Celebrating 118 years at Young Epilepsy
Young Epilepsy has been celebrating throughout September 118 years since the campus was founded in 1897.
We hope you have enjoyed looking at some of the historic photos we have shared with you over the past month on Facebook, from Princess Diana and Charles vising in 1987 to Princess Alexandra opening the hospital in 1967.
Young Epilepsy takes pride in its heritage and wants to share it with you all, so here are a few interesting facts we thought you might like to know.
You also have the opportunity to join history as we are currently building a multi-million pound new school for our current students at St Piers. To help raise funds we have launched a crowd-funding appeal to help us purchase the specialist equipment needed to completely finish one of our classrooms, but we need your help.
- Young Epilepsy was previously known as NYCPE and The Colony
- By September 1897 the first 25 colonists had been admitted to the farm-training colony
- 1899 saw the first resident with epilepsy admitted to Lingfield
- Miss Kate Caston, seen as the first credited teacher of ‘epileptic’ children in Great Britain started work at the Colony
- The success of the training at the Colony saw over 50% of students gaining employment and becoming independent and self-supporting
- The Red Cross Society provided home and workshops to soldiers who suffered neurasthenia and epilepsy at the Colony to help rehabilitate the soldiers returning from warfare
- In 1944, during World War 2 saw devastation struck when a flying bomb fell on the colony leaving 60 girls injured. Only 10 weeks later a second bomb struck the Ruston and Carter boy’s homes, luckily less damage occurred and no one was injured
You can find out more or donate to this appeal:
Young Epilepsy is the operating name of The National Centre for Young People with Epilepsy Charitable Trust.