Peter the Wild Boy

Peter the Wild Boy
Peter in a detail of a painting by William Kent at Kensington Palace
Born	Birth name unknown c. 1713 Hanover, Germany
Died	February 1785 (aged 71–72) Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England
Other names	Peter the Wild Man
Known for	feral child

Peter the Wild Boy (born c. 1713; died 22 February 1785) was a boy from Hanover in northern Germany who was found in 1725 living wild in the woods near Hamelin (Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg), the town of Pied Piper legend. The boy, of unknown parentage, 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. He is now believed to have 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.

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.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.