James Henry Pullen spent all his life after the age of 12 in asylums. In 1855, aged 20, he moved to the newly opened Asylum for Idiots at Hampton Wick in south-west London. The asylum – later to have the less offensive name of the Royal Earlswood Hospital – was run by a young doctor called John Langdon Down, after whom Down’s syndrome was named.
Langdon Down had a revolutionary attitude towards those under his care: he treated them as people. He banned punishment of the inmates, and taught them horse riding, gardening, crafts and elocution. He quickly recognised that the young Pullen, who was never able to speak a continuous sentence, was a gifted craftsman, and employed him to make furniture for the asylum.
