Today’s speaker was Catherine Curzon, an author specialising in works of a Georgian flavour. She is also a playwright, her creation of “Mr Wickham” coming to the York Playhouse shortly, starring Adrian Lukis, who took the part of Mr Whickham in the BBC’s adaptation of the book “Pride & Prejudice”
Catherine’s talk today was entitled “The Curious Tale of Peter the Wild Boy”, and centred around a very young boy discovered by hunters in the woods of Hamlyn, Germany in 1724. The boy was feral, living off raw meat and vegetables found in the wild, running around on all fours, and climbing trees in an effort to evade capture by the hunters. He was eventually caught, but being unable to speak any known language, he was thrown into a house of correction. King George 1st took a keen interest in him, and brought him to England in 1726,
when the boy was about 11 or 12, and endeavoured, without great success, to enter him into court life, though the Princess of Wales did take a great interest in the boy. He appeared to enjoy her company, but it is thought that he was entranced by the sparkling jewellery which she often wore.
His table manners left much to be desired, as he did not take to cooked food, preferring raw acorns, and particularly raw onions.
John Arbuthnot, the creator on John Bull, tried without success to civilise the boy, who, unfortunately became nothing more than a lapdog for a bunch of courtly strangers. Little concrete is known of why he became wild though Jonathan Swift, of Gulliver’s Travels fame, and Daniel Defoe, who wrote Robinson Crusoe, came up with their own ideas, none of which have proved valid.
In 1728 he lived on a farm in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, being moved to Norwich in 1730, where he was imprisoned, escaped a prison fire, and eventually found himself back in Hertfordshire, where he lived with a Mr. Fenn, to whom he was very attached, and eventually died on 27th February 1785, after a tumultuous life, never really fitting in anywhere.