Wild Man Pub, Norwich

 PETER THE WILD BOY

The Wild Man pub 29 Bedford Street is named after Peter the Wild Boy

The pub has has a wonderful revamp and when I visited I was given a great warm welcome but I wanted to learn more about Peter the wild boy and how a wild boy from Germany came to involved with the royal court of Georgian England and him finding his own way to Norwich ! 

Peter the wild boy was born about 1713 in Germany and died 22 February 1785 Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, England (aged 71–72) 

He was a boy from Hanover in Northern Germany who was found in 1725 living wild in the woods near Hamelin Hanover Gemany.

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. It's been speculated in more modern times that he suffered from the very rare genetic disorder called Pitt–Hopkins syndrome.

Peter was found in the Hertswold Forest by a party of hunters led by King George the 1st 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 exciting news in London. There was a big craze about Peter and he became subject to being a novelty to even the upper classes and Royal Court.

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 a 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.

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 generous sum for his care.

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 with the same government pension, to the time of Thomas's 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, Bridewell Prison close to where the Wild Man pub is today became engulfed in smoke and flames. The frightened inmates were hastily released and one of them (Peter) aroused considerable curiosity on account of his remarkable appearance and behaviours 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, through a description of him in the London Evening Post offering a reward for his return. He was returned to Thomas Fenn's farm, and had a special leather and metal collar with his name and address made for him to wear in future, should he ever stray again.

Peter lived to an estimated 70 years of age. He was visited in 1782 by the Scottish philosopher and judge James Burnett and was said to have a healthy complexion with a full white beard and apparently understood what was said to him but was himself only capable of saying the words "Peter" and "King George" and humming a few songs. 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 is buried at St Mary's Church

Northchurch, England, in a marked grave and people often place flowers on his grave.

In the first comment below Ive posted a brilliant you tube video from my favourite Historian Lucy Wolesly about Peter the wild boy.