John Langdon Haydon Down

Dr John Langdon Haydon Down (18 November 1828-7 October 1896) was a medical doctor who gave his name to Down Syndrome.

Born in Cornwall, he was the son of a grocer. He moved to the East End of London where he was apprenticed to a surgeon practitioner. He passed examinations at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and returned to his father's shop in Cornwall where he sold remedies.

He later entered the medical school of the London Hospital in 1853 and excelled in his studies. In 1858 he was appointed Medical Superintendent of the Royal Earlswood Asylum for Idiots. It was there that he observed the features of the syndrome that now bears his name.His classification was more or less forgotten during his lifetime, being rediscovered and recognised in the twentieth century.

Down left the asylum and developed a successful medical practice and set up Normansfield Hospital near Teddington in Middlesex. and from 1889 until his death was an alderman on the Middlesex County Council.