Strange that if it was a genetic issue with the three siblings why it didn't affect Bertha as well unless she had a different mother - have you researched that aspect yet?
Have you researched the relationship of their parents pre marriage, i.e. were they first cousins? If they were and there had been other close family unions in their recent past that could explain the high percentage of siblings affected by presumably the same mental illness. My mother's brother married their first cousin, quite legitimately, and their two children, boy and girl, were infertile as a result of genetic issues.
This is also the period where lead piping would have been used for water supply, probably from a well, and that could explain why this condition manifest itself later in life. That wouldn't explain why Bertha didn't suffer from the illness though.
This was also the period where lead was added to cider to sweeten it - the cause in many cases of the 'village idiot' - and perhaps the family or some of them drank that in preference to water or stronger alcoholic drinks.
Again this was also the period where Laudanum was used by a lot of people in 'respectable' society and that could explain the later in life onset of mental illness and perhaps why Bertha didn't also suffer from the condition. Katherine, Dora and Arthur could have been prescribed the drug by their doctor for whatever reason and became addicted through that. I worked on the redevelopment of Broadmoor Special Hospital between 1985 and 95 and learnt that there were a number of patients committed there in Victorian times who had become mentally ill through Laudanum addiction.
I don't know if this applied to 'ordinary' mental hospitals and not just the Criminal Lunatic Asylums as Broadmoor was known at the time, but more well to do families could have daughters committed for getting pregnant outside of marriage and bringing shame on the family - seems weird that having a 'lunatic' in the family was preferable to illegitimacy! There were also a fair number of women committed to Broadmoor who were clearly suffering from what we now know as post natal depression and who had either self harmed or threatened to harm their babies and their families had them committed there. Some became so institutionalised that they spent their entire lives there. This wouldn't explain Arthur's committal though unless his father considered him morally degenerate for some reason and therefore mentally ill.
If you can obtain their records from the archives that hopefully will explain the reasons given for their committal.
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Topic: mystery (Read 1643 times)