Alcohol, Madness and a Glimmer of Anthrax: Disease among the Felt Hatters in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

In the 1800s, felt hatters used skills, tools and materials that were little changed for almost three hundred years. What change there was often resulted in further hazard in the workplace. Air in workshops was laden with animal fibre; dangerous chemicals were increasingly common. The trade was notorious for drunkenness on and off the job and was, latterly, supposedly defined by madness. Government was little concerned. As with all industry, manufactory owners controlled the loose workplace arrangements, while their home workers were left to fend for themselves. The discipline of occupational health was still far from finding its feet. Contemporary evidence is centred on individual observation and a deal of medical fumbling; numbers are in short supply. Yet, alongside debates on wealth, what other condition than health better defines contentment? This article examines the degree to which the lives of these craftsmen of the nineteenth century may have been damaged by their work.