Duke of Gloucester, he was viewed by contemporaries as a Protestant champion because his birth seemed to cement the Protestant succession established in the "Glorious Revolution" that had deposed his Catholic grandfather James II & VII the previous year.
Alexander Arbuthnot (1538–1583) was a Scottish ecclesiastic poet, "an eminent divine, and zealous promoter of the Protestant Reformation in Scotland". He was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in both 1573 and 1577.
Monboddo House is a historically famous mansion in The Mearns, Scotland. The structure was generally associated with the Burnett of Leys family. The property itself was owned by the Barclay family from the 13th century, at which time a tower house structure was erected. In 1593, the Laird was James Strachan, and thence it passed into the Irvine family and thereafter the Burnetts of Leys. There is a notable datestone adornment on the structure with the arms of Irvine impaling the arms of Douglas with initials R.E. and I.E. and dated 1635, representing the 17th-century couple who reconstructed the house, Robert Ervine and Ilizabeth Ervine. Monboddo House, with its crow-stepped gable design, is situated in the Howe of Mearns near the village of Auchenblae approximately nine miles (14 km) from the North Sea. The original landholding of the Monboddo Estate was approximately 200 square kilometres (77 sq mi).
The House of Burnett is a Lowland and Border Scottish family composed of several branches. The Chief of the Name and Arms of Burnett is James Comyn Amherst Burnett of Leys.
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Marie-Angélique Memmie Le Blanc was a feral child of 18th century France who was known as The Wild Girl of Champagne, The Maid of Châlons, or The Wild Child of Songy.
A feral child is a young individual who has lived isolated from human contact from a very young age, with little or no experience of human care, social behavior, or language. Such children lack the basics of primary and secondary socialization. The term is used to refer to children who have suffered severe abuse or trauma before being abandoned or running away. They are sometimes the subjects of folklore and legends, often portrayed as having been raised by animals. While there are many cases of children being found in proximity to wild animals, there are no eyewitness accounts of animals feeding human children.
Northchurch is a village and civil parish in the Bulbourne valley in the county of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom. It lies between the towns of Berkhamsted and Tring.
Mere Nature Delineated is a pamphlet by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1726. The longer title under which it was originally published is Mere nature delineated: or, A body without a soul. Being observations upon the young forester lately brought to town from Germany. With suitable applications. Also, a brief dissertation upon the usefulness and necessity of fools, whether political or natural.
Elizabeth Burnett was the younger daughter of the Scottish judge and philosopher James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, and a famous Edinburgh beauty of the late 18th century.