The Queen’s Disabled ‘Hidden’ Cousins: True story of Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon

Harrowing true story of Queen's cousins who were hidden in an asylum and declared dead

The "hidden" family members were confined to an asylum and registered as being dead after they were born with severe learning difficulties.

Daughters of John Bowes-Lyon, the Queen Mother’s brother, Nerissa Bowes Lyon was born in 1919, and sister Katherine in 1926.

The sisters were born with a mental condition that meant they were unable to communicate – something that their father feared would threaten their social standing.

At ages 15 and 22, Katherine and Nerissa – the Queen Mother's nieces – were hidden away in the Royal Earlswood Institution for Mental Defectives in Redhill, Surrey.
Katherine and Nerissa were secretly placed in an institution that was cruelly dubbed The National Asylum for Idiots and hidden from the world.

Their admission was deemed necessary in 1923, when their Aunt Elizabeth – the Queen’s mum – married the future king, George VI.

They remained there for the majority of their lives and, according to reports, were rarely, if ever, visited.

Nerissa passed away aged 66 in 1986 and Katherine died six years ago aged 87.

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

According to reports, the Queen Mother knew that they were not really dead despite being registered as deceased.

But she never visited either of them, and saw no contradiction in her patronage of Mencap, which campaigns against families placing their mentally challenged relations in state care