Reign of King George ll 1727 to 1760
Willingham hit the local and national news in the 1740’s with stories of a young boy, Thomas Hall. The headlines ranged from ‘freak boy’, ‘fat boy’, and ‘wonder boy’ to ‘a boy prodigy of nature’, to quote just a few. Thomas Hall was born in October 1741 in Willingham, the second son of Margaret and Thomas Hall. His birth was apparently straightforward, although the midwife described him as a ‘lusty boy’. However he grew at an incredible rate, so great that it came to the attention of a surgeon in St Ives, Thomas Dawkins. The surgeon was so taken aback with the rate of the boy’s growth that he came to Willingham each month and meticulously recorded the change in length and circumference of each limb.
By the age of 2 years 10 months young Thomas was 3ft 8in tall, weighed 4 stones, and was attending school. At this stage the surgeon thought the Royal Society should be informed. In a letter to the President of the Royal Society he gave details of all the monthly limb measurements, together with a general description of ‘this boy prodigy of nature who was is not yet three’ :-
- He is very strong. I saw him take up and readily throw a blacksmith’s hammer weighing 17 pounds.
- When provoked at school by older boys of up to ten, he does not fight with his fists or legs, but collars them and lays them prostrate by sheer strength.4
- His voice is already manly, as deep a bass as you can conceive, which can be very loud. He pronounces distinctly.
- He is something a little savage in look, though not quarrelsome. He has strong brown curly hair.
- He has something of a stately walk and seems conscious of his uncommon strength.4
- His understanding seems equal to a child of six. He has a very retentive memory.
- His father was a little man, and his mother (who died when Thomas was under one) was of middle stature.
Soon afterwards, the young Thomas was interviewed by the Earl of Sandwich at the Crown Inn at Huntingdon in 1745 to verify the surgeon’s report. News of the ‘Willingham Wonder Boy’ gradually spread and there were public viewings of him for over a year at Cambridge, Huntingdon, Bury St. Edmunds and elsewhere. At the age of five Thomas was 4ft 5in tall, weighed 6 stones, and was growing a significant moustache.
However, within a year he started to age rapidly. He died of ‘consumption and old age’ in September 1747 aged just under six.. Thomas Dawkins, the surgeon described him shortly before his death as looking like ‘a very venerable old man’, and declared that every year of Thomas’s short life had been the equivalent of 12 years of a normal man. He is buried in Willingham Churchyard.
The above is a précis of the original notes of the surgeon Thomas Dawkins, held in the University Library and reprinted by the late Dennis Jeeps as a pamphlet in 1996.
Next time: Georgian Willingham