09.12.2017 - By Professor Rab Houston
Voice Credit: Hannah Raymond Cox
IMAGE: Wellcome Library, London, V0030051. Young girl with Down's syndrome, sitting, wearing striped socks. Photograph. By: Joseph Arthur Baldry after: George Edward Shuttleworth. Collection: Iconographic Collections. Library reference no.: ICV No 30534. Copyrighted work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
NOTE: We do not know if Alice Hill had Down’s syndrome, but appearance was an important indicator of mental capacity in early modern times and she may well have looked distinctive.