Early life
Her father William Sadler, born in Turville was a agricultural labourer, chair-maker and pauper at different times. As a young man he'd moved to Stokenchurch for work purposes, employment found for him by the Overseers of Turville. He spent two years learning the chair trade from Mr Styles there. The people of Stokenchurch were perhaps a little less pleased with William's arrival than William himself. He married a local woman named Ann, a lace-maker and had several children with her before her early death. However at some point he also became romantically attached to another woman named Ann Parker, whom he eventually lived with for around 11 years without marrying her, according to his own admission. He had frequently received parish relief due to poverty. William and Ann has had 5 children illegitimately he said. Apparently the people of Stokenchurch had paid him to marry Ann, given him a dinner and paid the marriage fees. He was a man that certainly needed to be persuaded into marriage to Ann! Sometime afterwards he moved to Little Marlow for a different job. After a while he was again resorting to poor relief. The parish of Little Marlow considered that his birth parish of Turville should take the family back and then the family would be someone else's financial responsibility. Turville thought he could not be considered legally their problem any more, and refused to take the Sadlers. The case went to court in 1854 and it's thanks to the reports of this that we hear William's account of his early life and various movements. How demoralising the entire proceeding must have been for Ann. She had to hear her husband say that he'd delayed marrying her for 2 months after the banns were read to see how much more the people of Stokenchurch would pay to make an honest man of him. This caused laughter in the court, and perhaps it was the bravado talk of a man in an embarrassing situation but it hardly seems sensitive to Ann and the children. William also told the "court" that Ann had previously lived in a barn and the Wycombe Union poorhouse. It was decided the family were not indeed the problem of Turville. But eventually they did arrive back there and in 1859, the sleeping girl Ellen was born - the couple's 10th child according to contemporary reports at least.
Ellen is usually described as a quiet, dreamy child who would often seem to be lost in her thoughts for hours on end. (This phrasing is universally repeated in contemporary article after article) She was one who rarely joined in the games of other children. However another source said she had not seemed really any different from other children at the time, except from being especially quiet. We hear she went to Sunday school, was reasonably good at learning, and had a great reverence for religious things. In addition a popular story was that young Ellen has scolded her step father for intemperate ways, a talking to he'd only take from her lips. Of course this might be gilding the lily a little, to suit the image of an angelic sleeping beauty. (Ellen's father died when she was young, and her mother remarried agricultural labourer William Frewen (Fruin) of Turville soon afterwards.)
When she was about 11 or 12 she was sent to be a nursemaid to a family with two children in Marlow. I do not think the family are ever specifically named. While Ellen may seem to be young for this kind of role, she would not have been considered so at the time. Unfortunately it seems her symptoms began in earnest soon after. She began to be sleepy and forgetful and to complain of a pain in her head. Her employers called in a doctor and eventually she was sent home to her family as it was determined she wasn't capable of looking after herself let alone two younger children. This was diagnosed as a probable abscess on her neck. The doctor responsible for the poor at Turville was Stokenchurch's Henry Hayman. After examining her, he thought she needed to be treated in the county hospital at Reading. Later he would say he treated her for glandular swellings on the neck. According to some reports, it was the local vicar who asked the doctor to arrange this admission. It may be so, local parishes bought a certain number of "tickets" for admission to Reading hospital and the parish doctor could decide who deserved to receive one. Off Ellen went for her neck abscesses to be treated. It's generally accepted she stayed there about 17 weeks, although a stay of only "up to 4 months" is sometimes mentioned. The record books of the hospital were said to wrongly give Ellen's age on admittance as 9, but also to more accurately state a spinal complaint causing debility was suspected. The doctors were baffled by her case, and decided in the end she was incurable. She was sent home on a rattling cart all the way to Turville, in March 1871.
The sleeping starts
What happened next I've tried to put together from sometimes widely different contemporary reports. Many more were written some time after the event. Most claim the source of their information was Ellen's mother and / or Dr Hayman.
There's some consensus that Ellen sleepiness continued, the periods growing longer and more profound, and were often precluded by an attack of "hysteria" and the sound of bells ringing that only Ellen could hear. The long sleep is generally thought to have started 2 days after she arrived home. Dr Hayman did not see her until then. A popular story was that when Ellen felt in a lot of pain on this second day and expressed a wish for death to end her suffering, her mother had suggested the girl prayed with her. This she did before succumbing to a series of seizures before the big sleep. Her initial "trance" was also punctuated by seizures and restlessness. Dr Hayman was called at this, but she was already unconscious at his arrival. From that moment on Ellen never altered from the position she had adopted, of lying on her side, one hand under her head and legs drawn up. Her mother said this was the position that girl had been wont to sleep in.
Food and Drink?
Most stories of Ellen's long sleep suggest she lived on a liquid diet of port wine (considered especially suitable for invalids at the time), tea with sugar and a little whole milk. At first the family were able to pour liquid down her throat - they did not think she actively swallowed it. But after 15 months, during one painstaking feeding session, Ellen's jaw clenched rigidly and it was only with huge difficultly they were able to remove the feeding spoon. A gap in her teeth was then used with the spout of a teapot from a child's toy set. (This was capable of holding only 4 teaspoons of liquid.) According to some they'd had to break two teeth of Ellen's to provide access to the spout. Let's hope she was unconscious for that procedure.
It's difficult to believe anyone could survive on a liquid diet so long but it's interesting not every account suggests she had no other food. Some mention gruel was part of her diet. Another says the mother told him they'd tried her on liquid arrow root before her jaw clenched. Nevertheless it's not surprising the general consensus was that before long her lower body in particular looked like a dead person, cold and emaciated. Dr Hayman reported that the mother said she generally produced a large quantity of urine every 4 days or so but no bowel movements.
Money talks
As news broke of Ellen's prolonged sleep, curious visitors began to call at the families humble little cottage hoping to see the child for themselves. Although even Ann's critics did not suggest she solicited money for seeing her daughter, they added she did not need to as people automatically gave a customary coin as they left. While the case was in the news, visitors were plentiful. Naturally there was suspicion the case was faked or indeed that poor Ellen was drugged in order to make money for the family. However the descriptions of the cottage interior certainly don't suggest a family that had much money for luxuries. If they were sitting on a fortune, it's curious they all still went out to work (and it was hard out in all weathers manual work for Ellen's step father and some brothers) and chose to live in a house considered damp and rickety, with basic furniture and clothes. In 1876 a nuisance abatement notice was made against the cottage by the Board of Guardians as it was in a dirty and dilapidated state. This gave the owner seven days to put it right. (The interior of the cottage was universally described as simple and clean, the nuisance appears to be the drains)
Similarly one oft quoted visitor was suspicious as he was asked to wait a minute or two before going up to Ellen so she could be made ready. Anyone with experience of caring for the bed bound would find such an instruction a practical necessity at times, in keeping with maintaining Ellen's dignity. However the vast majority of reports mention specifically that they were shown directly to Ellen's room. A visitor from a local paper in 1873 said that all the villagers doors were ajar when he visited and the Sadlers were no exception. A perceptive point even if the writer got the the girl's name wrong! Another noted that there was no door to Ellen's bedroom, only a curtain to keep out draughts.
In 1873 we are told that Ellen's stepfather earns 12s a week and that two of her young siblings then at home were able to work. This is not much money. No one really knows how much the family received in total. The figure of 2s or even £2 a week often quoted was prefaced by "supposed". It was pure guesswork that's all.
Although some later reports say that some villagers has seen Ellen at the window or even in the garden, I can't find any reports from people immediately after their visit who tell us that they have heard this directly from any witness. The local paper reporter who visited for the Wycombe Guardian in 1873 said that his hints to villagers that some imposture night be involved were met with rebuffs that the doctor and vicar knew all about it and were no fools. The villagers pointed out that what the family made from visitors was expended on the wine used to feed Ellen leaving little profit potential. It's interesting Ann told him later that after an initial flurry of interest, the number of visitors tailed right off and she'd had no other visitors beyond immediate locals for several months. If the weather was nice, locals might wander over on a Sunday she said. In the last fortnight she'd had a total of 7d from three little girls and two farm labourers on such visits. She was grateful for the support of these poor neighbours. Let's hope she was taking their coins honestly. It is certain they would not have parted with them if they had any doubt as to the case - they could scarcely afford to be generous. Several non locals complained about the awful state of the country lanes leading to the village especially after rain. Even the critics of the Sadlers accepted the tourist trade there was chiefly a summer activity only.
Ann admitted that many early visitors had asked for a lock of Ellen's hair as a sentimental memento and she'd agreed to their requests, no doubt in knowledge an extra financial gift would come her way if she did so. But this wasn't a long term money spinner - when Ellen's hair looked depleted Ann stopped cutting off locks!
While the vicar's involvement may have added credibility to the Sadlers' stories at first, he gradually became more sceptical as time went on. He admitted she never showed signs of having been moved and despite his deliberately calling on the family unexpectedly, had never found any evidence of deceit. However he considered the families refusal to have a nurse in suspicious (see below) and so was their refusal to accept parish relief which would have entitled the parish officers to scrutinize their affairs more closely. Considering their previous experience of parish relief, this last point is probably not too damning. Later it's said watchers from Guys hospital had attended the cottage.
One villager was said to have told a 1875 visitor that Ellen was sleeping because she had been accidentally cursed by her mother who was annoyed with Ellen for not working properly in the fields with her. Apparently Ann had sent Ellen home with the wish expressed she'd never wake again. But the visitor could find no evidence Ellen had ever done any agricultural work. It seems unlikely Ellen was in condition to be much help in this way on her return from Marlow. Most likely either a story told to a gullible journalist or a half memory of hard-working Ann sometimes voicing frustrating at her seemingly distracted daughters ability to lend a hand at home as she would have been expected to.
A DEVOTED MOTHER
Ann had Ellen sleep in a little bed in her own bedroom. She was described as very attentive to her girls needs and she certainly seems protective of her daughter who she kept neat and clean. Only Ellen's hair was described as matted and held in a net by one visitor. The mother explained she was frightened of injuring Ellen or causing her pain in the combing.
Ann was criticized by some for refusing full time nurses for Ellen, or to allow her to go to a London hospital. They thought this evidence some trickery was involved that would be found out if Ellen was removed from her mother's care. Maybe it was but we must also look at things from Ann's point of view. Very many medical men had visited her cottage out of concern or out of a wish to uncover a fraud. Despite much effort they never "found out" any trickery nor did they come up with a definite diagnosis. Ann described at various points some of the tactics used on her sleeping child. She said many visitors in the early days had concealed pins and needles in their hands and jabbed Ellen. Another had caused damage to her eyelids by trying to force her eyes open. Yet another had tried to pull her jaws apart. When a medical man had suggested a change of diet to brandy, Ann had agreed but Ellen had been immediately violently sick, bring up an offensive "black matter". Dr Hayman had suggested a course of then ground breaking galvinism (or electric shocks) while a spiritualist thought mesmerism would unlock Ellen's mind. Is it any wonder Ann was reluctant to let these medical men loose on her daughter without her protective eye there?
Despite it being well known that numerous eminent medical professionals had seen Ellen, the family still had to deal with enthusiastic amateurs with their own ideas. Ann gave a "crushing look" to a man who after Ellen had been asleep for two years suggested he could inflict a little pain on her to see if she might wake up. As if no one had thought of that before! Ann refused to allow him even a pinch.
Ann died in 1880 and her inquest was held at the Bull & Butcher pub although those involved also went to the cottage to view Ann's body. The Bull was the place everyone went to ask for directions for Ellen's cottage so they had some increased trade while she was alive. Ann had been suffering the symptoms of heart failure for some time such as dropsy, and died of this. Some reports would later say she'd died of fright due to a storm then raging overhead, had fallen down some stairs or had been struck by lightning itself, none of which was of course true! It does not seen anyone was especially confident that Ellen's stepfather would look after her - he does seem vague when asked at the inquest what plans would be made for his step daughter but of course it was an emotional time. (And is what noted that his work took him out all day and all the family members were also out working.) It was thought likely that married sister Elizabeth Stacey*** would take her in although eventually it was a different sister who would do so. Dr Hayman said then he thought Ellen unconscious. The local vicar Rev T Studholme*, a frequent visitor who had never found Ellen in any position other than her usual, thought she was conscious.
Naturally the sceptics had predicted that Ellen would miraculously awake in her mother's death. Curiousity seems to have bought a few visitors again to the cottage in the immediate aftermath of Ann's death, which seems rather selfish an imposition to a grieving family. One anonymous visitor whose letter to a friend was quoted in the Reading Mercury says the girl had shown no awareness during the time of the funeral, although there had been a little extra perspiration to be seen on her forehead. He tells us her waist circumference at this point was a little over 9 inches. Any plumpness she had apparently developed was obviously gone. I remember being shown in the 80s a newspaper clipping about Ellen from the Reading Evening Post of 1968. This claimed an elderly woman of the village who was a child at the time of Ann's death, recalled that Ellen had jumped up, dressed herself and gone off to Henley on the day of Ann's funeral never to be seen again, none of which is true! The same paper thought Ellen had woken then gone to live with a neighbour for a few days and then left but as you can see there's ample evidence this was not the case. There's a reason I use only original sources!
The Wycombe Telegraph in 1875, whose reporter went with a medical man said Ann was "not averse to any fair test to ascertain whether her daughter was conscious". Many people took her temperature and respiration rate. The former was almost always very high, the latter roughly normal even though her breathing was feint. Another who returned in the same year, two years after an initial visit, thought he saw Ellen blink. This second visitor was also struck by the fact he thought Ellen had grown and was looking plumper. This shook his initial feeling that the case was genuine.
A member of the Royal family, possibly the Prince of Wales was supposed by local gossip to have discretely made a visit but there's no contemporary evidence of this. But then what evidence would there be?
Home secretary intervenes
It's said at some point the home secretary had wrote to Ellen's family reminding them they could face criminal charges if they failed to provide the necessities of life for Ellen. As no one could prove they weren't, nothing came of it. Ann admitted to a visitor she'd recieved the letter but as it wasn't his child, and he'd given nothing to them, it wasn't any of his business!
Ellen Awakes
After Ann's death, her sisters maintained the mums original routine at first. But then they increased the feeds from 3/4 to 5 times a day, then even more. Five months after Ann's death, Ellen began to show signs of consciousness. Small at first but gradually increasing. Progress was slow but she was able to sit up a little and talk a small amount after 2 further months. (Her initial contact had been to squeeze a hand to show she understood what was said to her.) She could remember her life before but nothing of the years spent asleep. If so, the news of her mother's death must have been quite a shock. Her language and mannerisms were described as quite childish despite the fact she was now 21 years old which is interesting. At first she could open only one eye, and the other would remain weak. Some said she had a permanently twitching or wandering eye. Dr Hayman wrote to update the Lancet and reporters again came to call while Messrs Johnson of Henley, photographers, arrived to record her image.
At the time of the 1881 census she's living with Reuben and Grace and is described as an invalid. Also living with them is Ellen's youngest brother Eli**, born a twin but his twin brother Samuel had died as an infant. (There were two brothers called Eli, the first brother Eli had died, hence the reusing of the name) Two years later the Blackalls were still in the village but would eventually move away.
The news of Ann's death and Ellen's awakening came after a period of several years of silence about the family in the papers. That's not to say locals did not continue to take an interest, but as a money making ploy it seems to have continued long after public interest had moved on.
Fakery?
As mentioned above very many people tried to catch out the family and did not succeed in doing so. It's hard to believe anyone could survive so long on a diet so restricted, gruel or no. However the first instance of Ellen's illness did not occur under her mother's roof but that of employees family. Ann also told some people that Ellen's father, and his brother had both suffered from prolonged if less extreme periods of unbroken sleep. In the case of the brother it was a week, and for the father one month or three weeks before his early death. A third said a brother of Ellen had spent 6 months in a drowsy state (according to others that was her uncle!) It's frustrating that no one seems to come forward to ever confirm or deny this. Some kind of genetic illness can't be ruled out if any of those stories were correct. Perhaps Ellen experienced more periods of wakefulness than her family wanted to admit while still suffering from an illness.
Afterwards
After her awakening, Ann is supposed to have worked creating beadwork at home. She remained relatively small and slight but is said to have recovered adult manners and speech.
It's wonderful to learn that Ellen was well enough to marry and subsequently have children of her own. She wed farm labourer Mark Blackall /Blackwell in 1886, brother to Reuben. They lived in Fawley, Barkham and Caversham, where Ellen died as an elderly lady in 1946.
Other sleeping girls
One consideration mentioned related to the potential fakery of Ellen's illness is where the family got the idea from? Well sleeping girls feature often in the press in those years and before eg Sarah Carter of Stapleford was apparently fed via a quill during a long sleep in 1829 and French and German examples.
Sleepers from a later period include the Canadian Eva Rock who was said to have been woken after a two month sleep in 1901 by means of beating her skin with a needle- bristled brush made white hot! And the Cheltenham Sleeping Maid who died in 1897 shortly after being woken briefly when doctors blistered her neck. There are many, many more to be found, some subsequently exposed as hoaxes, many not.
*Turville vicar Studholme would find himself engaged in a scandal himself in 1891. His son Robert was accused of forcibly seducing his father's young Sunday school teacher and choir mistress Emma Ayres leaving her pregnant. She took him to court for maintenance and it was granted at the highest possible rate due to the magistrates considering it to be as General Higginson in the chair put it, "a most disgraceful case".
**Eli Sadler spent a lot of time living around Medmenham and Hambledon and was a talented horseman and agricultural worker, winning many prizes in local shows for his ploughing, equestrian skills and vegetable growing. Several times in the Edwardian era he won prizes for having the neatest labourers cottage and garden.
***Elizabeth Stacey was married to bricklayer William Stacey of Marlow and lived in Great Marlow many years. She had been living opposite Ellen at the time of Ann's death however. They returned to Marlow a short while later. In 1882 William was jailed for a violent assault in Eton Place - you can read more about this here
Written and researched by Kathryn Day.
SOURCES:
Briggs, No Fear, No Favour (Bucks Free Press, 1986)
Woods, Horatio C jun, Nervous Disorders and their treatment: A Treatise (J P Lippincourt 1896)
Bucks Chronicle and Bucks Gazette 8th April 1854, 8 Mar 1873, 27 March 1875, British Library Archive.
Bucks Advertiser and Aylesbury News, 3 July 1880, as above
Reading Mercury 30 December 1876, 5 June & 24 December 1880,
Falkirk Herald 7 August 1880, as above.
Henley Advertiser 26 Feb 1881
Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard 31 July 1896;
Bristol Times and Mirror 3 March 1873, as above.
FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:SGVR-4FM : 9 November 2019), Ann Sadler, Stokenchurch, Buckinghamshire, England; citing Stokenchurch, Buckinghamshire, England, p. 13, from "1851 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO HO 107,
FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M7V3-V51 : 3 March 2021)
England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2D7Q-NTB : 13 December 2014), Elizabeth Sadler, 1864; from "England & Wales Marriages, 1837-2005," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing 1864, quarter 3, vol. 3A, p. 577, Wycombe, Buckinghamshire,
FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KXS5-BF1 : 26 June 2022),
South Wales Daily News 6 Feb 1875, as above
Boston Spa News 12 March 1875, as above.
Birmingham Mail 1 July 1875
The Courant collected edition 1875, internet archive.org.
England and Wales Marriage Registration Index, 1837-2005," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2D5C-G9N : 13 December 2014), Grace Sadler, 1877; from "England & Wales Marriages, 1837-2005," database, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : 2012); citing 1877, quarter 4, vol. 3A, p. 809, Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, England, General Register Office, Southport, England
England and Wales Census, 1881," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q27Z-BZ46 : 13 December 2017), Ellen Sadler in household of Rueben Blackall, Ibstone, Buckinghamshire, England; from "1881 England, Scotland and Wales Census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing p. 1, Piece/Folio 1468/106, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey; FHL microfilm 101,774,607.
England and Wales Census, 1891," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:71PD-ST2 : 22 February 2021), Ellen Blackall in household of Mark Blackall, Barkham, Berkshire, England, United Kingdom; from "1891 England, Scotland and Wales census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing PRO RG 12, Berkshire county, subdistrict, The National Archives of the UK, Kew, Surrey.
Morning Herald, London 19 Jan 1829, as above.
The Spiritualist, 19th Feb 1875, digitised by Google.
The Lancet, collected edition 1880 & 1881.
Reading Evening Post 28 November 1968.
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