IN THE German forest of Hertswold, Hanover, in the summer of 1725, the hunting party led by George I surrounded their prey … a naked young boy who had fled up a tree.
They had come across the feral child, aged about 12, while hunting for deer and boar and there was only one way to capture him — cut the tree down. They did. And so began the road to fame for Peter, The Wild Boy.
He was to become a Georgian media star and mix with royalty and power and yet he couldn’t speak, ate grass, acorns and bugs and walked on all fours. The King and his men couldn’t believe what they had caught, He became their pet freak at first and they named him Peter.
He had strange lips shaped like Cupid’s Bow and coarse, curly hair, drooping eyelids and thick lips. Everyone thought he might have been abandoned in the woods by his mother because of his disfigurement.
The King, on summer vacation in Germany, decided to take him back to London to show his court. He grew quite fond of him and put on a special show for his new friend.
On the evening of April 7, 1726, George’s courtiers crammed themselves into the drawing room at St James’s Palace. The doors opened to reveal eight footmen, carrying a bushy-haired boy on a long platter. Once lowered to the floor, he scuttled about using his arms, like a chimp, and scampered up to the King.
Peter became the court pet and was taken to Kensington Palace to sit for William Kent, the painter who was decorating the King’s Grand Staircase with portraits of his favourite servants. Peter’s painting is there to this day.
The tales about him spread and Londoners crowded to see the waxwork of The Wild Boy, which appeared in Mrs Salmon’s celebrated gallery in the Strand. Journalists of the day hailed him as “the most wonderful wonder”, and “one of the greatest curiosities of the world since the time of Adam.”
Peter fascinated intellectuals and philosophers. If he possessed no speech, did he therefore possess no soul?
How long had he been in the forest? Was he just an animal? Jonathan Swift said that the subject of the Wild Boy had been “half our talk this fortnight” and Daniel Defoe thought he was the most interesting thing in the world.
Some writers of the day invented ludicrous lies that Peter was said to have committed: he licked people’s hands in greeting; he wore a hat in the king’s presence and had stolen the Lord Chamberlain’s staff.
The Wild Boy soon began to show signs of distress. The first time he saw someone removing stockings, he broke down sobbing, thinking the man was peeling the skin from his leg.
Courtiers had trouble in getting Peter into clothes and he would not lie down on a bed but sat up and slept in a corner of the room. When he did something wrong like pick the pockets of courtiers, he was beaten on the legs with a broad leather strap to keep him in check.
George, exasperated by Peter’s wild ways, put him under the care of a doctor to be taught to speak ‘and made a sociable creature’. But progress was slow as the Wild Boy would run away if not held by his coat. Finally, he could utter words of one syllable and he was baptised, just in case he did have a soul.
As he grew, he ran to oak trees in the Autumn to find and eat acorns and sometimes was found sleeping in bushes. Finally, he was sent to live in retirement on Broadway Farm near Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire, where he worked as a farmhand on a government pension.
There he lived a long and quiet life, remaining “exceedingly timid and gentle in his nature”, fond of gin, and onions. He liked to watch a fire burn and loved to be out on a starry night.
Years later, after the sudden death of his last carer, Farmer James Fenn, Peter refused food and pined, then ran away. Advertisements were placed in newspapers offering a reward for his safe return.
Some people got in touch with the ‘London Evening Post’ saying they had seen a man who looked like an orangutang roaming the fields.
Peter was caught and returned to the farm. A leather collar with his name and address was made for him to wear in future, should he ever stray again. He died on February 22, 1785, with his aged estimated at 70.
His grave is in the churchyard of St Mary’s, Northchurch, near Berkhamsted. The tombstone reads simply: ‘Peter The Wild Boy 1785’, and people often leave flowers there today.
DID YOU KNOW?
TWELVE dogs were on the Titanic as the ill-fated liner sank in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912. Only three survived, wrapped in blankets in their owners’ arms on the lifeboats, according to newspaper reports.
One passenger, Ann Isham, had boarded the Titanic in Cherbourg with her Great Dane. When tragedy struck, she refused to leave the ship without her dog, which was too big to go on a lifeboat.
Ann was one of four first-class female passengers who died in the sea. She was spotted by passengers on the recovery ship SS Bremen, with her arms wrapped tightly around her beloved Dane. But she was never found.
DARK DAYS OF CARTOONIST WHO
TOOK ON THE RICH AND FAMOUS
HIS ETCHINGS were feared by Napolean; disliked by William Pitt; laughed at by Dr Johnson and loved by the British public.
Napoleon claimed he was ‘more powerful than a dozen Generals’ and he was scorned by Royalty. No portly squire, bawdy courtesan, politician or prince was safe from the pen and pot of ink of James Gillray; arguably the father of the political cartoon in Georgian Britain in the 19th century.
He was famous and wealthy, but he was unhappy. He lived a mostly reflective, reclusive and morose life, remaining a lifelong bachelor with a drink problem. He spent his final days descending into mental illness and severe depression before dying aged 58 in 1815 with his carer who some believe was his mistress, by his side.
Those who saw him in his last days said he became “imbecilic” and had to be looked after. Most agreed his artistic talent outstripped even the drawings of William Hogarth. And yet little is heard of him today.
During his 30-year career, Gillray produced over one thousand satirical prints. His style was characterised by his fluid caricatures, speech balloons and a technical ability to use etching and stipple techniques to exaggerate body shapes, often drawing pudgy people, pointy noses, fangs for teeth and animalistic faces. His works are on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
In his day, his prints were widely displayed in shop windows, coffeehouses and newspapers, providing a running commentary on society.
James Gillray, Father of the Caricature world
Among his most celebrated works is The Plumb Pudding in Danger (1805), hailed as one of the greatest political cartoons ever created. (pictured above).
In the cartoon, British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and Napoleon Bonaparte are seated at a table, carving up a globe-shaped pudding – a visually slick metaphor for their empires' geopolitical tug-of-war and how they will fight to the finish for the very last crumb.
Gillray was born in Chelsea in 1756, and his father was a sexton in the Moravian Brotherhood, a strict Protestant sect that emphasised the essential depravity of man and the need to isolate children from the corrupting and sinful influences of the world.
At the age of five he was sent away to a Moravian boarding school in Bedford, reported to be one of Britain’s most brutal and repressive institutions.
When he was 14, he was apprenticed to an engraver in Holborn Hill where he engraved trade cards or buttons. He was later admitted as a student in the Royal Academy, supporting himself by engraving.
Little is known about his early life but his publisher and print seller, Hannah Humphrey, started to sell his work in her shop at 227 The Strand, then in New Bond Street and finally St James’s Street. Hannah was a clever businesswoman six years his elder.
Gillray moved in and lived upstairs. Some said they were lovers, but others believed Gillray didn’t have sex. The couple were “just companions” during the entire period of his fame and spells of deep depression. In fact, she was the brains behind his financial dealings.
Several times he thought of marrying her, and on one occasion the pair were on their way to the church, when Gillray said: "This is a foolish affair, methinks, Miss Humphrey. We live very comfortably together; we had better let well alone."
He died as he was losing his sight and at the height of his blackness, with Hannah by his side. Gillray left her his entire estate.
OH, BLAST IT!
IN 1848, blasting foreman Phineas Gage was clearing rock in Vermont, US, as part of the advance team of railway workers constructing the line for the Rutland and Burlington Railroad.
After packing a hole with gunpowder, Gage tampered it down with sand, using a four-foot-long iron rod shaped like a javelin.
But the rod caused a spark and ignited the gunpowder, firing the rod through Gage’s left cheek and out through the top of his head, reported the ‘Boston Post’.
Gage lost a significant amount of blood and brain matter but survived the accident but went on to live for another 12 years. However, his personality changed from an affable, likeable man to an impatient and often violent one.
But he earned money from then on from hospitals and scientists studying brain damage.
