Deaf People in the First World War

When the First World War began, the editor of the British Deaf Times (BDT), Joseph Hepworth, discussed the war, and among other things what possiblities there might be for Deaf people to help with the war effort (Vol. 11 p.204-6).  There had been a suggestion in the North Mail that the army could form a Deaf regiment whose officer would command by signs or sword movement, but Hepworth rejects this idea.  What he does urge is that people support  the Prince of Wales’ National Relief Fund.  He warns those wo are deaf to avoid loitering by bridges, stations etc because they may be guarded and sentries will be likely to shoot if a person does not answer a challenge.  Indeed in the next issue of the magazine, Selwyn Oxley says “several deaf people have been shot through being unable to hear the challenges of the sentries” (British Deaf Times, Vol. 11, p.220).  A few pages on we find the following story, culled from The Times;

Charles Carroll, who at one time was an assistant to Mr Cody, the airman, was shot by a London Territorial sentry. He was examining an Aldershot railway bridge, and was challenged six times by the sentry before the latter fired.

Carroll, who is almost stone deaf, is seriously wounded.

In fact, Charles Carroll died of his wounds, and so became another casualty of war.  As an aside, Cody was a great pioneer of aviation who had died a year earlier in an aircraft crash.  Carroll’s sister Maude married Samuel Cody’s son, who was himself to die in an aircraft when he was shot down in 1917.  A later editorial (p.253-4) is not unsympathetic to the reasons for this action, pointing out that if the person remained unchallenged, the sentry himself might be shot.

We also read in the BDT of Harry Ward, a 27 year old ‘born deaf and dumb,’ taught at the Oral school in Cardiff, and at one time under Hepworth’s care (Hepworth was missioner at Glamorgan and Monmouthshire), who somehow passed the medical and joined up (as three brothers had), entering the Munster Fusiliers (BDT, vol Vol 11, p.231).   Hepworth reiterated his position that Deaf people should not serve in the frontline, but would be better used in various service roles such as boot-making, or as joiners (p.254).  Discussion about this was still going on in 1916, when R.T. Skinner, House Governor at Donaldson’s Hospital in Edinburgh, entered into correspondence with Lord Kitchener, saying that deaf young men were eager to “share the Empire’s work” (BDT, Vol. 13, p.24).  The Labour Supply Department of the Ministry of Munitions replied that no opportunity was at present available to make use of them.

By 1917 the need for manpower was increasing to the extent that the BDT led with an article translated from French about deaf munition workers in Boulogne.  The Royal School Magazine, the magazine for the Margate Deaf School, tells us in July 1916, that one former girl pupil Violet Penny was “‘doing her bit’ as a munitions worker.  By July 1918 the same magazine tells us three girls and four boys who left from 1910-17 were employed as munitions workers.

This photograph was probably one of the lantern slides Selwyn Oxley would show when he was doing mission work or speaking to a public meeting about deafness.  It was taken in Willesdan at the firm Arthur Lyon & Wrench Ltd.

NB I asked my informant about the armaments. He suggests that the two bombs by the table on the left look like Cooper bombs, “the 25lb jobs used by the RFC on small planes like the Camel”…”Cooper bombs tended to be for targets of opportunity, so for example Camels in 1918 carried them to supplement the trench strafing they were doing.”

You can read more about munitions workers here

Other references are from The British Deaf Times and The Royal School Magazine