The Queen's cousins, Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyons

[Novice]

The Queen's hidden cousins: They were banished to an asylum in 1941 and left neglected now an intriguing documentary reveals all



By Mary Greene

Last updated at 10:58 PM on 11th November 2011

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The date was 29 July, 1981, Prince Charles and Lady Di’s wedding day, and as the Queen arrived at St Paul’s Cathedral and waved to the crowds, two women in late middle-age, in shapeless, baggy dresses, shuffled with clumsy gait up to the television and waved and saluted back to her, unable to articulate speech but making excited noises.

It was a poignant moment, recalls Onelle Braithwaite, one of the nurses who cared for them. ‘I remember pondering with my colleague how, if things had been different, they would surely have been guests at the wedding.’

The two women were Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon – nieces of the Queen Mother and first cousins to the Queen – who had been incarcerated since 1941 in the Royal Earlswood Asylum for Mental Defectives, at Redhill in Surrey.


The Queen Mother with Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret in 1937

Their last reported visitors were in the 1960s, and although it was an open secret at the Royal Earlswood, and in the local community, that the asylum housed close relatives of the Royal Family, to the wider world their existence had been obliterated.



Burke’s Peerage had declared them both to be long dead, on misinformation supplied by the family. In fact, Nerissa did not die until 1986, aged 66, and Katherine is still alive; at 85, she is the same age as the Queen.

Their shocking story came to light shortly after Nerissa’s death, when journalists discovered she was buried in a grave marked only by a plastic name-tag and a serial number.


Nerissa (pictured) was born in 1919, and Katherine in 1926 - their father was John Bowes-Lyon, one of the Queen Mother's older brothers

The ensuing scandal, which prompted an anonymous source to provide a gravestone for Nerissa, made little difference to her sister’s life. Katherine received no visitors at the asylum, and as her aunt, the Queen Mother, lived on into cosseted old age, she did not possess even her own underwear – at least untilher final years there – and had to dress from a communal wardrobe.
Now a Channel 4 documentary tells the story of the Queen’s hidden cousins, born in an era when children with learning disabilities were a family’s shameful secret.
They were no problem to look after but they were mischievous, like naughty children. Katherine was a scallywag.

Photographs of Katherine Bowes-Lyon show a distinct resemblance to the Queen, and Onelle Braithwaite says the sisters’ story was common knowledge when she arrived at the asylum as a 20-year-old nurse in the mid-1970s.
‘If the Queen or Queen Mum were ever on television, they’d curtsey – very regal, very low. Obviously there was some sort of memory. It was so sad. Just think of the life they might have had. They were two lovely sisters. They didn’t have any speech but they’d point and make noises, and when you knew them, you could understand what they were trying to say. Today they’d probably be given speech therapy and they’d communicate much better. They understood more than you’d think.’

Former ward sister Dot Penfold, now retired from nursing, also has fond memories. ‘They were no problem to look after but they were mischievous, like naughty children. Katherine was a scallywag. You could scream at her and she’d turn a deaf ear.’

Katherine, 85, is still alive and is believed to be living in a care home in Surrey

Nerissa was born in 1919, and Katherine in 1926. Their father was John Bowes-Lyon, one of the Queen Mother’s older brothers and a son of the Earl of Strathmore. John died in 1930 and was survived, until
1966, by the girls’ mother, Fenella.

The sisters were unfortunate to have been born in an era when mental disability was seen as a threat to society and linked to promiscuity, feckless breeding and petty crime, the characteristics of the underclass; associations encouraged by popular belief in the science of eugenics, soon to be embraced by the Nazis.

‘So the belief was if you had a child with a learning disability, there was something in your family that was suspect and wrong,’ explains Jan Walmsley, the Open University’s professor in the history of learning disabilities.

For the Bowes-Lyons, this was a stigma that could threaten their social standing and taint the marital prospects of their other children. (Nerissa and Katherine’s beautiful and healthy sister Anne became a princess of Denmark by her second marriage; by her first marriage, she was Viscountess Anson and mother of the society photographer, the late Lord Lichfield.)

The imposing Royal Earlswood was the country’s first purpose-built asylum for people with learning disabilities. Nerissa and Katherine were 15 and 22 respectively when they were admitted. Nerissa’s medical records categorise her as ‘imbecile’. ‘She makes unintelligible noises all the time,’ stated a doctor. ‘Very affectionate… can say a few babyish words.’

Judy Wilkinson, 67, from Godalming, Surrey, recalls her apprehension when visiting the Royal Earlswood as a young girl in the 1950s, when her elder sister Nicola, who was brain-damaged at birth, was consigned there. ‘I’d get that gripping feeling of dread,’ Judy explains, and she remembers feeling puzzled that her sister was always wearing the same green coat, which never seemed to wear out.

Now she realises that the inmates wore their own clothes only if they had visitors. But for Nerissa and Katherine, there were few if any visitors. ‘I never saw anybody come,’ says Dot Penfold. ‘The impression I had was that they’d been forgotten.’

From the late 1960s, a wave of scandals exposed conditions in institutions that were severely understaffed and overcrowded. The Royal Earlswood was closed in 1997; at least one former nurse has alleged patients were abused. The grandiose building has since been converted into luxury apartments, while Katherine is believed to be living in a care home in Surrey. Her relationship with her family remains unchanged.

The Queen’s Hidden Cousins, Channel 4, Thursday, 9pm.

Read more: The Queen's hidden cousins: They were banished to an asylum in 1941 and left neglected now an intriguing documentary reveals all | Mail Online



I find it interesting that of the five children that they had 2 were mentally handicapped, one died within a year of being born (wiki page of the father John Herbert Bowes-Lyon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). All doesn't seem well in that family, especially when one knows that their cousins were also in the same home with them.

By then her sister was dead, but she had another family member to keep her company - her cousin Idonea Fane, who had also been sent to the Royal Earlswood Hospital, classed as mentally disturbed. Idonea moved with Katherine to the new home. Idonea's two sisters, Etheldreda and Rosemary, had also been admitted to the Royal Earlswood Hospital, along with her - all on the same day.

Again nearly half of the children born to that family.
Children of Hon. Harriet Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis and Major Henry Nevile Fane

• Captain Charles Neville Fane+2 b. 7 Feb 1911, d. 21 May 1940
• Idonea Elizabeth Fane2 b. 27 Feb 1912, d. 7 Jun 2001
• Edmund John Fane2 b. 16 Apr 1914, d. 13 Mar 1915
• Rosemary Jean Fane2 b. 16 Apr 1914
• Anne Charmian Fane+2 b. 13 Mar 1916, d. 15 Feb 1990
• Captain John Henry Mark Fane+2 b. 28 Jul 1917, d. 31 Jul 1995
• Ethelreda Flavia Fane2 b. 30 Dec 1922, d. 8 Mar 1996

[Bluebonnet]

How horribly sad!

[McJag]

This was so long ago when even doctors hadn't a clue. This should serve to make us all grateful for modern science and how far we have come.

[Bluebonnet]

Like that Kennedy sister, Rosemary, that was lobotomized to "control her moodiness" and when it went wrong, they threw her in some home.

Sad.

[Novice]

This was so long ago when even doctors hadn't a clue. This should serve to make us all grateful for modern science and how far we have come.

There is something very wrong in that family somewhere, for half of the kids to be mentally poor or dead before they reached the age of 1. Half the kids of two of the siblings (the sister had the Fane kids, the brother the Bowes-Lyons).

[rollo]

Small gene pool? Inherited weakesses?

This is why aristos and royals look further afield these days.

[angelais]

It seems some sort of inbreeding went on somewhere along the line.
That is so incredibly sad. . A grave with a tiny plastic marker for one of them?
And then they see the Queen on TV and they would curtsey. *sigh*

I wish they would air that documentary in the U.S.

[Shiver]

So very sad.

There is something very wrong in that family somewhere, for half of the kids to be mentally poor or dead before they reached the age of 1. Half the kids of two of the siblings (the sister had the Fane kids, the brother the Bowes-Lyons).

That's genetics for you. Centuries of cousins marrying cousins means that all the problem recessive genes have a much, much higher chance of coming out since the same problem gene is on both sides.

[Novice]

I was thinking syphalis before I found out about the cousins, but it still could stand I guess.

[A*O]

Even today the genepool among British aristos is very shallow so I'm not surprised that one "bad" marriage can produce so many kids with problems. Even those who don't have any obvious mental deficiencies are usually incredibly dumb with very low IQs. But that's OK because they usually have enough inherited wealth not to worry about boring things like getting a job.

[sjankis630]

Shocking. I read this and think, "they didn't have a clue on how to help these poor people." And then I realize here in the good old US where I live we know better but still i seem to remember we had our problems back in the middle of the last century (discovered during WWII) that there were problems with out institutions treatment of the mentally ill.

[czb]

^^^ some more recent than that. google willowbrook. *shudders*

[Fly_On_TheWall]

perhaps inbreeding?

[Mrs P]

Even today the genepool among British aristos is very shallow so I'm not surprised that one "bad" marriage can produce so many kids with problems. Even those who don't have any obvious mental deficiencies are usually incredibly dumb with very low IQs. But that's OK because they usually have enough inherited wealth not to worry about boring things like getting a job.

Ha, reminds me of a guy I met over in England. I had a school mate that was a member of the boating club and so was this inbred upper class guy. I recall going to some dinner event, which she brought him to, and being stuck next to the guy. Weak chin, wonky teeth, one lazy eye. This was an event for law school students, so I asked him what he was studying. He just gave me this dead look and said "I'm a man of leisure. Different courses for different horses over here, don't you know." Or is it different horses for difference courses? I don't know. It was the first time I ever heard it.

[Novice]

The latter MrsP.