Hannah Mills

Hannah Mills was a Quaker from Leeds, England, whose treatment and death in 1790 while confined in the York Asylum is recognised as having led to the development of the York Retreat, which pioneered the moral treatment of mental illness that became a model for progressive practices worldwide.

Hannah Mills was admitted as a young widow to the York Asylum on the 15th March 1790, suffering from 'melancholy'. At the request of her relatives, local Quakers tried to visit her but were refused permission on the grounds that she was in private treatment. Hannah Mills died there on the 29th April 1790. These events shocked the Quakers and confirmed their concerns and suspicions about conditions and treatments at the asylum, and the asylums of the time in general. One of the group in particular, William Tuke, became determined to create an alternative, working with others to open the York Retreat in 1796.