Hugh Blair of Borgue had an Intellectual Disability
Plain Language Version!
Find the original version here
Hugh Blair of Borgue lived in the 1700s in Scotland. His family owned land, making him more wealthy than his neighbors, but he wasn’t royalty. He was a son, brother, husband, and father, and he was probably autistic.
We know about Hugh Blair today because of a court case. His younger brother, John, told the Supreme Court of Scotland that Hugh shouldn’t be allowed to get married because Hugh couldn’t understand what he was agreeing to. I got the information about this court case from the book “Autism in History: The Case of Hugh Blair of Boruge”, which was written in the year 2000 by Uta Frith and Rab Houston. The authors of this book think that if Hugh Blair were alive today, he would be diagnosed with autism.
Who was Hugh Blair?
Most people who knew Hugh Blair said he was “different” than other people. As a child and young man in school, he was bullied. As an adult, he didn’t act the way other people expected him to. For example, he liked to do work, such as weaving and building walls, which was not normal for a rich man like him. He wore the same clothes over and over again, and he spent a lot of time walking around the towns and farms by himself. More than once he came to a neighbor’s house without being invited and asked to sleep over.
The landscape of Kirkcudbrightshire, less than 10 miles from Borgue, land Hugh Blair most likely walked. Photo credits alljengi, "Burnfoot of Dundrennan, Kirkcudbright".
In the early 1740's, Hugh's younger brother John got into a fight with their mother, Grizell. We don't know what the fight was about specifically, although multiple witnesses claim that Hugh stepped in to protect his mother when it appeared the fight might become physical. After this, Grizzel took on a much more active role in Hugh's life. She found him a wife, a woman named Nickie Mitchell, which made sure that Hugh was taken care of after she died.
Whether this marriage was an attempt to protect Hugh or to get back at her younger son John, it certainly angered John. He brought the case to the Supreme Court of Scotland, and after hearing from thirty witnesses, the court annulled (cancelled) the marriage. After that, Hugh and Nickie remained together, raised two children and, over a decade later, were still referred to as husband and wife--because at that time, people who lived together and acted married for a long enough time were considered married.
Hugh Blair as Autistic
The authors Frith and Houston argue that based on the information we have, Hugh Blair was autistic. I agree, even though the definition of autism has changed significantly in the 25 years since their book was published. The current definition relies on two primary areas of difference--in social communication and in patterns of repetitive behavior or interest--both of which Hugh had. I'll cover these briefly; for more detail, I recommend reading the book. For an updated take on Hugh's autism, check out this 2024 article from Disability Studies Quarterly. I don't agree entirely with the author, but the article is definitely more empathetic and holistic than Houston and Frith’s book.
Social Communication
Hugh struggled with social communication in multiple aspects of his life. Frith and Houston describe his social relations:
Despite his gregariousness Hugh lacked the social insight to know whether his presence [in specific social situations] was wanted. Hugh did not seem to realize that his visits to neighbors at all times of day or night were inappropriate. He also did not seem to be aware of his own status in relation to the servants and to other members of the community. While he knew about social customs, such as wearing a hat and a wig, he did not necessarily follow these customs. He knew how to bow and take of his hat, but he had to watch others for clues and depended on signs from his mother. He wore the correct clothes to work, yet he sometimes wore the same clothes for stable work. (Houston and Frith, 142)
He also struggled to understand social cues, or at least cared very little about them, in his home and work life--he often ate alone or with his pets, he gave strange gifts to his acquaintances, and seemed to enjoy doing work that most other rich men wouldn’t do.
Repetitive Behavior & Restricted Interests
Hugh had in a number of repetitive behaviors and had several special interests. He collected objects like feathers and sticks and enjoyed building stone walls without any known purpose. He went to every funeral in town, whether or not he was invited, and didn’t wear the right clothes. He always sat in the same pew at church. He copied out the Lord's prayer onto paper over and over again. He didn't like other people entering his room, and insisted on "sameness" in the house, wanting everything to be in order at all times.
Hugh Blair as a person with an Intellectual Disability
Now, let's take a look at the current guidelines for diagnosing intellectual disability, and see if Hugh fits the description. Obviously, I cannot diagnose him--I'm not a doctor and he's been dead for over two hundred years--but we can get a sense of how he might be diagnosed today. These are the three criteria for a diagnosis of an intellectual disability, copied directly from the DSM-V:
A. Deficits in intellectual functions, such as reasoning, problem solving, planning, abstract thinking, judgment, academic learning, and learning from experience, confirmed by both clinical assessment and individualized, standardized intelligence testing.
B. Deficits in adaptive functioning that result in failure to meet developmental and sociocultural standards for personal independence and social responsibility. Without ongoing support, the adaptive deficits limit functioning in one or more activities of daily life, such as communication, social participation, and independent living, across multiple environments, such as home, school, work, and community.
C. Onset of intellectual and adaptive deficits during the developmental period.
Deficits in Intellectual Functions
Hugh Blair's acquaintances all agreed that he struggled with reasoning. He enjoyed building walls, a task he probably saw his neighbors doing regularly. But he didn’t seem to understand that the purpose of the walls was to divide property and keep cows contained. In the same way, he couldn't always make the logical connections between words that were spoken to him and their meanings. In his deposition, he answered questions, but his responses were sometimes illogical. For example, when he was asked if it was a "fair day or rainy", he responded "Fair". The question was immediately repeated--"Is this a fair day or a foul?", and he responded "Foul". Although he clearly understood that he was supposed to answer either "Fair" or "Foul", he wasn't able to connect the question with the actual weather outside the courthouse.
He also struggled with planning and problem solving. He often went on long walks on the moor, but didn't seem to plan for his personal needs or consider how long he would be gone. Usually he would stop at the house of whomever lived nearby, and they would let him stay the night, often feeding and clothing him too. He understood that he was expected to wash and wear his wig, but he wouldn't complete the task in a logical manner. People described Hugh washing his wig and hanging it on a tree to dry, while walking around the town without a wig on.
Hugh's academic abilities were certainly different than his peers. He attended school through his 20's, which was normal for a rich man like him. His teachers and classmates, some of whom spoke at his trial, said that he could write very neatly and could copy down certain things, like the Lord's Prayer, from memory. However, he was never able to write down his own thoughts or ideas. Hugh also knew some math. He could count, and was often seen counting repeatedly. At his trial, he was asked how many fingers he had. At first he didn’t understand the question, until someone in the courtroom pointed at his hands. Then, he counted each finger on both hands twice without stopping. He was able to understand generally what he was being asked--he was able to count his fingers--but couldn't understand the specifics of the question.
Deficits in Adaptive Functioning
For the first forty years of his life, Hugh and his mother lived in the family home. Hugh wore his brother's hand-me-down clothes, and his bed was "very ill made up and nasty" (84). However, this doesn't mean that he was lazy or didn't care about being clean. It seems like he didn’t have the skills to take care of himself. One person at the trial described an time when he saw Hugh carrying a bottle of water up to his room. The person asked Hugh what he was doing, and Hugh said ‘bed, bed, lice, lice, flea, flea’. (85). He also described Hugh using sticks as curtain rods without removing the bark first, which was weird to him. In both of these instances, Hugh tried unsuccessfully to take care of himself.
Around the time of the trail, Hugh moved into town with his mother and wife Nickie Mitchell, and people said he was cleaner and wearing nicer clothes. Authors Frith and Houston think that either his mother or his wife began helping him learn these skills. If Hugh looked like a gentleman, his mother was more likely to win the trial and get money. And his wife had a good relationship with him. Both women had reasons to help Hugh learn to take care of himself. Because his self-care improved with support means that he wasn’t choosing to be dirty. He just didn’t have the adaptive functioning skills to be clean.
At school, Hugh struggled socially as well as academically. He was regularly the butt of jokes, and he was mocked even by classmates who were much younger than him. One witness at the trial openly admits to bullying Hugh:
[The witness] has frequently for his own diversion desired the defender to dance before him which the defender as often as desired did and which was several times done in his presence. He did this in a very foolish and ridiculous manner and it was for that reason that the [witness] asked him to dance, meaning thereby to divert himself and the company. He has several times bid Hugh Blair discover his nakedness or privities which he did without any ceremony or seeming to know that there was any indecency therein (87)
While this anecdote is hard to read, it is not surprising. Both autism and ID are associated with a significantly higher chance of being bullied.1 In any case, this is evidence that Hugh had trouble in his social life, particularly since this happened over and over again and Hugh did not seem to understand how or why he was being bullied or what about the behaviors (both his own and the bully's) were strange.
In terms of work life, it could be argued that the existence and result of the trail itself is evidence that Hugh's disability meant he couldn’t work--which for him, was owning land, managing money, hiring staff, and having children. But there was never really anyone who thought that Hugh was able to complete his job well. Long before this trial, Hugh had been given a curator (a guardian) to manage his money, servants, food, and clothing. At that time, no one said this was a bad idea, meaning that everyone involved probably agreed this was logical and necessary.
Onset
The evidence is pretty clear that Hugh Blair's cognitive difficulties were present from a young age. He was described as a "natural fool", meaning that he had always had this disability, and did not become disabled later in life.
Frith and Houston on an ID Diagnosis
Even though Frith and Houston’s description of Hugh Blair makes it seem like he had an intellectual disability, they don’t talk much about it. They say that he looked “normal”, and that “no one [witness] mentions the physical stigmata which often accompany mental disability”, which wrongly suggests that most people with intellectual disabilities have facial differences or in some way look different. They also say that Hugh might not have had “a restricted capacity to process information in general” and so might not have had an intellectual disability. I think from the information the authors give, it does seem like Hugh had an intellectual disability. In the end, they brush aside intellectual disability, and just say that Hugh “may have suffered from [intellectual disability] as well” (148).
To me, that is not enough. Hugh Blair's ability to make decisions and specifically his ability to process and understand information was the reason for his trail. Although it seems like he had autism, autism alone doesn’t explain the reason for his trial, because autism alone doesn’t affect a person’s ability to understand and process information. Hugh Blair was on trial for his intellectual disability, which was perhaps made more obvious by his autism. Failing to acknowledge Hugh's intellectual disability is a mistake.
Why does Hugh's ID matter?
In Frith and Houston's description of autism, they say that autistic children sometimes seem to have “intelligence despite evident failure at school and [trouble with] everyday life". They also say that parents in the mid 1900s often hoped that there was a key to "unlock" their real, intelligent child beneath the autism. In this, Frith and Houston say, the parents would be "cruelly disappointed" (101).
When Frith and Houston wrote this, they showed that they thought it was better to be an intelligent person than a less intelligent person. That’s not too surprising, because in our culture, we put a lot of pressure on school and being intelligent in general. But it also made it seem like the authors thought the worst part of autism is possibly having an intellectual disability. They describe autism as a barrier between a person and the world, and autism being “curable” if the person doesn’t have an intellectual disability.
This troubling conclusion is why I think Hugh Blair's intellectual disability matters. Thinking about autism and ID this way hurts autistic people and people with intellectual disabilities. Acknowledging that Hugh Blair was targeted because of his intellectual disability is just as important as recognizing his autism. So is acknowledging that Hugh Blair's value as a human is not less because of his intellectual disability.
People who have intellectual disabilities today have the right to view Hugh as one of their own. He was a man who faced a lot of challenges in his life, and who still lived a good life. He had strengths and weaknesses, and he was valued by his community. He had a wife and two children, a son David and daughter Grizell. And he had a happy ending--when he was asked in trial "whom do you love best?" he answered, of course, "Nickie Mitchell".