Group    From /5/1868  To 1997

Normansfield Asylum

Categories: Children, Medicine

See Lost Hospitals of London for an excellent history of this hospital. Briefly: The White House, a mansion with 5 acres of grounds, was built in 1866.  Dr Langdon Down and his wife Mary bought it and named it Normansfield, after their solicitor (!).  It opened in May 1868 as a private asylum for children with mental health problems from upper class families.  The children were taught according to their abilities and the hospital expanded with new wings and out-buildings.  A splendid Entertainment Hall was built and opened in 1879 (still exists and is regularly open to the public).  By 1888 the hospital covered 40 acres.  The Langdon Down’s two sons both qualified in medicine, worked at Normansfield and took it over when their parents died in 1896-1900.

Normansfield transferred into the NHS in June 1951 but the family continued their involvement.  We have to mention that a grand-daughter married a neurologist, Dr Russell Brain (nominative determinism rules! - see Isambard Brunel for more examples).

This section lists the memorials created by the subject on this page:
Normansfield Asylum

Creations i

Dr John Langdon Down

We could not get close enough to take easily legible photographs and initiall...

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Other Subjects

Newbery Medal

Newbery Medal

From Wikipedia: a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association (ALA). The award is given to the author of the most disting...

Concept, Children, Literature, USA

1 memorial
Peggy Jones

Peggy Jones

One of the 11 "children of England" present on 7th July 1933 when The Princess Royal laid a foundation stone for a nurses home for the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital.

Person, Children

1 memorial
Billy Bunter

Billy Bunter

Character in a series of stories set in Greyfriars School, originally published in the boys weekly story magazine 'The Magnet'.

Fiction, Children, Fictional

1 memorial
Coborn Girls School

Coborn Girls School

From the picture source website: "Prisca Coborn, the widow of a brewer, founded a School for both boys and girls in 1701, as a result of the terms of her will published in the year of her death. Th...

Group, Children, Education

2 memorials
Sunday Schools (centenary)

Sunday Schools (centenary)

Workhouses.org informs that schools for children on Sundays probably happened earlier but the movement started in 1780 when Robert Raikes opened a school in Gloucester.

Concept, Children, Education

1 memorial