Hugh Peter and the Orphans: Tracing a 17th Century Conspiracy Theory

Early in 1643, as England fell further into a bloody and prolonged civil war, a New England minister named Hugh Peter appeared before the House of Commons with a proposal. His pitch was simple: due to the ongoing military conflict, London was overrun with orphaned children who were draining the city’s limited poor-relief resources dry. Meanwhile, Massachusetts, where Peter had recently served as the pastor of Salem’s Congregational church, was in desperate need of laborers to work its fields and construct its villages. If London’s surplus of young people could be transported to New England, he observed, both problems would be solved, and the orphans would be guaranteed a godly Puritan education in the bargain. Would Parliament allow him to stump for sympathetic investors to support this transatlantic migration project? Yes, the parliament-men answered him, they certainly would.

Thus began a months-long endeavor, spearheaded by Peter and bankrolled by wealthy Puritan Londoners, to transport impoverished English orphans to Massachusetts. But while the project was successful – the first group of children arrived in Boston later that summer, according to Bay Colony governor John Winthrop – it also quickly became controversial. Parliament’s royalist critics in England, in particular, wondered about Peter’s true motivations and feared for the safety of the relocated (or kidnapped?) young people. Soon enough, they began glossing the project as a threat rather than an act of charity: one with potentially devastating consequences for the kingdom’s future.

This talk will explore, for the very first time, the story of Hugh Peter’s orphans and the Royalist conspiracy theories that emerged around their impromptu journey to Massachusetts during the early years of the English civil wars. As we will discover, what Peter and his parliamentary backers intended as humanitarian relief effort was transformed, in the eyes of their enemies, into a transatlantic plot to indoctrinate English young people into dangerous Puritan impiety.

Tracing the various narratives that sprang up around Peter’s orphan transportation proposal in printed pamphlets and contemporary legal records reveals how closely intwined Old and New England really were during these critical mid-17th century decades. Moreover, the Loyalists’ specific worries about the godly mis-education that Peter’s orphans received overseas in Massachusetts can shed new light on the history of education in Britain during the later 17th century while also resonating, in an entirely different sense, with our present political moment.

Samuel Fullerton is assistant professor of history at the University of North Texas, where he researches and teaches on the history of early modern Europe and colonial North America. His first book, Sexual Politics in Revolutionary England, tracks the political applications of explicit sex-talk in print during the England's mid-17th century civil wars, and he has published widely on a number of related topics, including New England in general and Hugh Peter in particular. He is currently writing a history of political libel in England from the late 16th century to the Augustan "Golden Age of Satire." See his bio here.

Samuel Fullerton's Sexual Politics in Revolutionary England is out in paperback in January 2026! You can purchase a copy from Manchester University Press, here.

Image: The devil whispers "You are mine" in Hugh Peter's ear in this depiction of Peter's malevolent intentions for England, including his plan to (as they saw it) immiserate widows and orphans. Note, too, the reference to Geneva - the source of Puritan influence and their Geneva Bible. Line engraving after William Faithorne, 1660. National Portrait Gallery, London

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