Venetia Marjorie Mabel Baring was a daughter of Francis Denzil Edward Baring, 5th Baron Ashburton.  In 1930 she wrote a booklet Deafness and Happiness, our copy being the 1935 reprint.  It was published by A.R. Mowbray, who produced religious and devotional books.  It is on vey good quality paper.  According to the short introduction by “A.F. Bishop of London” who seems to be Arthur Foley Winnington-Ingram, she was “afflicted in the heyday of her youth with almost total deafness” (p.iii).  Her photographic portrait is in the National Portrai Gallery collection, and a drawing of her is in the Royal Collection.

She was born in London in 1890.  She wrote her book with the encouragement of Winnington-Ingram.  Below is a page from the book which gives a flavour of its religious polemic.  It is certainly of interest to anyone who is fascinated by attitudes to deafness and how they have or have not changed over the years.

In 1936, Arthur Story wrote a letter to the BMJ about deafness.  Venetia Baring wrote a respose, echoing his words and developing her own ideas about deafness:

The helplessness of medical science where deafness is concerned is incontestable, and, as it is not of itself a menace to life, research into causes has suffered on financial grounds in comparison with other diseases. The complete lack of official understanding of deafness was painfully illustrated in the great war, when it was necessary for a few public-spirited individuals like the late Sir Frederick Milner to fight for the rights of deafened ex-Service men.  There are certainly signs that the medical profession is becoming increasingly alive to the fact that the monster is hydra-headed and that there are few mental and physical disorders to which it does not prove an open door unless intelligently handled.

From the last line of this letter we learn that she was “not born deaf, had acute hearing up to 19, and used no “aids” to nearly 30″ (ibid).

She died aged only 47 on the 15th of July, 1937, having suffered from serious illness before then.  Indeed, she added a chapter to the second edition of her book on ‘The Power and Use of Pain.’  “Science is working for the abolition of suffering; but it will never succeed, because, while sin exists, pain is inevitable and can even be a vital factor in the development of human personality.” (p.37)   She was clearly someone who had experienced pain and tried to work her own way through it.

It would be interesting to find out more about her.

Peerage.com

Baring, Venetia, The Deaf and the Blind Br Med J 1936; 1 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.1.3934.1134 (Published 30 May 1936)

The herbalist ‘doctor’, Charles H. Hassall F.S.Sc. was born in Stoke in 1848, and in his youth he lived with his grandfather, who was himself a herbalist.  As a boy Charles lost both his sight to some inflammation, and his hearing in his left ear, and partly lost hearing in his right ear.  The interview in The British Deaf-Mute does not tell us if it was known exactly what caused that, but at any rate it was not permanent and he eventually regained hearing in his right ear, and his vision.

Abraham quotes a pamphlet by Hassall on ‘Care of the Eyes’ where he explains his loss of sight:

A physician was consulted who professed to know all about it and prescribed accordingly, with the result that soon the inflammation rapidly spread to the other eye, still he continued to see and proscribe until I was completely dark-blind as it is called.  He then very coolly gave up the case as hopeless, so I was to be blind through all my earthly life for all he seemed to know or care.  No one can conceive the agony, the unutterable sorrow I was plunged into – an earnest, energetic mind just beginning to enquire and expand suddenly checked and held back in chains of darkness.

[…] I then consulted another Doctor.  This gentleman had weak and sore eyes and felt for me; he soon opened the closed pupils so that I could see like the man whose eyes Jesus opened and said that he could “see men as trees walking.” (p.188-9)

Abraham tells us that some twenty-seven or twenty-eight years earlier, Hassall “had the rare and happy experience of being able to restore the speech of a young girl, with a a mixture of oils and various other ingredients.

He went to work for a Dr. Garner in Staffordshire, but to the disappointment of the doctor, Hassall was determined to follow the herbalist path rather than what he termed the allopathic (p.189).  ‘”Well Hassall,” said the Doctor after one of his argumentative conversations, “seeing that you are determined to make a name as a herbalist I would advise you to get a case or two and demonstrate your theories.’

Abraham gives him the title of ‘doctor’ and says Hassall ‘had obtained many diplomas’ including The General Council of Safe Medicine Limited (Incorporated), London; The National Association of Herbalists of Great Britain; The Society of United Medical Herbalists of Great Britain; The British School of Eclectic Medicine; The British Association of Eclectics and Medical Botanists; The Medical Herbalist Defence Union Limited; The International Association of Medical Herbalists (p.189).  One of these must be The National Institute of Medical Herbalists and it would be interesting to see if there are any archival records of him.  The proliferation of diplomas and claim to use the title ‘doctor’ smacks of a desperation for legitimacy, but today we might term him a quack.

He moved to Farnworth, Bolton, in 1881, which is probably where Earnest Abraham met him, when Abraham was a missioner there.  He expanded his premises from 78 Peel Street to include 76 and 80.  By 1911 he called himself a ‘Pharmacy Proprietor’ on the census, rather than ‘herbalist.  Hassall died in Bolton in 1923.

1891 Census – Class: RG12; Piece: 3093; Folio: 88; Page: 25; GSU roll: 6098203

1911 Census -Class: RG14; Piece: 23256

E.J.D.A. [Ernest Abraham], Charles H. Hassall, The British Deaf Mute, 1895-6, Volume 5 p.188-9

[I contemplated whether or not I should write about Hassall, but as Ernest Abraham interviewed for The British Deaf-Mute I think we can cover him, and though his hearing loss was partial he is an interesting example of non-standard 19th century medicine.]

Earnest Elmo Calkins (1868-1964) was a pioneer of modern advertising.  Born in

In Design Observer, Steven Heller says of him, that he is “recognized as the founder of “styling the goods,” otherwise known as “consumer engineering” or even better known as “forced obsolescence”—he is considered in the pantheon of twentieth century Modernists.”

Calkins wrote a volume of memoirs, “Louder Please,” in 1924, & then in 1946 produced an extended version, “and hearing not-“; Annals of an Adman.  Writing in the third person, here as ‘the Boy,’ he describes here his loss of hearing in a chapter that appears in both volumes, ‘The ears begin to close’ :

nothing stands out with any sharpness, either teachers or lessons.  A sort of mist seems to veil the next three or four years.

The reason for the mist was that the Boy was growing deafer.  School seemed more futile the less he heard of it.  The world-old conflict between heredity and environment was henceforth to be influenced by a new element whose effect could not be foreseen.  Deafness introduced complications that required new adjustments, like deuces wild in a poker game.  The cause, it seems, was measles experienced at the age of six, at length bearing its evil fruit, but the predisposition was probably a part of his inheritance.  He was at least ten years old before his condition was realized, even by himself.  His fits of abstraction and oblivion were laid to inattention by the higher powers, both at home and abroad. (and hearing not, p.p.67-8)

He went on eventiually to college, and got good marks in mathematics, but otherwise, “For four years he sat in various classrooms, hearing almost nothing, content or at least resigned to make out a passable performance” (p.100).  He got into advertising aged 23, when he won a competition for an advertisement for a Bissell carpet sweeper.  Later on his advertising company was behind ‘Lucky Jim’ of the breakfast cereal Force, and he introduced modern art into American advertising in the 1920s.

In the chapter, ‘Social life of a deaf man,’ Calkins describes how so many famous people he met he was “unable to use, other than to satisfy my curiosity as to how they looked.”   He relied on his wife in many of these situations (p.180).  He says that “Deafness was the ever present influence.  It made or marred my attempts to earn a living, it selected my friends for me, and determined what I was to enjoy of social life, what my amusements were to be.” (p.181)

“A partially deaf man is like Aesop’s bat, neither animal nor bird, but having the disabilities of both, belonging neither to the hearing world  nor that of the totally deaf.” (p.188)

“Lip reading is like handwriting in that it is sometimes as clear as print and again as illegible as Horace Greeley‘s famous chirography.” (p.189)  He had lessons in lip reading with Edward B. Nitchie, who was deaf and whose books we have.

We have the two volumes of memoir mentioned above.  One is signed by Calkins, dedicated to Madeleine de Soyres.  They are well worth investigating, and he seems to me an engaging writer.

Calkins, Earnest Elmo, “Louder Please,” 1924

Calkins, Earnest Elmo, “and hearing not-“; Annals of an Adman.  New York, 1946

William Moody was a deaf boy, and the son of Joseph Moody.  Joseph was born circa 1816 in Willoughbridge, Staffordshire.  His father, William senior, was at various times a gamekeeper or a butcher.  The name sometimes appears as Moodey.  He married Phebe or Phoebe Large in 1840, and they had two sons, William born in 1841 and Thomas born in 1843.  Sadly she died in 1845.  The eldest son, William, was either born deaf or lost his hearing in childhood.  Losing his mother when he was four must have been critical in his development.  I suspect that his father did not have any idea as to how he should deal with his son’s hearing loss.  In June 1846 he married for a second time to Louise or Louisa Thorman, also the daughter of a gamekeeper (see online records at www.ancestry.co.uk).  In 1863 Joseph was in prison for three months, according to research by a descendant (ibid), and in 1871 he was in the workhouse.  He died in an asylum in Prestwich, Scotland, in 1885.

My eye was drawn to this article from 1849 about the son, William Moody.  The same article, or versions thereof, appeared in several newspapers that week.  The story is interesting for many reasons.  It shows how young Deaf people in the 19th century, even living in central Manchester, where there was a very good deaf school, fell through the gaps in the system, such as it was, and how difficult it was for a parent to know what to do with such a child.  It also illustrates the importance of education, and supporting parents and children who have physical or emotional problems, to prevent them becoming a problem and a burden to society.  The story comes from the heart of Manchester;

Extensive Destruction of Property by an Idiot Boy
On Friday morning, William Moody, an idiot boy, apparently about seven or eight years old, and who is both deaf and dumb, was brought before the magistrates at the Borough Court, in order that some arrangements might be made for his future safe keeping.

Mr Superintendent Sawley stated that on the previous day the boy had contrived to get into the premises of Mr. John Barber, engraver to calico printers, Back Water-street, and, the men being absent, he had by means of a hammer almost wholly destroyed three or four engraved copper rollers, of the value of about £40; he had also broken and damaged a number of the punches and other tools, used fin engraving the rollers.  The boy’s father was a cab proprietor, living in Atherton’s Court, Young-street.

The father, who was present, said he had four children; he had made application to the relieving officers to take some steps to confine the boy, and he was willing to pay whatever might be necessary for his support in an asylum.

Mr. Sawley said he had several times sent for the father with regard to the boy, who appeared to be allowed to run about the streets uncared for.  When he was brought to the office on the previous day, he was as black as a sweep, and had no other covering but a sort of gown made of calico.  He had kept him in the office during the night; but the father had on one or two previous occasions told him (Mr. Sawley) that he was unable to take care of the boy.

Mr Brownsworth, one of the relieving officers, was in court; and after some conversation, Mr. Maude directed the at the boy should be at once taken to the office of the guardians, and some arrangements made for his being taken care of in future. (Hull Packet and East Riding Times)

The Manchester Times version of the story, see below, adds Mr. Brownsworth had pulled the boy out of the canal on one occasion.  What became of William, for whom we can only feel sympathy, I am not sure.  I could not find him in our – incomplete – annual reports of the Old Trafford school, where pupils are listed by name.  In 1851, it would appear that he was in the workhouse in Manchester, New Bridge Street (though he is not marked as ‘deaf’ there, I am confidant it is this William Moody).  Perhaps he died young, perhaps he got some help, but I rather suspect not.  He would have been very difficult to take in hand by the time he was eight, having been allowed to become a ‘feral’ child.

If you can track William after that, please leave a comment below.

Above, the story as it appeared in The Manchester Times.

Manchester Times (Manchester, England), Wednesday, June 6, 1849; Issue 62.

The Morning Post (London, England), Thursday, June 07, 1849; pg. 8; Issue 23557

The Blackburn Standard (Blackburn, England), Wednesday, June 13, 1849; Issue 752

The Hull Packet and East Riding Times (Hull, England), Friday, June 8, 1849

1841 Census – Class: HO107; Piece: 573; Book: 7; Civil Parish: Manchester; County: Lancashire; Enumeration District: 14; Folio: 25; Page: 3; Line: 9; GSU roll: 438725

1851 Census – Class: HO107; Piece: 2227; Folio: 205; Page: 4

1851 Census – William junior – Class: HO107; Piece: 2229; Folio: 834; Page: 14

1861 Census – Class: RG 9; Piece: 2892; Folio: 26; Page: 46; GSU roll: 543046

1871 Census – Class: RG10; Piece: 3974; Folio: 130; Page: 22; GSU roll: 846087

Manchester marriages Reference Number GB127.M403/6/3/19

The National Archives of the UK; Kew, Surrey, England; Lunacy Patients Admission Registers; Class: MH 94; Piece: 27

UPDATED: Apologies for my atrocious typing – I managed 6 typos in the above blog, now corrected I hope!?

George Arnold  (1855-1922) was born in Wimborne, Dorset.  He lost his hearing at the age of eight, being described in the 1901 census as ‘stone deaf,’ and was then educated at the Old Kent Road and St John’s College, Margate, under the personal tuition of G. Banton and the headmaster, Richard Elliott.  The 1881 census says he was ‘Deaf after birth, not dumb’ so he had spoken language.  On leaving school, he trained as a tailor with Mr W. Fletcher, tailor to King Edward VII.  In 1880 he married Amelia Bartlett, of Preston, Dorset then aged 18.  According to the 1901 census, she was partly deaf.

The article about Arnold in The Messenger says that “on leaving school he chose the trade of a tailor and has been with with Mr. Fletcher, tailor to H.M. the King, H.R.H. Prince Christian, &c., for over twenty years.  Besides making various clothes for the King, he made clothes for the late Emperor Frederick of Germany, while the latter was staying at Windsor Castle, as well as for other Royalties.

In the 1891 census he was being visited by Henry S. Gander, a fellow Deaf tailor.   I wonder if Gander was looking for work, or perhaps he was just a friend from the same trade with a similar background?  Had he been staying with the Arnolds on a longer basis it would probably have said he was a ‘boarder.’  Thanks to information provided by Deaf historians Norma McGilp and Geoff Eagling, we can say something more about Gander.

Harry Stonestreet Gander, was baptized on the 17th of November, 1867, in Hove, Sussex. His parents John and Sarah Ann Gander.  At the time of the 1871 census he was living at  27 Osborne St, Hove, where he was a pupil at the Brighton “Deaf and Dumb Asylum.”  He had lost his hearing through from scarlet fever’, and his father was a gardener.  At the Brighton Institution, his Admission number was 438.  He was living at Cliftonville, Sussex at the time of his admission in 1877.  Geoff Eagling says, “Reverend Fully paid on his behalf £8-0s-0d per year, this is lower than the normal school fee of £10-0s-0d. Perhaps he was a day pupil. No date of leaving but would be around 1882-83 when he was around 14-15 years old. Private pupil at the time was £50-0s-0d, a lot in those days.”   I cannot be sure when Harry died.  There seem to be a fair number of Ganders in Sussex, but there is a death notice for Lewes in 1910, a Harry Gander aged 42, that could fit.  If you find out or know please make a note below.

Arnold was an amateur conjurer, and was in demand to provide entertainments.  In the Brighton Gazette for the 7th of January, 1904, Arnold performed at a New Year party held at the Brighton Institution, presided over by Sir Arthur Fairbairn, and William Sleight, who was headmaster.  I wonder if Arnold or Gander made clothes for them?  He also acted as a stand-in missioner to his local Deaf community, for example in the South Bucks Standard for the 24th of October 1912, we read that the Bishop appointed him to take Sunday services when the Rev. A.H. Payne moved to Liverpool.

As a young man, he had been a very good athlete.  Roe tells us he ran a mile in 4 mins 47 secs, at Fordingbridge, near Salisbury, and a half-mile in 2 mins 10 secs at Winton.

George Arnold died in 1922, at Clewer, near Windsor, aged only 67.  His wife Amelia had died His obituary in Ephphatha said “Mr. Arnold abounded in energy, good spirits and social magnetism; he was an optimist, a humorist, a man who relished life.”

I cannot say whether any of his clothes survive, but perhaps they do in some museum or in the Royal Collections.  It is also possible that there are surviving accounts and other correspondence that might be of interest to those wanting to research this subject.

MACKENZIE, G. King Edward’s deaf mute tailor. Messenger, 1902, 5(5), 83-84. (photo)

Obituary, Mr George Arnold, Ephphatha, 1922 p.701

Roe, W.R. Peeps into the Deaf World, 1917, p.2-3

1861 Census – Class: RG 9; Piece: 1339; Folio: 40; Page: 15; GSU roll: 542798

1881 Census – Class: RG11; Piece: 1195; Folio: 94; Page: 13; GSU roll: 1341293

1881 Census (Henry S. Gander) – Class: RG11; Piece: 1077; Folio: 55; Page: 39; GSU roll: 1341254

1891 Census – Class: RG12; Piece: 1013; Folio: 34; Page: 23; GSU roll: 6096123

1901 Census – Class: RG12; Piece: 1013; Folio: 34; Page: 23; GSU roll: 6096123

1911 Census – Class: RG14; Piece: 6718; Schedule Number: 175

We recently found a poster for Noma, a substance for polishing aluminium. On it Selwyn Oxley had written ‘Invented by a deaf man, W Maddison please use it and tell your friends to do same’. This sent us off on a quest to find out more about this mysterious substance.

To our surprise there is no W Maddison. Instead Noma was invented – and patented by – Noel G. Maddison, who regular readers will recall we wrote about last November. It seems most likely that Noma was derived from Maddison’s own name – NOel MAddison.  Using Espacenet, the worldwide patent search, we were able to get a copy of Maddison’s patent, titled ‘Improvements in or relating to the Manufacture of Powder for Cleansing, Polishing and like purposes’, which revealed the composition of the substance – silica 84%, curd soap 3.25%, Castile soap 3.25%, French chalk 7% and borax 2.5%. Curd soap is, sadly, just plain soap, while Castile soap is soap made with olive oil and soda.

You may notice that ‘Aluminium Archie’ appears to be female.

Further investigation showed that for some years Maddison and his aunt, Marion Chappell, were business partners operating out of Hartley Wintney in Hampshire. Chappell had lived there since at least 1911, when the census records her occupation as ‘private means’, but we don’t at present know exactly where the Noma was made. The partnership came to an end in 1931. The London Gazette reported simply –

Our assumption is that Chappell, at this point aged about 80, and a grand daughter of the music publisher Samuel Chappell, provided Maddison with capital to start the company; she died, aged 91, in 1942. Madisson lived until 1955, when he died at the age of 66.

We would be interested in finding out more about Noma – please let us know if you have any information.

Thomas Arnold,  (1816-1897) was a  Teacher of the deaf and Nonconformist minister.  He was a pioneer in Britain of the oral education of deaf pupils.  His family originated in Cheshire but were granted land in West Cavan, Ireland, for supporting King William III.  Arnold’s Great Grandmother became a Moravian Protestant, joining one of their settlements.  His mother was also part of a Moravian community at Gracehill, Ballymena.  You can read details of his family in Arnold’s Reminiscences.  I do not propose to give a detailed account of Arnold’s career here.  There is plenty of amaterial about and by Arnold, and it deserves fuller attention than I can give it here.

He was a studious boy and was taken into the class of the local rector, Rev. George Kirkpatrick, who was prepared to pay for his university education.  Arnold’s father however wanted him to stay working with him as a carpenter and cabinet maker, which he did, until his brother took over that role.  Thomas became master of the Moravian school at Gracehill.  In his memoir he tells how Kirkpatrick was a subscriber to the Claremont Institution, and had sent boys to that school.  A boy who was leaving , James Beatty, who had been manually taught (that is with sign language), was taken on as an apprentice by Thomas’s brother, and Thomas says his interest in deaf education was then roused (Reminiscences, p.22).

I speedily learned the finger alphabet and his mimic gestures.  He resorted to few arbitrary or artificial signs in conversation, and his vocabulary was very limited, so that he often found himself at a loss to express his thoughts.

I wonder whether James Beatty had come to learning sign language when he was older, so was perhaps less adept at it?  It seems to me that this first contact’ with a Deaf person may have shaped Arnold’s attitude to deaf education – it would make an interesting article to examine Arnold’s educational writing and to follow his intellectual journey.

Arnold eventually moved to Manchester joining the Manchester City Mission that worked among the factory workers, but he felt that he was better fitted to other work and he obtained a position as an assistant teacher inder Charles Baker at Doncaster (ibid p.30).  Unfortunately for Arnold, his turning towards nonconformism meant that he was then turned down for several positions as headmaster.  He left Doncaster, trained at a Congregational college in Rotherham, and around that time married a Quaker lady, Miss Simpson, in Chorlton in 1848 (Farrar, 1897, p.299).   They moved to New South Wales for fifteen months, but he returned due to a “spinal affection, developed by a too stimulating climate” (ibid).  Arriving in England via the Holy Land, they settled at Doddridge Chapel, Northamptonshire.  It was there that he began teaching with an oral method, his most famous pupil being Abraham Farrar.

Below is a letter of his, stuck into the front of the Reminiscences with stamp gutters, in the copy owned by Richard Elliott of the Margate School, to whom it is dedicated.  It reads,

The Remeniscences [sic] can be added to the History but I had a number of copies for private circulation printed separately.
27 Park Rd Northampton
Sep 20th 1895

Dear Friend and brother in the service of God, let me add a more personal and less formal word or two in addition to what is intended for the whole c[ure? or cause?].
Looknig [sic] closely through the whole of this affair I see with great pleasure that you have been the chief actor from first to last and it confirms my admiration my affection for you as a devout servant of God in our special work.  Now we can travel on in peace till the end of the day and the rest of heaven are in prospect.  I am already
p.2
at work on some problems which I know will shed fresh light on the physiology of speech.  So I hope to conclude my service with words that will not do till they have reached the last of the deaf.  For this otium cum dignitate I am deeply indebted to you.
May God bless you Mr. Elliott and every member of your family!
Please send the proofs of what I said at the conference, I want to put my meaning clearly.  I should also like to have a proof of my paper, if printed to go through carefully.
Yours affectionately
T. Arnold

In his obituary, Farrar says of Arnold,

That he was a strong advocate of the oral method goes without saying, but he did not go so far as some, for he recognised that the natural signs used by the deaf cannot be wholly dispensed with at the initial stage.  The manual method he did not condemn as such, but held it to be inferior to the oral in educational efficiency.  On the other hand, the combined method had no more uncompromising opponent.  That many of the views embodied in his works should not command universal assent is only to be expected, but it is unquestionable that both by his example and writings and his freedom from sordid motives, Mr. arnold has done much to raise the standard of teaching, and in consequence to elevate the deaf as a class. (Farrar, 1897, p.303)

He died on the 21st of January, 1897.
Brief biography. British Deaf-Mute and Deaf Chronicle, 1895, 4, 107. (photo)

Obituary. American Annals of the Deaf, 1897, 42, 124-25; 42(2), frontispiece. (photo)

Obituary. British Deaf Monthly, 1897, 6, 84-87. (photo)

FARRAR, A.  Obituary. Quarterly Review of Deaf-Mute Education, 1897, 4, 294-304, 342-46.

FARRAR, A. Thomas Arnold: a biographical sketch. Teacher of the Deaf, 1939, 195-200. (portrait)

Biography. Teacher of the Deaf, 1941, 39, 79-80.

DEACON, M. The church on Castle Hill: the history of the Castle Hill United Reformed Church, Northampton. Park Lane Publishing, 1995. pp. 40-44. (photo)

STEWART, I. The centenary of the death of Thomas Arnold. Deaf History Journal, 1997, 1(1), 30-35.

INCE JONES, F., Thomas Arnold, The Teacher of the Deaf 1941 p.79-80

James Reyner was born in 1872 in Leeds.  Aged seven he lost his hearing after a bout of Scarlet Fever.  According to the article on him in the BDM for 1900, he was educated in Leeds School for the Deaf, “under Mr. E.A. Kirk’s skilful tuition”.   Sadly after only two years there his father died and he had to leave to start work.  Eventually he got a job as a ‘coat presser’ in a clothing store, but lost his job due to a strike.  Fortunately that was around the time the BDM started, and he was offered work by the editor, Mr. Hepworth, as  a canvasser for the journal.  As a consequence he travelled widely around the U.K., estimating that he had travelled 40,000 miles in Britain and Ireland by rail, and 2,000 by sea.  We are told, that “His experiences have been many and strange.”

He married a deaf lady, from Bolton, Maria Hughes in 1898.  Maria’s father was William Hughes, a railway porter, born in Antrim, while her mother Nancy was from Bolton.  She was certainly deaf aged five.

Sadly, I found the bare record in The Deaf Quarterly News  for July 1905 ( p.4), “J. Reyner of Leeds is dead.  He died of consumption.  His wife is a Bolton woman.  She and her child will now return to live with her father.”  He had died on the 16th of May.  Despite a good search I did not spot a notice in the British Deaf  Times, even though it was edited by Hepworth.

Unfortunately we have got neither Leeds or Bolton area magazines for the crucial period.  I am not sure when Maria died, though @DeafHeritiageUK tells me that Maria’s parents and brother Edward living in Belfast in 1911.*  Perhaps she moved there with them, or go re-married?  I could not find Maria in any later records.  Their daughter, Florence Stewart Reyner, was born in Leeds on the 30th of June, 1903.  Her baptismal record says, “(Deaf and dumb parents) (An interpreter present).”

Please contribute in the space below if you have anything to add about this family.

Round the United Kingdom for the BDM.  British Deaf Monthly, December 1900, Vol. 10, p. 28

The Deaf Quarterly News, July 1905,  p.4

1901 Census – Class: RG13; Piece: 4251; Folio: 10; Page: 11.

West Yorkshire, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813-1910, log in required

UPDATED 15/5/2017* Thanks as usual to Norma McGilp of @DeafHeritageUK

. 

In Guy’s Hospital Reports for September 1836, there is an article, “Cases of exostosis of the bones of the face, disease of the cranium, and fractures of the frontal and parietal bones requiring operation, by Mr. Morgan.”   Mr. John Morgan was a pupil of Sir Astley Cooper.  Plarr’s lives of the Fellows, tells us that Morgan “showed an intense interest in natural history, and began to stuff birds and small animals almost as soon as he could use a knife and his fingers.”   We also discover there, that he dissected an elephant named ‘Chum,’ took an awful lot of snuff, and was one of the founders of the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park, now London Zoo.  His brother-in-law William Gosse who was a surgeon and was related to Philip Henry Gosse, emigrated to Australia.

The case we are looking at, Case 1. Exostosis of the Bones of the of the Face, (the notes taken by Mr. Collin), covers an unfortunate Irish labourer, Lochland Shiel, admitted on the 1st of August, 1835 (Guy’s Hospital Reports, p.403-6).  At the time he was 24 years of age.  Shiel told the doctors that until he was fifteen he had good health, when he noted a small tumor in his right nostril.  He was told by ‘a medical man’ that it was ‘of no consequence.’  However, as we can see in the plate, after nine years it had grown greatly, distorting his face,

the right nostril being enormously expanded and closed by the enlargement of the tumor, which, from its size, completely concealed the eye on that side, and extended downwards into the mouth, being there connected with the palatine and alveolar processes of the right superior maxillary bone; projecting also forwards, so as to press the lip beyond the teeth, to the extent of two inches.  The bones apparently implicated in the disease were the ossa nasi, superior maxillary bone, vomer, and the inferior turbinated and malar bones.
[…]
The poor fellow, when admitted, complained of no pain; and I could not find that his sufferings had given him much inconvenience, during the whole of his disease.The general health appeared good; but he was greatly emaciated, more, I believe, from want of proper food, than from the constitutional effects of his disorder.

Deciding that the tumor was common exostosis, an opinion in which Morgan was supported by Sir Astley Cooper and Dr. Hodgkin, he “removed the morbid excrescence” on the 6th of November.  He first made an incision over the right nostril, to ascertain that it was indeed exostosis.

A semilunar incision was then made, extending over the nostril, from the internal angle of the right eye to the centre of the the upper lip.  A similar incision was made on the outer side, commencing at the angle of the eye, and joining with the other, at the lip.  The integuments were then dissected from around the tumor, , and a metacarpal saw was used for its removal; and as it was of a spongy texture, it offered little resistance to the instrument.  No great quantity of blood was lost during the operation , the exostosis not being very vascular; and it was only found necessary to secure one  vessel, a superficial branch of the transverse facial.  all further disposition to haemorrhage was easily restrained by pressure.

After the tumor had been thus removed, the integuments were brought together by an uninterrupted suture; a dossil of lint was placed over the wound, and confined by adhesive plaster; and over all, a light bread-and-water poultice was applied.

The patient bore the operation with great fortitude; and said afterwards, that he suffered but little pain, excepting when the first incision was made.
[…]
Up to the the present time, the patient has been going on well; all discharge from the face has almost entirely ceased: hardly any exfoliation  of bone has taken place; his general health is restored.  The present appearance of his face is correctly represented in the accompanying plate.  (Guy’s Hospital Reports, 1836)

Unfortunately I cannot locate any record of Lochland Shiel on family history records or census returns, though a Locklin Sheels married a Margaret Boyle in Newcastle-under-Lyme on the 22nd of December, 1834.  That might be him.  It could be that he was missed, it could be he spent time in Ireland, or it could be that his name has been wrongly transcribed. If you have any ideas about where in Ireland he was from, or any family, do contribute in the comments.  In the spring of 1842 Shiel died in Birmingham.

We have been unable to learn the particulars of the termination of the case. It may, however, be observed, that his death did not take place til nearly seven years after the operation; so it may fairly be said to have been prolonged by it for nearly that period. It is, however, impossible to look at the cast taken after death without marvelling that life could have been prolonged to such a period. The growth appears to have been simply enormous — larger indeed than the head itself. (Guy’s Hospital Reports, 1842)

I have been unable to find a death record for anyone of his name. Someone must have dissected his remains to make a cast of the tumor – and presumably, his skull. Below is the cast that shows the tumor.  As you can see, it had grown enormously in the following years.  The dotted line points to the tiny space through which Shiel ingested food.

Guy’s Hospital Reports, No 2, September 1836 p. 403-6

Guy’s Hospital Reports, No 15, October 1842 p. 491

A System of surgery v. 3, 1882, p.259

[minor updates 15/10.2018]

Jean-Jacques Valade-Gabel (1801-79) was a leading proponent of oral education for the deaf who was active in the middle of the nineteenth century.  I first came across him through the book of moral tales he wrote, translated into English by Charles Baker of the Yorkshire Institution.  His son Andre followed him into teaching the deaf.  He taught at the Paris Institution before moving to Bordeaux (American Annals of the Deaf, 1860).  Harlan Lane says that he was “fired from Bordeaux for mysterious reasons” (Lane, p.436, note 110).  What did he do that was so disgraceful?  Since I initially wrote this post I have come across some biographical information on father and son Valade-Gabel.*  “Jusqu’en 1850, le nouveau directeur s’appliqua par des leçons constantes à former un personnel capable, dévoué, lorsque brusquement, le 25 juillet 1850, Valade-Gabel fut relevé des ses fonctions et replacé professeur à Paris.” – “Up until 1850, the new director applied himself by constant lectures to forming a capable staff, when suddenly, on July 25th, 1850, Valade-Gabel was relieved of his functions and returned to the position of professor in Paris.” (see Bélanger, 1900).  It did not affect his later career it seems.

Jean-Jacques was born at Sarlat in the Dordogne on the 23rd of September, 1801.  He entered the Institution Nationale de Paris on the 8th of September, 1825, as an aspiring professor, which position he attained in 1829.  At that time Bébian was deputy Principal.  He was a disciple of Pestalozzi (who has been mentioned before on a post).

He taught in Paris from 1826 to 1838, was director of the National Institution at Bordeaux from 1838 till 1850, and later became Government inspector of the schools for the deaf in the 1860s, which must have put him in a powerful position to get his educational views instituted across France (The Association Review, 1902, p.274).  Our copy of Méthode à la portée des instituteurs primaires pour enseigner aux sourds-muets la langue française : sans l’intermédiaire du langage des signes (1857) is signed by Valade-Gabel.  This was the book that set out his views in full, and in 1875 his method was officially recognised by the Ministry of the Interior (The Association Review, 1904, p.274).

We have two copies of the translated Picture Lessons for Boys and Girls, one with the author’s introduction, where he indicates a disdain for signing.  It seems he gave emphasis to reading and writing.  He says,

The reproach addressed by Jacotot to those who too much distrust the penetration of children, falls directly on such teachers as are in the habit of constantly interposing signs between the deaf and dumb and written language.  They become unconsciously genuine stupefying explainers.  The more graceful and appropriate are the signs, so much more do they turn the pupils from the attention which must be given to writing, in order to obtain in it a sort of power interpretive of thought.  We know in a certain establishment a certain very distinguished master, who, nevertheless, has not succeeded in making a good scholar, for the sole reason that he does not know how properly to teach the deaf-mute to cope with the difficulties of reading. (p.vi)

In The Association Review, they say,

This untiring reformer introduced at the Bordeaux Institution the intuitive method in instruction in language in its written form. He attracted the attention of specialists to his method by annual courses and lectures from 1839 till 1850, and in 1857 published his famous work, “Method for the use of primary teachers for teaching the deaf the French language without the intermediary of the sign language.” This important work was favorably received by the leaders of the French education of the deaf; and in 1875 Valade-Gabel’s method was officially recognized by the Ministry of the Interior. This method which substituted the eye for the ear, employed writing, and abandoned signs as a means for learning language, was adopted either entirely or in conjunction with older methods by the majority of the French schools many years before the Milan Congress. (p.274)

They continue to explain something of his method (p.275): “Valade-Gabel’s method is based on two leading principles: the first, that language shall be taught without either methodical or natural gestures, and the second, that instead of beginning with words, developing and explaining them, each one by itself, the beginning should be made with sentences.”

Above are two pages from the Picture Lessons.  Note that this last picture below, shows a child – a ‘chatterer,’ – signing to his fellow.  “They are chatters when they make any unmeaning or unnecessary signs.” 

I think that the poet, Leon Valade, may have been his son, or a relative.  Please add a note in the comments if you can provide any additional information about Valade-Gabel.

Arnaud, Sabine, Fashioning a Role for Medicine: Alexandre-Louis-Paul Blanchet and the Care of the Deaf in Mid-nineteenth-century France.  Soc Hist Med (2015) 28 (2): 288-307

*Bélanger, Ad., Nos Gravures – J.J. Valade-Gabel, André Valade-Gabel, Revue Générale de L’Enseignement de Sourds-Muets, Vol.2, (5), Novembre 1900 & two plates facing p. 122 & p. 128

Fourth Report of the Institution for the Deaf at Venersborg, Sweden… The Association Review, 1902, Vol.4 p.272–8

Lane, Harlan, When the Mind Hears, a History of the Deaf.  

Picture Lessons for Boys and Girls [review] American Annals of the Deaf, 1860 Vol 12, p.191-2

Quartararo, Anne T.,  The Perils of Assimilation in Modern France: The Deaf Community, Social Status, and Educational Opportunity, 1815-1870.  Journal of Social History, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Autumn, 1995), pp. 5-23

Valade-Gabel, J-J., Picture Lessons for Boys and Girls, Translated and adapted by Charles Baker. 1860, London, Wertheim and Macintosh

Valade-Gabel, J-J,, The Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb in France

A picture of Valade-Gabel is on this interesting Danish website