Origins of Enterprise: Business Leadership in the Industrial Revolution Book

The book describes GIII's major illnesses when his reason was affected (1788-9, 1801, 1804 and 1810ff) , arguing that he suffered from Porphyria, a chemical change in the body with pretty horrid symptoms. It was probably inherited via James I who seems likely to have died of it. George III's sister probably died of it too along with his grandaughter. There's evidence that some of his sons may have been sufferers too.

His illness brought the treatment of mental illness to the fore in the public eye. The King was popular and there was great sympathy for him and his suffering. Numbers of madhouses increased dramatically on the wave of publicity following the King's illness and his apparent 'cure' by the Willises (father and son) who had their own madhouse. The King's treatment at their hands was pretty shocking. From his illness in 1810 until his death in 1820 he was kept in solitary confinement with little or no stimulation; small wonder therefore that he was barking in the end.

A very sympathetically drawn portrait of the King which marked a reversal in the assessment of George III. Here he is seen as a substantially good man and a good King rather than the weak, obstinate man who couldn't handle the job and became insane.