Confusing two Beales – George Beale – Missioner, and Henry B.Beale – “Oralism… like a dog standing on its hind legs”

George Beale was born on 1849 at Croxteth Path near Liverpool (British Deaf Mute 1894, p.116-7, from which much of this is culled).  His father worked for the Earl of Sefton .  George lost his hearing aged two “having caught fever” before he had acquired any spoken English .  At eight he attended the School for the Deaf  in Oxford Street Liverpool, and was we are told by the BDM taught by the ‘silent method’, as this would have been before the German or Oral method became established in Britain.  Feeling his education inadequate, he ‘cultivated the society of books’  (ibid).  Working at his self-education like this

he might, with perfect truth, be held up as a fine example of the successful pursuit of knowledge under greater difficulties to the rising generation of his own class. (ibid)

He became a lithographer after leaving school, his work preventing him from close involvement with the Liverpool Adult Deaf and Dumb Society until after he finished his apprenticeship and his father retired to Liverpool.  Once he had the time for it, he quickly became elected to the society’s committee, and became a lay helper when they opened missions in Widnes and Warrington.

He married in about 1891, to a lady called Emma who was also deaf (from the age of 6).  She was 22 years younger than him.  They had three children (all hearing) and George died in 1928.

Now originally I had linked George Beale with the quotation in the heading, but I now see (thanks to the person who contacted me) that this was an error, and to Rachel for the comment below.

Henry Blenkarne Beale was born in 1845 in London, the son of a doctor.  He was aged seven when he was sent to Merchant Taylor’s School, and there he caught scarlet fever which left him totally deaf (Ephphatha 1898) p.89.  He had a ‘desultory’ education then at home from an elder sister for about five years, but he educated himself in his father’s library we are told, reading Shakespeare and Milton.  Henry began engraving, was apperenticed to W.J. Linton, and eventually moved to Canada where he remained for twenty years in business at first with a brother, then with a Mr. F. Brigden.  He married a “deaf-mute lady”, Miss Susan Martin, and they had six (hearing) children.   He returned to England after twenty years (ibid).

In 1893 he was on the staff of The British Deaf Mute (see Volume 3 p.22).

H.B. Beale tells us here about his feelings over using the term ‘Deaf and Dumb’.  He supports the use of the term ‘dumb’ in opposition to the Oralists;

I have nothing to say against Oralism in its proper place, i.e. amongst those who have once heard, or even for some phenomenally sharp born mutes who can master articulation in a fair degree; but, for the majority, it seems to me to be like a dog standing on its hind legs.  It is wonderful to see a dog doing it, but dogs only do it at the command of their masters, and when left free to choose, always prefer to walk on four legs. You would not call such a dog a biped because he walked on two legs occasionally; and if a man, deaf from birth, uses speech on compulsion to two or three persons, and uses manualism and signs to all the rest, why not call him dumb? (Beale 1897)

I attach the short item to the link in the reference below.

Henry Beale wrote a lot of poetry, some being published in the British Deaf Times.  He died in Gloucestershire in 1921.

Beale “Dumb” British Deaf Monthly, 1897, 6(70), 231-232.

Peeps into the Deaf World p.394-5

The Poetry of Mr. H.B. Beale, Ephphatha 1898 vol.3 p.89-90

[Post revised, 28/1/2016]