FACEBOOK His hands wouldn’t stop shaking — and the hat trade had done it to him. In Denton, near Manchester, Herbert Burgess made hats for fifteen years. To soften the fur into felt, the material was brushed with mercury, and in hot, poorly ventilated workshops the men breathed the vapour all day long. Slowly it poisoned him: his teeth fell out, he couldn’t keep his food down, and his hands trembled beyond his control. People had a name for what happened to men like him. They called it “mad as a hatter” — and treated it as a joke. It wasn’t madness. It was mercury, and there was no law forcing the trade to make the work safe. When Burgess finally took the firm to court, the company admitted he had breathed their mercury for years. So what was it really — madness, or a job no one was ever made to make safe? #BritishHistory #ForgottenHistory #IndustrialHistory #SocialHistory