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Normansfield Hospital was a facility for patients with an intellectual disability situated in Teddington, Middlesex, England.
History
The Normansfield Hospital was founded in 1868 by John Langdon Down, after whom Down syndrome was named. When he died in 1896, his sons, Reginald and Percival, succeeded him. The hospital closed in 1997 and the building now houses the Langdon Down Museum and the headquarters of the Down's Syndrome Association.
The hospital was the scene of a 1976 strike by the nursing staff in the Trades Union COHSE. The nurses were angry that the regional health authority had ignored their grievances against consultant psychiatrist Terence Lawlor and demanded that he be suspended. His suspension led to a public inquiry chaired by Michael Sherrard. It was one of many official inquiries into National Health Service (NHS) mental hospitals during that period. Dr Lawlor's professional style emerged as intolerant, abusive and tyrannical. COHSE was roundly criticized for a strike over which its officials had broken union rules, misled their membership and then blamed the nurses. An NHS administrator was found to be fearful of Dr Lawlor. The only body to emerge with any credit was the local Community Health Council, later abolished. The inquiry recommended that Lawlor should be sacked and never allowed to work in the National Health Service again. The same judgement applied to several senior nurses and administrators.
The Down's Syndrome Association operates the Langdon Down Centre in the former hospital's theatre wing, which includes the: