“Hi, I’m Donna and one of my favourite things is researching history. I have found some interesting people whose lives tell us a lot about what the world was like in the past. It makes us think about how things have changed.

Katherine and Nerissa Bowes-Lyon were both born with severe learning disabilities; Nerissa on 18th February 1818 and Katherine on 4th July 1926. They were daughters of John Bowes-Lyon and his wife Fenella Hepburn.

What makes their story so interesting is that John was the brother of the future Queen Mother, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, meaning that the girls were cousins of Queen Elizabeth II.

Institutions for the invisible

In 1941, when Nerissa was 22 and Katherine was 15, the two girls were sent to live in The Royal Earlswood Hospital in Surrey by their family. This was a time when society lacked understanding about any type of disabilities or mental health needs.

The hospital had previously been an asylum and had changed by this point into an institution where disabled people were looked after by professionals.

Nerissa and Katherine’s treatment by their family is controversial. In media reports and documentaries, staff and residents of The Royal Earlswood claimed that they didn’t receive visits, or any gifts beyond the annual maintenance paid to the hospital. It also later came to light that in 1963 Fenella Hepburn wrote on official forms about peerages that Nerissa and Katherine had already passed away.

Nerissa lived at the hospital until her death in 1986 at the age of sixty-six and her funeral was attended only by the staff of Earlswood Hospital. Some of these details have been disputed, but it seems clear that keeping Nerissa and Katherine’s existence out of the public’s sight was important – possibly more important than them having a good life.

Katherine lived at the hospital until it closed its doors in 1997, and lived elsewhere in Surrey until her death in 2014.

Different times

Nerissa and Katherine were born in a world that had little understanding about disabled people. Like so many disabled people at that time, they were marginalised.

They were “out of sight, out of mind”. Invisible to the rest of society. I feel sad that so many people were locked away, never to see the outside world again.

Things have changed for the better and we live in a better world now. We have support workers that help people who need it. There are more opportunities, such as supporting people to live independently. Many people have more understanding than when Katherine and Nerissa were born. I live on my own with a lot of help with United Response.

But it’s still possible for people with learning disabilities and autistic people to feel invisible.

  • When I’m in a shop and people talk to my support worker – but not to me.
  • When the law still needs to change, because people can be detained because of their learning disability.
  • When Disability Hate Crime still happens, but almost nobody goes to jail.

How can you be a part of the change today?“

Photo: Royal Earlswood Hospital, public domain.