Updated: Jun 12
Was the hatter mad or was it the world around him?
I recently had the opportunity to buy a trade card that was made way back in 1825.
Yeah – 200 years ago – (mic drop).
Forget about airplanes and automobiles – back in 1825 there were no such things as sewing machines, the telegraph, or even photographs. This acquisition predates my few Civil War era trade cards by over 40 years (see my recent blogpost, “The Unwelcomed Success of Dr. Curtis,” for a card from 1867 that most advertising trade card collectors would call an early trade card).
Truth is, I would have wanted this antique treasure even if it was only promoting the sale of broken wagon wheels, but the fact that it was the trade card of a hat manufacturer in the mid-1820s had a special allure for me because I know my Alice in Wonderland.
“MAD AS A HATTER”
The hat making profession was getting ridiculed even back in the 1820s. A preparation of mercury salts was used to soften the hairs on pelts of beavers, otters, and other woodland creatures for easy use in making the flared "bell" and "chimney" styles of hats worn by men in the early part of the century. Constantly dipping the pelts in the hot bath of mercury and nitric acid allowed the mercury solution to seep through skin pores and into the bloodstream and its noxious vapors were inhaled causing many hat makers to have physical trembling, speech problems, and emotional instability such as:
excessive timidity, diffidence, increasing shyness, loss of self-confidence, anxiety, and a desire to remain unobserved and unobtrusive. The victim also had a pathological fear of ridicule and often reacted with an explosive loss of temper when criticized. (H. A. Waldron, “Did the Mad Hatter have mercury poisoning?” British Medical Journal, Vol.287, DEC 1983, p.1961.)
A brief interchange in an early play script demonstrates the widely understood association that hatters had with odd and even neurotic behavior back in 1829 when it appeared in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine:
TICKLER (aside to SHEPHERD.) He's raving.
SHEPHERD (to TICKLER.) Dementit. [Demented]
ODOHERTY (to both.) Mad as a hatter. Hand me a segar.
In 1847 a British newspaper correspondent lambasted the hat worn by a member of Parliament, calling it “atrociously ugly” then placing the blame on the hat maker, precisely because he was a hat maker, of being mad:
The hatter who originally conceived the design must have broke[n] out of a lunatic asylum, and was assuredly more mad than hatters usually are, though the craft are proverbial maniacs. (The Birmingham Journal [England], 27 November 1847, p.8; emphasis added)
Consumer demand for hats had been high for decades and was increasing as England moved towards the middle of the 19th century. Even though the demand for hats was met with real health problems and popular ridicule, many men and some women braved the unpleasantness of both and became gentlemen’s hatters.
JOHN CONQUEST
Conquest – the name implied success in a dominant way. In Great Britain the word conjures up a history-changing triumph – the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 and its ruthless, successful leader, William the Conqueror. The surname may have its roots in that epic event and commander, but almost eight centuries had passed and no glories, fame, or fortune had been handed down to John Conquest.
He was born the son of a manual laborer in the quiet country village of Clophill, England, floating about 40 miles northwest of London. He was as common a man as common could be: just another Anglican by faith, with unremarkable brown hair and a pale complexion, and he stood 5 feet 6 inches tall, although wearing one of his hats may have made him feel taller. He was also illiterate, signing both of his marriage records with a mark that someone else had to surround with his name to make it official. The only thing that truly distinguished him from most of the countrymen who surrounded him was his occupation – he was a hatter.
It singled him out and, if his trade card reveals anything about the illiterate, diminutive hatter with a pasty complexion, it was that he wanted to make a strong impression – a commercial conquest.
It is a superb, dynamic example of the neoclassical artistic style in an elegant presentation of copperplate engraving and printing. Instead of the previously popular rococo style, which featured flamboyantly curving flourishes profusely garnished with floral and marine decorations, neoclassicism simplified design, using the classic architecture stylings of Rome and Greece, with symmetry and harmony in its presentation. John Conquest’s trade card was all that, arranged with a block paved floor and two classically fluted columns symmetrically flanking each side of the floor and firmly set on solid pedestals, all of which was then secured to a large foundation. Sound, solid, and safe – that was the underlying message about John Conquest’s business, but there was clearly more to catch the eye. The large eagle festooned with ribbon and banner, and boldly surmounted by the name, “J. CONQUEST & Co.”, was likely a duplication of the sign in front of his building that identified his shop; the great bird was literally spread-eagle, dominant in the scene and poised to soar above the hat making industry. There was nothing pale and diminutive in the entire design of the card.
Two of Conquest’s Regency hat styles were posted on the card’s two columns: the gentlemen’s popular bell-shaped Wellington and chimney-styled hat designs, well-formed from fur soaked and steamed in mercury nitrate. Gentlemen’s hats were more status symbol than functional protective headgear. In US dollar equivalents, a beaver hat could cost $10-$25 in a time when the common laborer, like John Conquest’s own father, was making only 10 to 25 cents a day. Although illiterate and of common stock, John Conquest understood the importance of catering to an upscale clientele and his card showed it.
Mr. Conquest also assured his card recipients that he could also resurrect old worn-out hats, relining them with silk. In the 1820s world of men’s hat fashions, silk was the new beaver; for over two centuries, the North American beaver population had been decimated, almost to the point of extinction, and the cost of beaver hats consequently inflated. Silk became an acceptable substitute, looking every bit as shiny and swell as the beaver hats. John Conquest was on the cutting edge of hat fashion, adding the newer and more cost-effective silk alternative next to the beaver hats in his hat showcase. New or refurbished, Conquest’s shop was the place to go.
CHEAPSIDE TO PICCADILLY
John started his shop in big, busy Manchester, England, in 1825. It was much smaller than London (not even a twelfth of its size), but still the second-largest city in the country – ripe with potential for a new hatter whose powerful eagle signage looked ready to make the business take off. He would need all that enthusiasm and confidence because there were already 75 hat makers in Manchester in 1825 (not including the additional 14 shops that were making women's straw hats). With so many hatters in the city, the naming the naming of one of its many pubs the Jolly Hatters Tavern seemed quite logical. The address of John Conquest's new shop, 38 Piccadilly, put his business in the center of the city and just a half-mile away from the Jolly Hatters. His path to Piccadilly had been a long and challenging route strewn with life's obstacles and potholes to overcome.
Business opportunities were not dazzling in Clophill, so in his early twenties John made his way to London, already with a population well over a million people. In 1813 when he was 23, he lived deep in the city and married a country girl named Ann Fearn who had grown up in another village about 20 miles west of his hometown; John signed the marriage record with an X for his mark, since he was unable to read and write. The young couple set up house on Little Somerset Street in downtown London where eleven months later, Ann gave birth to their first child, a daughter they named Mary Ann; her birth record listed her father as a hatter.
Their wedded bliss was interrupted in January 1815 when John was arrested for perpetrating some unspecified misdemeanor against his employer. He was convicted and sentenced to one month of hard labor, serving his sentence when his little daughter was six months old. Reunited with his little family, they increased in 1816 with the birth of their first son, George.
In the span of the next few years multiple tragedies struck the young Conquest family: wife Ann and daughter Mary Ann both passed away. Now 33 years old, widower John remarried to Ann Chipping in 1823; the marriage record shows he was still illiterate and he likely was for the rest of his life.
For ten years, at least since his first marriage in 1813, John had been working as a hatter in London’s Cheapside Street. The name is a modern corruption of “marketplace” and it was true to the original description; by 1825 it was possibly the busiest shopping district in the city, if not the world. Each day and well into the night, Cheapside was a hive of activity, with shops and sidewalk vendors; horses, wagons, carriages, and coaches; professional offices, residences, apartments, boarding houses; and people – lots of people. Hat makers, haberdashers, and shoe shops offered the newest fashions, ready to be accessorized by watch makers, jewelers, goldsmiths, and silver smiths. China and glass dealers, chair and cabinet makers, wallpaper stainers, and upholsters stood ready to furnish homes, and physicians and apothecaries were poised to help those among the Cheapside shoppers who didn’t feel so well. John Conquest name-dropped his former business location on his Manchester business card precisely because Cheapside was nationally known as the country’s most vibrant business district and he was one its alumni. His Manchester customers didn’t have to make the day-long trip to travel the 200 miles to London to shop in style – he was bringing London to them.
CONQUEST GOES DARK
John Conquest’s trade card, almost certainly created in 1825, presented a business and businessman that was ready to accomplish great things in Manchester.
The firm of John Conquest & Co. was established in Manchester late in 1825. His partners were the Robinson brothers, Isaac and William. Isaac was about the same age as John and William was a dozen years younger. The Robinson brothers were educated Quakers from Leeds, the sons of a shopkeeper and already working as silk hatters in Manchester at least through September 1825 before they agreed to the new partnership with John Conquest. On 29 September, Isaac and his wife also welcomed the birth of their first child, a son, and John’s wife arrived at Manchester very pregnant, shortly before delivering the first child of their marriage.
John had an older brother named William who was also a hatter. He had been with John through the Cheapside years and came with him to Manchester; however, he wasn’t included in the new partnership but chose instead to start his own business, “Wm. Conquest & Co. Hat Manufacturers,” just a half-mile from John’s new shop in Piccadilly. All four men hoped for success in their new ventures but all their dreams were doomed.
The new partnership fell apart almost before the ink was dry on the new trade card. Founded after September 1825, the partnership was formally dissolved on 11 March 1826:
Seven weeks later, Ann Conquest gave birth to their first child.
It’s easy to guess but hard to know just why the Conquest-Robinson partnership failed so quickly. On paper, John Conquest and the Robinson brothers had nothing in common. He was from a country village and they were from a big city; John’s father was a manual laborer but their father was a middle-class merchant. John was an Anglican and they were Quakers; they were educated and John was illiterate. Their differences could have been molded into shared strengths to help their partnership and business succeed, but all or some of it may have driven a wedge between them; however, the suddenness of their dissolution suggests that something else was quickly pulling them apart. It may have been mad hatter disease.
John Conquest and Isaac Robinson had both been making hats for years; William Conquest had probably been working alongside his brother in Cheapside, and William Robinson may have been helping his brother Isaac for a few years prior to the new partnership. Mercury poisoning can work fast, but in the case of these four men, it had plenty of time to change their minds and alter their personalities.
William Conquest had set out in his own hat making business in Manchester in 1825 but was declared bankrupt by December 1826. In 1828 he tried starting up again, this time with a partner and, perhaps significantly, focused on making only silk hats, probably due to the increasing demand for them, along with concern about the health effects of making beaver felt hats with mercury. Nonetheless, their partnership was dissolved in 1831. In 1834 he shows up one more time, having reopened his old shop briefly by himself. The last we see of him was ten years later, when a newspaper reporter called him “the old curiosity man,” being arrested and brought before the magistrate for stealing a bag of silver from the bar of the Commercial Inn, just a few blocks from his old hat shop.
William Robinson had a sadder fate, dying in August 1827; the youngest of the four hatters was only 24 at death. True, many illnesses and innumerable injuries could kill a hale and hearty young man, but mercury poisoning can damage the brain, lungs, and kidneys, so it could easily have been the cause or a significant contributor to the young hatter’s death.
Less than two months after the partnership had fallen apart, Isaac lost his first-born son at just 10 months old. Again we don’t know why the infant died, but mercury present on Isaac’s clothing and body could easily have transferred as Father Isaac held his baby boy after each long day’s work. The small lung capacity of babies also increased their risk of inhaling any vapors emanating from such exposure. Isaac himself lived a long life, dying at 84, but after 1828 we no longer see him mentioned as a hatter, but rather as a tea dealer, a grocer, and a “retired hatter”.
Even if mercury poisoning didn’t kill any of the Conquests or Robinsons, it often played havoc on a hatter’s mental, emotional, and physical health. All three hatters in the ill-fated partnership were constantly exposed to mercury poisoning and perhaps one, two, or all three exhibited various symptoms that could easily have ruined their interrelationships or the business itself. Physical trembling could have frustrated their ability to make a fine quality hat; speech problems could have been frustrating in trying to deal with customers and suppliers and might have made them resistant to doing future commerce with that hat shop.
The dissolution notice specified that it was John Conquest who was leaving the partnership. The man with all the aspirations for success in Manchester, as displayed on his trade card, was breaking up the team and he was never again listed doing hat making as did his brother and his former partner, Isaac. It seems like John Conquest was the weakest link, even though his younger partner died just 15 months after the dissolution. You can almost hear the sighs of relief from the Robinson brothers when the phrase, “dissolved by mutual consent, so far as concerns John Conquest” was added.
John appears to have been the problem. Perhaps he was exhibiting some of the neurological dysfunctions brought on by mercury exposure. “Excessive timidity, shyness, and anxiety” are significant challenges for many in the workplace, but a complete “loss of self-confidence and a desire to remain unobserved” are more serious and troubling. John Conquest was suddenly, willfully leaving John Conquest & Co. – he was making himself invisible. Had he come to that decision because he had developed “a pathological fear of ridicule” and therefore couldn’t deal with complaints and accusations from his partners about mistakes they perceived he was making? Perhaps he even exhibited “the explosive loss of temper when criticized,” which could destroy any workplace or partnership.
What makes me feel that John Conquest may have suffered from some or all of these symptoms of mad hatter disease is how abruptly his partnership ended and how he completely disappeared from the public record for the last nine years of his life – he just vanished from public view. From the 1826 dissolution to his death in 1835, he had gone dark, appearing in surviving records only for the births of his two children in 1833 and 1834 and the death of the latter in 1835 (the first had died in infancy and the latter died at one year old). No records have been found showing that he continued to be employed. Perhaps he had stopped working altogether from the terrible effects of mercury poisoning. Had he become a mad hatter? Was that what brought the end of his career and eventually his life at age 45? We'll never know, but there is a high likelihood that he and his one-time partners, as well as family members were affected to some degree by the mercury solution that marinated their bodies and vapors that filled their lungs during and after hat making.
John loved and lost – wives, children, his business, partners, and perhaps his own life. Some of the losses may have been due to the mercury he used to make beaver felt for the older style top hats. But his glorious trade card helps us feel his joy for life – the only remaining proof of his hopes, dreams, and ambitions. Whether or not his life was ruined by mercury, we should remember him for the positive messages his trade card tells us about him.
If I could travel back in time to meet John, I would want to compliment him about how wonderfully impressive his trade card was. Maybe, amid all the loss and dashed hopes, he would realize that he had triumphed with that card which has preserved his memory for 200 years – as it turned out, it was his ultimate conquest.
AUTHOR’S POSTSCRIPT: On 1 May 1826, just weeks after John Conquest’s business partnership had been dissolved, Ann Conquest gave birth to a daughter, their first child. They named her Mary Ann. It is possible for mercury poisoning to be transferred to a fetus during pregnancy and through breast milk, affecting the developing brain and nervous system, which could then potentially lead to neurological problems later in life, appearing even in adulthood; perhaps it impacted the mental health of Mary Ann Conquest.
In 1865, at 39 years old, she committed suicide by swallowing rat poison and possibly even infanticide. Before her suicide, she was asked if she had given anything to her month-old baby who had suddenly died, but she denied doing so. A newspaper reported that “the loss of her child, and the fact of her having told an untruth, weighed upon her mind and she appeared very much distressed.” She eventually confessed to her husband that their baby had died because of what she had done: the infant “was rather troublesome [so] she gave it a few drops of some mixture ...” She then told a neighbor she had taken a dose of “vermin poison,” and died shortly thereafter. The coroner’s verdict was that she poisoned herself “during a fit of temporary insanity.”
Was her temporary insanity seeded by mercury poisoning during her fetal and infantile development? The answer to that will forever be buried deep in the depths of history’s mysteries.
ONE LAST NOTE: And for those readers preparing to jump to Google Maps to see exactly where 38 Piccadilly and China Lane meet, there is now a Kentucky Fried Chicken on the corner; the location has come a long way from a magnificent spread eagle to a box of fried chicken.
