Royal Earlswood Hospital

The Royal Earlswood Hospital, formerly The Asylum for Idiots and The Royal Earlswood Institution for Mental Defectives, in Redhill, Surrey, was the first establishment to cater specifically for people with developmental disabilities.

Katherine and Nerissa Bowes-Lyon, who were nieces of the Queen Mother and first cousins of the Queen, were placed in the hospital in 1941.

John Langdon Down (after whom Down syndrome was named) was medical superintendent of the hospital from 1855 to 1868.