Charles Ebenezer Harle, Hon. Secretary for the Association in Aid of the Deaf and Dumb

Charles Ebenezer Harle (1807-92) was sometime Hon. Secretary of the Association in Aid of the Deaf and Dumb.  I was curious about his background so tried to see why he might have got involved in the organisation which became the modern Royal Association for Deaf people – the R.A.D.  It seems to me that the more we can discover about all the people involved in these early organisations, the better picture we can get of them and their histories.  Dots start to join up and bits of the puzzle begin to fall into place.

He was born into a non-conformist family.  His father was Thomas William Harle.  From his census entries we can see that he was a medical practitioner, L.R.C.P. – a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, and L.S.A. Lond. – Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries (London).  It should be possible to check their records to find out when he qualified and perhaps something of his career.  That is probably the sort of person we might expect to get involved in such an organisation.  Also, he was born in Shoreditch, so possibly came into contact with deaf people via his work and perhaps from early mission work in London.  He never married and he died in Enfield in 1892.

In 1841 Harle was living in Bloomsbury, in Orange Street, which now lies somewhere under the old St Martin’s College of Art buildings in Southampton Row.  Nearby was Red Lion Square where the Association had its premises from circa 1847 to at least 1851.  Perhaps that was how he became involved?  Two people are at the same address, I assume them to be his brothers – Samuel, also listed as a surgeon, and Thomas, a ‘shopman’.  In the same year he edited Three Discourses … The Church: the Offertory. Edited by C. E. Harle.   What might this ‘petition‘ of 1845 be?  Was it related to the Association?  In the 1861 census he was living with Esther, Mary and Matilda Jacobs as their lodger, at 9 Cross Street, Islington, a ‘medical ?doctor? at an hospital’.   In 1871 he was living with his widowed sister in Islington, but the census is very faded in the on line version so I cannot make out the address.  He was working as an apothecary, in which he qualified in 1862.  Between 1871 and 1881 he moved to Enfield, where he remained until his death on October 21st, 1892.  The brief notice of his death in The Lancet, says ‘late of the Bank of England’, and in the 1851 census he was a ‘clerk at the Bank of England’ which seems a strange career change – medical practitioner to bank clerk to apothecary*. 

What caught my initial interest in him was this letter, which is attached to a printed section of a report on the Association’s annual meeting (not dated but circa 1856).  It may be a real letter but it could be a reproduction.  I am not clear at what date it became possible to reproduce letters.  It reads as follows –

Association of the Deaf and Dumb
15 Bedford Row
London
July 15 1856

Sir, –
We have on our books nine uneducated and destitute Deaf and Dumb children too old for admission to the Old Kent Road Asylum.  We should be able to send all of them to a school in the country could we raise £80 per annum for this special purpose.

Permit me to commend their case to your Christian sympathy.

I have the honor to be
Sir,
Your Obedient Servt.
C.E.Harle
Hon. Secy.

I wondered who the children were and what became of them, and it seems that some of them were sent to the Brighton Institution.*

Harle was on the committee as early as 1844 and was honorary secretary from 1856-57.  He then became the medical officer.*

1841 Census – Class: HO107; Piece: 672; Book: 6; Civil Parish: St George Bloomsbury; County: Middlesex; Enumeration District: 6; Folio: 4; Page: 1; Line: 8; GSU roll: 438787

*1851 Census – transcribed as Hurle – Class: HO107; Piece: 1706; Folio: 460; Page: 10; GSU roll: 193614

1861 Census – Class: RG 9; Piece: 138; Folio: 44; Page: 29; GSU roll: 542580

1871 Census – Class: RG10; Piece: 300; Folio: 34; Page: 6; GSU roll: 824928

1872 Medical Register

1881 Census – Class: RG11; Piece: 1392; Folio: 33; Page: 59; GSU roll: 1341339

1891 Census – Class: RG12; Piece: 1083; Folio: 109; Page: 48; GSU roll: 6096193

General Register Office: Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths surrendered to the Non-parochial Registers Commissions of 1837 and 1857; Class Number: RG 4; Piece Number: 4675

*Updated 9th of May 2016 with many thanks to Norma McGilp from @DeafHeritageUK