Lionel Sharples Penrose (1898-1972): aspects of the man and his works, with particular reference to his undertakings in the fields of intellectual disability and mental disorder.

The Penrose Club, named after Professor L. S. Penrose, is a society of academic psychiatrists in the UK with a particular focus on research in the sphere of intellectual disability. The inaugural lecture of the Club was delivered at the Institute of Psychiatry, London, on 29 November 1996. It is distinctly fitting that this lecture should appear in print in the Journal of Intellectual Disability Research in the centenary year of Professor Penrose's birth, both because of his major pioneering contributions to the field with which JIDR is concerned and because he played a crucial role in the founding of the Journal.