Today I bought a rather fascinating book, called 'Presumed Curable', which contains the case histories of 61 psychiatric patients in Bethlem Hospital in London in the 1890s. Surprisingly, one of those descibed is from Hillsborough in Sheffield. She's Ella M. Badger, who was the daughter of Andrew and Letitia Badger, and she was admitted in April 1893 and discharged in November the same year.

I've looked up this family on the census and in 1891 they were actually in Ecclesfield, at Milner Road. By 1901 Ella is a boarder in West Hartlepool and is a milliner, so she must have recovered to some extent.

If there are any descendants of this family out there, I'd be happy to supply a photocopy of the appropriate page, which includes a picture of Ella.

didn't the term - mad as a hatter - have something to do with the chemicals used in the milinery trade,

maybe she sniffed a bit too much when making her hats :D

It did (it was the mercury used in the process, to be exact) but in this case she only seems to have become a milliner after her episode of mental illness. According to the book the start of her problems was when a board fell on her head a couple of months before. She was only 20 at the time she was admitted.