“The Deff and dumb people have a spaisul kind of alfabet”

When he first became involved in missionary work with Deaf people, Selwyn Oxley went around the country both in the Ephaphatha caravan and by motor car, preaching to Deaf people and telling the hearing about deafness and its issues. He would give lantern slide presentations, and talk to groups of school children. On at least one occasion a competition was be held and presumably the winning essay writer was given a prize as well as praise. When Oxley’s surviving papers were given to the library, they included a couple of folders with a large number of the essays that he kept.  Below we have two of these essays. Remember, these are hearing children.

There are a number of fascinating things I find here. Firstly, the impressions of what Oxley said on the children, secondly the remarkable differences in hand-writing styles where I would have naively expected a form of copperplate, and thirdly the huge differences in ability exhibited, which probably should not surprise me. The first example has only the name Hedderwick, no first name. In the 1881 census this name was mostly lowland Scots, with some in Liverpool and Lancashire, so  my guess is that Oxley visited one of those three places in February 1919.

The second essay tells of a visit by Oxley and Brooks to Berkshire. Thanks to the wonders of on line records, I can say that Rose Appleby was born on the 7th November 1906, the daughter of a farm labourer called Arthur Appleby from Hampstead Norris and his wife Edith, and that she never married, dying aged 84 in 1991, still in Berkshire. Would she have long forgotten this essay? At any rate, somehow a memory of her survives in a way of which she would have had no conception.

These essays might be of interest to someone looking at attitudes to deafness, or perhaps someone studying education in the early 20th century.

Click onto the images for a larger size.