“when we talk about Deaf and Dumb we use a misnomer” – Ladies Christian Homes for Deaf & Dumb Children

The Ladies Christian Homes for Deaf & Dumb Children From Four Years of Age, on the Oral System were first established in 1875.  The first home was in Pentonville Road, North London, between Angel and Kings Cross.  Other branches were to follow in rapid succession so by 1880 there was a home at 6 Victoria Park Square near Bethnal Green, and one at 171 Grange Road, Bermondsey.  Several more opened in the following years.  The homes emerged from the founding of the London School Board after 1871, as there was insufficient provision for the education of Deaf children in London, with 300 not receiving any education (Woodford, 1999).  William Stainer of the Royal Association in Aid of the Deaf and Dumb, was approached to begin classes at Bethnal Green, in the Wilmott Street Board School with five pupils (ibid).  Children attended and boarded for the week days, but went home at weekends.  Doreen Woodford’s 1999 article is well worth reading, but despite consulting records at the London Metropolitan archive, it seems she could find none of the annual reports for these institutions.

It may well be then that this single report, with what was the earlier name of the homes, is one of the few of their records that survive.

The 1881 census shows the children were almost all girls – there are only two boys –

Harriet Mealey	Servant (Head) Widower	54	female	Housekeeper	Datchit Nr Windsor
Alice Ensor	Boarder	25	female	Assistant School Teacher	Hackney Middlesex
Sarah Barnes	Servant	16	female	Gen Servant	Clerkenwell Middlesex
Eleanor Rivers	Boarder	12	female	Scholar	Penge Surrey
Beatrice Allen	Boarder	14	female	Scholar	Marylebone Middlesex
Mary Welch	Boarder	14	female	Scholar	St Lukes Middlesex
Elizabeth Johnson	Boarder	13	female	Scholar	Finchley Middlesex
Ellen Mays	Boarder	9	female	Scholar	Kensington Middlesex
Alice A. Hale	Boarder	9	female	Scholar	Rugby Warwickshire
Steller ? Frost	Boarder	12	female	Scholar	Chiswick Middlesex
Emily Shelford	Boarder	6	female	Scholar	Highbury Middlesex
Emily Harris	Boarder	7	female	Scholar	Barnstaple Devon
Emily Alderton	Boarder	6	female	Scholar	Blackheath
Eliza Sparrowhawk	Boarder	17	female	Scholar	Hackney Middlesex
Sarah Pufferd	Boarder	Younger Than 1	female		Fulham Middlesex
Margaret Jarvis	Boarder	7	female	Scholar	Battersea Surrey
Beatrice Underhill	Boarder	12	female	Scholar	New Cross Kent
Abraham J. Webb	Boarder	9	male		Norwood Surrey
Ernest F. Howard	Boarder	9	male		Warwickshire

In 1881 Stainer was living at 1 Gore Road, Hackney, and had a number of private pupils (I have excluded details of where they were born for reasons of space) –

William Stainer	Head Widower	53	Male	Curate St Matthews Beth Gr & Inst Deaf & Dumb School Bd For Lndn
Macdonald Campbell	Boarder	18	Male	Articled Asst Teacher (School Master)
Ann Honey	Servant Widow	66	Female	Housekeeper Domestic Serv
Mary A. Miller	Servant	54	Female	Housemaid Domestic – Deaf & Dumb
Jane Faulkner	Servant	19	Female	Housemaid Domestic
Samuel Smith	Boarder	26	Male	Scholar – Deaf & Dumb
William P. Turner	Boarder	13	Male	Scholar – Deaf & Dumb
Horace E. Sharp	Boarder	13	Male	Scholar – Deaf
William Randale	Boarder	11	Male	Scholar – Deaf & Dumb
Gerard Hiel	Boarder	7	Male	Scholar – Deaf & Dumb
Florrie Mann	Boarder	9	Male	Scholar – Deaf & Dumb

Doreen Woodford pointed out in her 1999 article, that most of the sources of material on the Stainer Homes, at least early on, is partial.  Stainer was behind the Deaf Quarterly News  and as he “was one of the original promoters of the “Conference of Headmasters”, as well as being on nearly every committee, including some internal ones, most of the evidence is biased.” (Woodford 1999).

In the proceedings of the meeting, Mr. Sydney Buxton said (p.5 of 1880 Annual Report), in a particularly dull passage announcing his Oralist intentions –

I am afraid I have no special claim upon your attention for I have no particular information to give with reference to the work that is going on.  The only information I can place before you has been from attending the Committee of the School Board which has reference to this special work.  I think after the remarks of the Chairman with reference to the Report that no addition is required from me with regard to it, what he said with respect to the Oral Teaching shows that when we talk about “Deaf and Dumb” we use a misnomer.  This is rather a pity.  “Deaf and Dumb” has become a common phrase, but in point of fact, excepting a few children who have a malformation of the mouth, no child is really dumb.  Every child can really be taught to speak if sufficient attention be given to it. […] At the Conference held in Milan, the large majority of the members were of the opinion that the Oral System was infinitely better than the Manual System, and that it was the only true scientific way by which to teach the Deaf and Dumb.  The London School Board has now, after trying the two systems, practically adopted the Oral System in all its schools, and it would be a good thing if it went a little further, and declared that the Oral system [sic] was the best.

Further on, the Rev. Septimus Hansard, of St. George’s in the East adds his ha’pennyworth –

Think how fifty years ago these deaf children were left to grow up as idiots! It never entered the heads of people to educate the Deaf and Dumb.  After some time it is true education was provided for the Deaf and Dumb, but only for those who had reached nine or ten years of age, and these institutions exist to this day.  But the little ones were left to drift into imbecility. […] I have known Mr. Stainer for many years, he has devoted his life to this work.

Stainer was Hansard’s curate at this time in Bethnal Green.  Hansard looks to be a very interesting person – taught by Arnold at Rugby and F.D. Maurice in London and involved in the ‘Surplice Riots’ of East London.  Indeed, “he was a schoolfriend at Rugby of Thomas Hughes, who based the Tom Brown’s Schooldays character of Holmes the praepostor, ‘one of the best boys in the school’, on him.” (St. George’s in the East website)

The homes later went into a decline and were eventually closed.

STAINER HOMES –

The Ladies Christian Homes for Deaf & Dumb Children , Fifth Annual Report, 1880

LAISHLEY, R. Report on deaf-mute institutions. VIII. London Board Schools and the Rev. W. Stainer’s Homes. Quarterly Review of Deaf-Mute Education, 1888, 1, 300-305.

Quarterly Review of Deaf-Mute Education, 1888, 1, 320.

WOODFORD, D.E. The rise and fall of the Stainer’s Homes. Deaf History Journal, 1999, 3(2), 27-38.

http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-1124-1/dissemination/pdf/preconst1-102058_1.pdf

http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-1124-1/dissemination/pdf/preconst1-77843_1.pdf

Census returns for 1881 – Class: RG11; Piece: 353; Folio: 4; Page: 2; GSU roll: 1341076

Class: RG11; Piece: 312; Folio: 106; Page: 59; GSU roll: 1341067

 St. George’s in the East website  [accessed 19/3/2015]