Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon

Nerissa Bowes-Lyon (18 February 1919 – 22 January 1986) and Katherine Bowes-Lyon (4 July 1926 – 23 February 2014)[1] were two of the daughters of John Herbert Bowes-Lyon and his wife Fenella (née Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis). John was the brother of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the Queen Mother, so the two daughters were first cousins of Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret, sharing one pair of grandparents, Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, and Cecilia Bowes-Lyon, Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne.[2]

Royal Earlswood Hospital c.1854

In 1987, it was revealed that, despite the 1963 edition of Burke's Peerage listing Nerissa and Katherine as having died in 1940 and 1961, respectively,[1][3] the sisters were alive, and had been placed in Earlswood Hospital for mentally disabled people in 1941. In the terminology of the era, both were classified as "imbeciles", and neither learned to talk.[4] Nerissa died in 1986, with only hospital staff attending the funeral,[4] while Katherine died in 2014.[5] The sisters received no money from the family other than £125 paid to Earlswood each year.[4]

Suggestions of a royal cover-up were rejected in the press by Lord Clinton in 1987, who claimed that his aunt Fenella (the mother of the two girls) had completed the form for Burke's incorrectly due to Fenella being 'a vague person'; however, Burke's included specific dates of death for both sisters.[6] According to a 2011 television documentary about the sisters, "throughout their time at the hospital, there is no known record that the sisters were ever visited by any member of the Bowes-Lyon or royal families, despite their aunt, the Queen Mother, being a Patron of Mencap" (a charity for people with learning disabilities). Nurses interviewed on the documentary said that, to their knowledge, the family never sent the sisters a birthday or Christmas gift or card. When Nerissa died in 1986, none of her family attended the funeral. She was buried at Redhill Cemetery.[7] Her grave was marked with plastic tags and a serial number until her existence was revealed in the media, after which the family added a gravestone.[1][6][8]

Three mentally disabled cousins of the girls also lived in Earlswood Hospital. Harriet Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis (1887–1958), sister of Nerissa and Katherine's mother Fenella, married Major Henry Nevile Fane, and 3 of their 7 children lived in Earlswood Hospital: Idonea Elizabeth Fane (1912–2002), Rosemary Jean Fane (1914–1972), and Etheldreda Flavia Fane (1922–1996).[9] David Danks, then director of the Murdoch Institute,[10] thought that a genetic disease may have killed male members of the family in early childhood and caused learning disabilities in females.[11] In 1996, the surviving cousins were moved to Ketwin House care home in Surrey.[12] When it closed in 2001, they were moved to another care home in Surrey.[7]