William Walter Adamson was a Geordie of Scottish extraction.  He was born in Newcastle in 1867, son of Thomas (a draper) and his wife Elizabeth.  He was educated at Dr. Bruce’s Academy, according to a note by Selwyn Oxley.  He seems to have remained in the city all his life, dying in 1947 at the age of eighty.  In 1885 he formed a club for poor boys in the city, and a Deaf boy came along.  As he lived near the Northern Counties Institution (school), he went along and this began a life-long interest in the Deaf (Teacher of the Deaf, on which much of this is based).  In 1895 he gave up work in a local shipping company, and became a candidate for ordination.  The Rev. Gilby mentions him several times in his memoir – they worked quite closely together in the ten years following, Adamson becomomg a co-editor of Our Monthly Church Messenger to the Deaf (Gilby memoir p.172).

Adamson was made the first chaplain to The Northumberland and Durham Mission to the Deaf and Dumb, a post he held until 1920.

His obituary says that he disliked publicity, and “fought firmly all exploitation of the deaf.”  It continues –

He taught all manner of subjects at the Mission and interested the members in athletics, in-door games and hobbies.  He sought out deaf children who were not attending school and brought them to the notice of the Authorities.  These self-appointed tasks were carried out with enthusiasm and the work he began 50 years ago is now well established.

His understanding and knowledge of the problems of the deaf placed him in a unique position in the North.  He had a large circle of influential friends and he was able to cover much ground in his efforts to improve matters for all handicapped children. In addition to the work he did for the deaf, a lively interest was taken in blind and crippled children.  During his life-time he saw many changes, and thanks to his efforts light and colour brightened innumerable lives.  The spiritual life and general welfare of the deaf were his constant care and he was often consulted with regard to improve-ments in schools and administrative affairs.

Adamson never married but lived for many years with a sister.

Below is a page from the local mission magazie, D & D from 1903, and a photograph that appears to show him to the left of Sir Arthur Fairbairn at a ‘sale of Work’ for the mission.

Click onto the images for a larger size.

Our Monthly Church Messenger to the Deaf, 1894 vol.1 p.15-16

Obituary, Teacher of the Deaf, 1947 p.205

The World Federation of the Deaf was founded in 1951 by Cesare Magarotto (photographed here at the 1951 congress), inspired by his father, Antonio Magarotto.  In his Leslie Edwards Memorial Lecture for 1968, Allan B. Hayhurst of the B.D.D.A. wrote a little about the history of the organisation.  Antoinio Magarotto was a Paduan who had helped found the Italian Deaf Association, Ente nazionale sordi in 1932.  His son extended his father’s ambition to bring Deaf people together, to the world.  He wrote the following ‘Introduction’ to the 1951 inaugural Congress, held in Rome.  The translation is rather too flowery in English and too Latinate to be easy to read, but it conveys his vision:

The tragedy which had upset the world was just finished and when it still lasted in the minds of the conquerors and the conquered, when only a feeble light was perceived — a light of appeasement due to the pity and to the necessity of an economical rehabilitation — from the sensorial disabled people arose a noble invocation of fraternity, equality and solidarity.

The people mutilated by nature and by the atavic faults of society; the people who had found again the light and the sounds in the Faith and in the Love; the people who had participated in this intimate song because they felt the same blood in their veins and had the same aspirations «could easily, in the name of the mutual sacrifice, cross the frontiers and feel only their fraternity».

The feeling of mutual assistance — very strong in the sensorial disabled people and especially in the deafmutes —the desire to hold together after the general disaster, the necessity of exchanging opinions about the protection of the human and social rights of the category, started the organization of the Congress.

Italy — which organized, in 1911, the first International Congress of Deafmutes — was called again to receive the representatives of the «silent brothers» of all the world and, with them, the Scientists, the Doctors, the Educators and the Organisers specialised in the matter.

The Organizing Committee (differently from the past Congresses) tried to show the problems of the deafmutes as reflected by a prismatic light, in order to enhance the progress made in all the fields, and also in the scientific one, and to collaborate in the pursuit of the welfare of the category.

The relations on organisation, the thesis of social character, the communications of the doctors and of the educators reported in this volume shows the considerable activity of the three Sessions of the Congress.

The doctors and the educators have confirmed that —with the progress of medicine and pedagogy — the born deafmutes and those who became deaf in their infancy, if they are exempt from other infirmities can be considered psychically normal and capable of becoming specialized workmen and of going through a regular course of studies; they have done homage to the work of the organisers and of the deaf who have drawn the attention of the Governments upon the problems of the deafmutes and who have devoted their activity to the new acquisitions of science; they have expressed the wish that the National Associations would promote periodically national and international meetings.

The representatives of the category have examined and compared the social realizations — inestimable patrimony of the most civilized nations — and have pointed out the responsibility of society for the want of instruction of so many deafmutes; they have asked the International Organisations to take interest in the problem and they have expressed their gratitude to all the educators — from the most eminent to the humblest — who have been the first to indicate the way of rehabilitation and to expose to the Governments the social problem of the recovery of so many people.

The Congress, with the constitution of the World Federation has confirmed the necessity of such a collaboration and has fulfilled its highest task lying the foundations for organic interventions in the various Countries on behalf of the deaf-mutes.

We must be grateful to the Parliamentary Friends and of the Italian Government for their economical and moral aid in the organisation of this Congress; we set them as an example for the good of the deafmutes.

The attestations of the international Press, of the Parliaments and of the Governments prove that our work has not been useless, and the consciousness of having contributed in the recovery also of one single «silent brother is the best reward for us.
Rome. July 1953.
CESARE MAGAROTTO (p.xi-xiii)

Typically the British did not attend the first congress, and only fully joined in 1957 (Hayhurst p.4)

On page 534 of the Atti… we read that Lucien Morel, the French delegate, says that in 1937 there was a congress in Paris with 35 nations taking part.  I cannot find mention of that in the British Deaf Times, nor in a quick look at one of the French journals we have, Revue Generale de l’Eseignement des Sourdes-Muets, but perhaps a more careful search would find it.  Magarotto mentions a 1911 conference, and we have found mentions of it, but it is not clear how big it was.  The British Deaf Times (1911 p.180) says,

A Committee has been formed to organise a Congress of the Deaf to be held at Rome during August. It is fixed to take place from the 22nd to the 27th ‘of the month, and those who are planning a visit to Italy should make note of the date of this interesting gathering.  It seems curious that in countries which appear to be most deeply rooted to the oral method of instruction, the most interesting Congresses of the adult deaf are organised from time to time, in the course of which they do not fail to use such methods of communicating with one another as they find most convenient —no matter whether their school life was spent under oral instruction or otherwise.

From Rivista di Pedagogia Emendatrice 1911 (7) p.229 we see that it does not appear as it the congress was well-attended enough to be considered ground-breaking, with delegates being more or less confined to French, Spanish and Italian.

I include a few of these references here:

Hayhurst, A.B. The World Federation of the Deaf.  1968 Leslie Edwards Memorial Lecture

L Educazione (Nov 1911)

Rivista di Pedagogia Emendatrice, 1911 no.7

World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf

Here are the titles in English – as printed in the case of the first. We have the ones with *

*1st- Official Acts of the World Congress of the Deaf mutes. (Atti Ufficiali del Congresso Mondiale dei Sordomuti) Rome, Italy 19-23rd September 1951

*2nd – Proceedings of the 2nd World Congress of the Deaf. Zagreb, Jugoslavia 23-27th Aug 1955

*3rd – Proceedings of the 3rd World Congress of the Deaf. Wiesbaden, Germany 20-27th Aug 1959

*4th – Proceedings of the 4th World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf. Stockholm, Sweden 17-21st Aug 1963

*5th – The 5th World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf. The Deaf Among the Hearing. Warsaw, Poland 10-17th Aug 1967

*6th- Proceedings of the 6th World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf. The Deaf Person in the World of Evolution. Paris, France 31st July-5th Aug 1971

*7th – 7th World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf. Full Citizenship for All Deaf People. Washington DC, USA 31st July-7th Aug 1975

*8th – 8th World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf. The Deaf People in Modern Society. Varna, Bulgaria 20-27th June 1979

9th – 9th World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf. Deafness Today & Tomorrow: Reality & Utopia. Palermo, Italy 1-6th July 1983.

*10th – Proceedings: One World, One Responsibility. 10th World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf.  Espoo, Finland 20-28th July 1987

*11th – Proceedings: Equality & Self Reliance. 11th World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf.  Tokyo, Japan 2-11th July 1991

*12th – Proceedings: Towards Human Rights. 12th World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf.  Vienna, Austria 6-15th July 1995

13th – Proceedings 13th World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf. “Diversity & Unity”. Brisbane, Australia 25th July-1st Aug 1999

14th – 14th World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf. Montreal, Canada 20-26th July 2003. Not published in 2006.

15th – 15th Congress 2007 World Congress, Madrid, Spain

16th – 16th Congress 2011 World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf, Durban South Africa http://www.cbm.org/article/downloads/62437/WFD_2011_-_CBM_Report.pdf

17th – 17th Congress 2015 World Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf, Istanbul Turkey

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Federation_of_the_Deaf

Thanks to @interphistory www.interpreterhistory.com for some helpful suggestions!

Finding some more older documents that I thought might be of interest, and lacking time for anything more original, we supply the following ‘chronology’ of Deaf history.  It may be that there are better versions of this elsewhere, and there are no sources given in the form of articles or books, but this might be a starting point for research.  For example, I have no idea what the evidence is for the first statement.  If I had to guess I would say this dates from the early 60s, perhaps 1964.  I hope to revisit this page to update its ‘note’ style and add some supporting information where possible, though I will leave it where it ends in the 60s.

1. First legal bases for education of deaf person during Jewish and Roman Times.

2. Beginnings of modern education in Spain; Ponce de Leon (1520-1584), Bonet and his book in 1620.

3. Development of two basic and apparently conflicting educational philosophies for deaf children established in Europe; de l’Epee (1712-1789) with sign language, and Heinicke (1729-1790) with oral education, in Paris and Leipzig respectively.

4. British work: Bulwer and his books “Chirologia” (1644) & “Philocophus” (1648) Wallis and Holder as first teachers, but not without considerable acrimony between them.  Braidwood and his family with their school, first in Edinburgh, then in London at Hackney, being the first organised program set up for deaf children. First public deaf “asylum” at Bermondsey by Watson, nephew of Braidwood (1792).

5. Growth of “asylums”: acceptance of fee paying of “parlour” pupils, proper medical attention, free meals, children admitted as early as 7 or 8 years onwards, but many at 13 or more, charitable background.

6. Scott in 1844 wrote “The deaf and dumb, their position in society, and their principles of their education considered.” Great emphasis on early parental training.

7. Donaldson’s Hospital opened in Edinburgh, 1850, with equal intake of hearing and deaf pupils of both sexes.

8. First nursery school in world for deaf  infants set up in Great Britain at Manchester 1860.  Ceased in 1884 because of need to provide additional space for education of older deaf children.

9. Development of missions for deaf adults. Glasgow 1827, Edinburgh 1835, Manchester 1850, others mostly in north of England in industrial areas.  In 1840 deaf adults in London set up a deaf church which in time became the R.A.A.D.D. (Rooyal Association in Aid of the Deaf and Dumb).  A free interchange of teachers and missioners became possible because of the frequent use of manual modes of communication in schools, thus first principal of Manchester nursery school formerly was Superintendent of Manchester Mission.  Missions at Derby and Preston responsible for formation of schools there in 1875’s and 1890’s respectively.

10. Milan Congress of 1880 – the 2nd International Conference of Teachers of the Deaf where very important resolutions affecting the “oral” education of deaf children were passed.

11. The Royal Commission of 1886-89 on the Blind, the Deaf, etc.

12. Development of “oral” v. “manual” controversy, first among teachers.  It spread to missioners when the original hopes of “oral” supporters were not always successful.  The introduction of examination requirements by the Association for the Oral Instruction of the Deaf & Dumb 1872; the Society for Training Teachers of the Deaf and for the diffusion of the German System 1877; the College of Teachers of the Deaf and Dumb 1885.  These diplomas were not recognised by the Board of Education till 1909, and then only after the three bodies came together in 1908 to form the “Joint Examination Board for Teachers of the Deaf” with a single diploma.

13. National Association of Teachers of the Deaf formed in 1895 as professional body and started Teacher of the Deaf in 1902 as its organ. The National College of Teachers of the Deaf formed in 1918 by merging the National Association of Teachers of the Deaf into the College of Teachers of the Deaf.  The Scottish Department of Education has however never recognised the College’s Diploma.

14. Formation of British Deaf and Dumb Association in 1890 to protest against the absence of deaf witnesses at Royal Commission.  It sent a petition to the King in 1902 with 2,671 signatures asking for the combined system of education.

15. Legislation: First educational work was financed by Poor Laws – money raised from local rates, from 1834 onwards.  Compulsory education was enforcable for hearing children in 1876.  Compulsory education for deaf children in Scotland with “Education of Blind and Deaf Mute Children (Scotland) Act” 1890, and in England with the “Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf Children) Act” 1893.  In the English Act, a deaf child was educated from its 7th to 16th birthday while a hearing child was educated from its 5th to 10th birthday (extended to 12 in 1900, and to 14 in 1921). Age for deaf child lowered to 5th birthday in 1937.  Permissive to educate as from 2nd birthday from 1920 onwards, and provision made for higher education in the 1902 Act but these clauses very seldom used.

16. Preparation for life in the community: The N.I.D. undertook inquiry for on the “Industrial conditions of the deaf and dumb.”  There were unsatisfactory findings despite the establishment of trade schools in Manchester in 1905 for boys and in 1923 for girls.  Eichholz prepared “A Study of the Deaf 1930-32.”  Clark and Crowden for the N.I D. and Department of Industrial Psychology prepared a survey on “Employment for the deaf in the United Kingdom” in 1939.  The results of all these surveys were considered very disturbing.

17. Donaldson’s Hospital ceased unusual Neducation scheme in 1938. From 1850 to 1938, a total of 3,185 children of whom 1,403 deaf, were educated there.

18. Awareness of the value of residual hearing (when present): efforts by physicians in the 18th C. to cure deafness.  Work of surgeons in the 19th C. to treat deafness but necessarily restricted to outer and middle ears. Work of Itard in Paris, and Urbanschitsch in Vienna who in early 1890’s developed methodical hearing exercises.  The collaboration of medical man and headmaster at Glasgow Institution in 1890 where Dr. Kerr Love found less than 10% pupils totally deaf, and over 25% heard loud speech. Establishment of partially deaf  classes from 1908 onwards.  The development of electrical and radio engineering in early 20th C. but application restricted to use in classroom only (cumbersome and inefficient equipment).

19. Medical Research Council set up in 1926 to supervise research On physiology of hearing. In addition to other work, M.R.C. encouraged the team work of the Ewings and T.S. Littler in the Department of Education of Deaf in Manchester (founded 1920).  The M.R.C. opened a clinic there in 1934 for the “study and relief of deafness.”  By 1935 use of group hearing aids was recommended for children in schools for deaf.

20. Strained relations between teachers and doctors on educational policies for children with defective hearing, especially between 1910 and 1925.

21. Committee of Inquiry into problems of “medical, educational and social aspects of… children suffering from defects not amounting to total deafness” Report published in 1938 and contained educational classification with Grades I, IIa, IIb, and III which are still used by certain authorities although essentially outdated.

22. Outbreak of hostilities in 1939 between various countries caused the cessation of work on deaf problems, apart from preliminary research in readiness for development of the MEDRESCO hearing aid for the new National Health Service (1948).

23. Considerable postwar legislative changes affecting the deaf person. See Table A.

24. Various important postwar reports on educational, psychological and social aspects of deaf person in United Kingdom. See Table B.

25. Great multiplicity of organisations involved specifically with the deaf person in Great Britain. See Table C.

26. Development of research units on problems of deafness:

(a) The Otological Research Unit, National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, London under Dr. Hallpike,

(b) The Wernher Research Unit on Deafness, King’s College Hospital Medical School London under Dr. T.S. Littler which ceased in 1965,

(c) Audiology Unit, Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital, London under the late Miss Edith Whetnall F.R.C.S.

(d) The Audiology Unit, Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading under Dr. K.P. Murphy.

In addition, there was research at the Department of Audiology and Education of the Deaf in Manchester.

27. Development of new categories of workers with deaf people.  In addition to traditional three categories of doctors, teachers and welfare workers, now there were psychologists, medical officers, audiology technicians, speech therapists, health visitors and school supervisors with special courses on deafness for each of them.

28. Development of electrical apparatus for hearing and speech, either as individual or group hearing aids or as visual aids.  Scanty British literature on education of deaf children, particularly on development of language.  A new training centre for teachers of deaf children opened in London in 1965.

29. Modification of educational philosophies in Great Britain.  Before the Second War, the emphasis was on “oral” techniques with a strong minority for “manual” techniques and a gradual realisation of value of “aural”techniques.  After the Second War there was a shift of emphasis from “oral techniques” to “aural techniques” in most schools or units.  A minority group now asked for “combined” rather than “manual” techniques, and becoming more vocal.  The B.D.D.A. sent a petition in 1954 with 5,000 signatures for the “combined” techniques to the Ministry of Education.  Increasing awareness of special problems of the small group of very deaf children, especially if with additional handicaps.  Weaknesses in present “oral” and “aural” techniques was more openly admitted.

30. Persisting attitudes towards the deaf person. Use of the term “deaf and dumb.”  The term “dumb” is synonymous with “not so quick on uptake” or mental deficiency in the U.S.A. and that usage was brought over to Great Britain.  Defective speech and limited vocabulary aggravated the situation.  For the term “hard of hearing,” no precise definition is possible. The introduction of the terms “Deaf” and “Partially Hearing” categories of deaf child, but the prevalent tendency for members of the public still to call them “deaf and dumb.”  See Table D

31. Present trends to watch: Units attached to ordinary schools, decline in residential schools, absence of vocational training or guidance in schools, greater emphasis on electrical amplifying apparatus for use at school or at home, ambiguity in educational and social status of “Partially hearing” pupil in community, the continued lack of closer co-operation between organisations or workers with or for the deaf person.

TABLE A
POSTWAR LEGISLATION WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE DEAF PERSON

(a) Disabled Persons (Employment) Acts, 1944 & 1958.

(b) Education Act, 1944.

(c) National Health Service Act, 1946.

(d) National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946.

(e) Employment and Training Act, 1948.

(f) National Assistance Act, 1948.

TABLE B
SELECT LIST OF PUDLICATIONS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE EDUCATIONAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL OR SOCIAL ASPECTS OF THE DEAF PERSON.

(a) 1945 Voluntary Organisations for the welfare of the deaf (IN Voluntary social services (their place in the modern state) Edited by Bourdillon, Methuen, London, 1945).  This chapter written by J.D. Evans.

(b) 1950 Pupils who are defective in hearing, HMSO, Edinburgh.

(c) 1954 The training and supply of teachers of handicapped pupils, HMSO, London

(d) 1956 The Piercy Report, HMSO, London.

(e) 1957 Care of the deaf, by J.B. Perry Robinson for the Deaf Children’s Society, London.

(f) 1958 The deaf school leaver in Northern England, by R.R. Drewry, mimeographed, Nuffield Foundation.

(g) 1959 The Younghusband Report, HMSO, London.

(h) 1960 Certain social and psychological difficulties facing the deaf person in the English community, by Pierre Gorman, Ph.D. Thesis Cambridge University.  1963 A report on a survey of deaf children who have been transferred from special schools or units to ordinary schools, HMSO, London. Also Annual Reports of the Department of Education and Ministry of Health. The “Health of the School Child” by the Chief Medical Officer of the Department of Education contains much valuable information.

TABLE C
ORGANISATIONS CONCERNED WITH THE DEAF PERSON (together with date of formation of original body)

(a) 1880 British Deaf and Dumb Association (now British Deaf Association)

(b) Early Council of Church Missioners to the Deaf and Dumb. 1900s

(c) 1911 National Institute for the Deaf (now Action on Hearing Loss)

(d) 1917 National College of Teachers of the Deaf.

(e) 1922 Central Advisory Council for the Spiritual Care of the Deaf and Dumb.

(f) 1928 Deaf Welfare Examination Board.

(g) 1943 British Association of Otolaryngologists.

(h) 1944 National Deaf Children’s Society.

(i) 1947 British Association for the Hard of Hearing.

(j) 1949 Association of Non Maintained Schools for the Deaf.

(k) 1950 Society of Audiology Technicians.

(l) 1952 National Council of Missioners and Welfare Officers to the Deaf.

(m) 1954 Association for Experiment in Deaf Education.

(n) 1958 Society of Hearing Aid Audiologists.

(o) 1959 Society of Teachers of the Deaf.

(p) 1959 Commonwealth Society for the Deaf.

TABLE D
CATEGORIES OF CHILDREN WITH DEFECTIVE HEARING CONSIDERED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AS REQUIRING SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL TREATMENT.

“DEAF PUPILS” are defined as “pupils who have no hearing or whose hearing is so defective that they require education by methods used for deaf pupils without naturally acquired speech or language.” (Definition unchanged since 1945).

“PARTIALLY DEAF PUPILS” were defined in 1945 as “pupils whose hearing is so defective that they require for their education special arrangements or facilities but not all the educational methods used for deaf pupils”. In 1953, this definition was changed to “pupils who have some naturally acquired speech and language, but whose hearing is so defective that they require for their education special arrangements or facilities although not necessarily all the educational methods used for deaf pupils”. In 1962, the term “partially deaf pupils” was changed to “partially hearing pupils” without any change in the definition itself.

We recently came across a list of DEAF SCHOOLS IN THE UK IN EXISTENCE BEFORE 1850, and we thought it might be of sufficient interest to share on Twitter and here in the blog.

1. Aberdeen School for the Deaf, Linksfield Road, Aberdeen AB2 2IE (Established 1819).

The annual reports that the library holds do not contain lists of pupils.

2. Donaldson’s School for the Deaf, West Coates, Edinburgh EH12 5JI (Established 1810).

Some annual reports have lists of pupils but not until after the year 1853.

3. Glasgow Society for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb (Defunct) (Established 1819).

Some annual reports for the 1840’s contain specimens of pupils’ essays but give no lists of pupils.

4. Liverpool School for the Deaf, (Defunct) (Established 1825).

The only report the library has which contains lists of pupils is for the year 1843.

5. Northern Counties School for the Deaf, Great North Road, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE2 39B (Established 1839?).

Annual reports include lists of Pupils from 1839-1848.

6. Ovingdean Hall School for Partially Hearing Children (Defunct) (Established 1840).

Some annual reports contain lists of pupils. Closed. 2010

7. Paisley Society for the Education of Deaf & Dumb Children, (Defunct)

The library has no reports for the relevant period.

8. Ashgrove School for Deaf Children, Sully Road, Penarth CF6 2TW (Established 1347).

The annual reports do not contain lists of pupils for the relevant period.

9. Royal School for Deaf Children, Edgbaston, Birmingham (Defunct) (Established 1812).

The annual reports contain lists of pupils for the years 1836-1847, 1850-1851. The school closed around 1985.

10. Royal School for the Deaf (Manchester) Stanley Road, Cheadle Hulme SK8 6R17 (Established 1823).

The annual reports have lists of pupils but we only have copies for 1850 and 1851.

11. Royal School for Deaf Children, Victoria Road, Margate CT9 1NB (Defunct) (Established 1792).

Most pupil related records are in the Kent County Archives, Maidstone.  The library has no reports for the relevant period.  Closed 2015.

12. Royal School for the Deaf, 50 Topsham Road, Exeter EX2 4NF (Established 1827).

The library has no reports for the relevant period.

13. Mount School for the Deaf, Denkhull, Stoke-on-Trent (Defunct) (Established 1816).

The library has no annual reports for this school.

14. Yorkshire Residential School for the Deaf, Leger Way, Doncaster DN2 6AT.

The annual reports have lists of pupils for the years 1835-1850.

15. Dundee School for the Deaf, 15A Dudhone Terrace, Dundee DD3 6HJ (Established 1846).

The library has no reports for the relevant period.

16. Bristol District Institution for the Deaf & Dumb, Tyndalls Park, Bristol (Defunct?) (Established 1841).

The library has no annual reports for this school.

N.B. Royal School for the Deaf, Ashbourne Road, Derby. This School was not established until the 1870’s.

Harry Wellington White was born in October, 1854, son of Wellington White, a ‘quartermaster of militia,’ born in Tipperary, and his wife Anne, from Kildare. The oldest sister was born Van Diemen’s Land, then a brother was born in Dover, a second brother was born in Lancashire, and his younger brother in Hampshire, so presumably the father was being sent around the empire for his work.

Harry White began working as a clerk, presumably when he left school. He was employed as a clerk in the offices of the Great Western , at General Manager’s office at Paddington in November, 1876. He remained an employee there until February, 1879, when he resigned.  He would then be aged a little over 24, and we might suppose that it was then, or shortly after, that he enrolled as a trainee teacher of the deaf at the Ealing ‘Society for Training Teachers of the Deaf and for the Diffusion of the German System.’  He took a two and a half year course there, and qualified in 1881 in the same cohort as Mary Smart, and was it seems the only male teacher to qualify there, which seems extraordinary.  I seem to recall reading somewhere that there were far fewer me interested in becoming teachers in the latter years of the 19th century.  Previously I think male teachers had often gone into teaching as pupils who became teachers, then learnt on the job in deaf schools, but this would require research to confirm.

Having qualified, he was appointed Vice-Principal under Arthur Kinsey.  He was sent out from Ealing as an acolyte, and Benjamin St. John Ackers who lead the society as Honorary Secretary, wrote in the annual report for 1884 (p.10) –

Somewhat earlier in the year your Honorary Secretary attended the Annual Meeting of the Manchester Schools for the Deaf and Dumb, as a subscriber to that Institution, where it will be remembered Mr. H. W. White, our late Vice-Principal, was engaged in the work of training the teachers employed there, to carry on the German System.  Mr. White had represented to your Society that certain changes in the arrangements of the Manchester Institution were absolutely necessary for the ultimate success of the work.  Your Honorary Secretary’s attendance, upon the occasion referred to, was to urge the adoption of these proposed changes upon the Manchester Committee, and also the further engagement of Mr. White for another twelve months ; this latter proposition, we are sorry to learn, has, from want of funds, not been accepted.  The period of Mr. White’s engagement with your Society having expired, we were in strong hopes of seeing him at the head of some British Institution, carrying on successfully the work for which he has been trained.  About this time the Head Mastership of the West of England Institution, at Exeter, fell vacant, and Mr. White was at once advised to apply for the post, but he did not feel at liberty to do so.  Shortly afterwards a similar vacancy occurred at the Liverpool Institution ; again he was urged to apply.  Owing, possibly, to delay in forwarding his application, he was not successful in obtaining the appointment.  Upon the termination of the Society’s agreement with Mr. White an agreement was executed with Mr. Alfred Batchelor to train at the College, and to give his services to the Society in such ways as might be required for their work.

The Manchester Schools Sixtieth Annual Report for 1884 (we have not got the 1883 Report) tells us that “the arrangement referred to in the last Annual Report as having been made with Mr. White, Vice-Principal of the Ealing College, is being brought to a satisfactory termination ; and it is gratifying to your Committee to find that the Oral Classes, as organised by their Head Master, [W.S. Bessant] are working so nearly upon the lines laid down by Mr. White in his lectures, that very little alteration in them has been rendered necessary. (Annual Report, 1884, p.6).

It seems Ackers was, however, rather disappointed with White.  He wanted to expand the oralist approach by getting his man into a big school.  Perhaps White felt that running a private school would be more rewarding.  In October, 1884, White published a booklet with W.H. Allen, publishers, Speech for the Dumb. The Education of the Deaf and Dumb on the “Pure Oral” System.  He laid out the oralist approach, and concluded with an appendix on ‘Hints for the management of a deaf child.’  This included ‘Do not allow him to shuffle his feet when walking.’  Interestingly, one of our regular visitors tells me that she was told the same thing at school – perhaps this was part of the long legacy of the Ealing College?  In the introduction to that essay, when he was living at 3, Blenheim Terrace, Old Trafford, Manchester, he says, (p.v) that “I am desirous of opening a small private and select school for deaf children of the higher classes, at Bowden, Cheshire.”  Of course he adds, needlessly, “signs and the manual alphabet being rigidly excluded.”

I am not sure if that school got going, as by July 1885 he was offering lip reading lessons and his address was 4 Osman Road, West Kensington Park.  Not long after, we find numerous advertisements for White’s private deaf school, at 115 Holland Road, Kensington, in The Times and London Evening Standard (see British Newspaper Archive), as well as mentions in The Lancet (by February 1886).  He was, that same year one of the witnesses for The Royal Commission on the Blind, the Deaf and the Dumb (1889).  (We have the full text, and electronic access through Parliamentary Papers database.)  He was asked about his time at Manchester on Thursday the 18th of March, 1886.  You may recall that Ackers was on the commission, so I do not think it would be unfair to say that there was already an oralist bias –

7969. When you first went there was that the commencement of the change ? — No, they had endeavored to introduce the system, and I suppose it would be
maintained that they had introduced it. Of course one is very delicate upon a matter of that kind; there are certain susceptibilities to consider; I think they claimed that they introduced the system; but I went there to assist them to carry it on to probably a higher pitch, and farther extent.

7970. Do you claim that you made great progress is the teaching of the teachers there ? — Undoubtedly.

7971. And also the pupils themselves ? —  Certainly.  Of course my individual efforts could not have shown very great results in the children except through the teachers that I trained.  I could not be expected to teach 160 children, nor would my results be very much in twelve months; but I think that, taking class and class with the teacher that was attached to it, the whole tone of the training showed itself clearly in the education of the children.

Further on he says (paragraph 8007),

When I went to Manchester, of course the tone of the institution was undoubtedly sign.  From the point of view of a pure oral teacher it was like a fever lurking about (that is a rather strong way of putting it), and it wanted removing before you could expect to do anything with the children on the opposite system.

8008. You mean tho fever of the sign system ? — From our point of view, though that is rather a strong way of putting it; but it certainly was very infections. The new children and the children taught on the oral system were very prone to fall into the ways of those who had a system of signs around them.  The consequence was that I saw it rapidly running through the whole institution.  In six weeks or two months the children who had newly entered were as full of signs as thosewho had been there for six years, though probably not knowing so many signs.  The only hope of introducing the pure oral system would have been the removal of the whole of those sign children, and that is what I advocated.  I wrote a letter to tho committee and advocated the taking of a new house somewhere in the neighbourhood for the purpose; but they said that they could not possibly do it, that the expense was more than they could meet, and that things would have to go on as they were going on.

[…]

8059. Do you think that the time will ever come when the sign and manual systems will disappear altogether ?  — I see no reason why they should not.

8060. Do you think there is every reason why they should ?—At present there are very few reasons why they should.  If the Government take the matter up and grant assistance to the work, I see every reason why the sign system should be stamped out, and the oral system entirely established in its place.

In both the 1861 and 1871 census records, Harry White was living at home with his parents in 7 Hackney Terrace, Cassland Road. He moved with them at some point after that, to 3 Poplar Grove, Hammersmith.  In January 1891 he married Emma Parrell, at St Mary Magdalene, Peckham, and at that time he was described as a teacher on his marriage certifiate, but in the 1891 census a ‘Teacher of the Deaf’.  In both the 1901 and the 1911 censuses, they were recorded as living in 13 Sinclair Gardens, Hammersmith.

After some years he seems to have turned away from being purely a teacher of the deaf, though he may well have still had deaf pupils, for he describes himself as ‘Speech Specialist’ in both 1901 and 1911 census returns.  He wrote a few other short items, one we have, The Mechanism of Speech (1897), and a book we do not have, Hearing by Sight (18-?) which is held in Aberdeen University, possibly a unique copy.

I cannot say anything of his later carreer, but that he had three children, one son who attended Cambridge university (Harry Coxwell White), and that he died in 1940.

The National Archives of the UK; Kew, Surrey, England; Collection: Great Western Railway Company: Staff Records; Class: RAIL264; Piece: 6

1871 Census – Class: RG10; Piece: 332; Folio: 73; Page: 58; GSU roll: 818902

1881 Census – Class: RG11; Piece: 60; Folio: 19; Page: 32; GSU roll: 1341013

1891 Census – Class: RG12; Piece: 39; Folio: 182; Page: 34

1901 Census – Class: RG13; Piece: 50; Folio: 21; Page: 33

1911 Census – Class: RG14; Piece: 255

The Times (London, England), Wednesday, Oct 21, 1885; pg. 2; Issue 31583.

The Standard (London, England), Tuesday, July 14, 1885; pg. 8; Issue 19032

Unfortunately we have no reports for the Halifax School, but it has a very interesting origin, which I found in Clifton F. Carbin’s comprehensive book, Deaf Heritage in Canada (1996, pages 125-7 in particular).  The officially recognised founder was one William Gray (1806-1881), a native of Scone in Perthshire.  Gray was, says Carbin, a pupil at the Edinburgh Institution, from the 26th of March, 1819, to 1824.  He married Isabella Blyth (ca. 1819-93) in Edinburgh on the 11th of November, 1845.  She was an Aberdonian who Carbin says was also deaf, and they had a daughter Isabella.  He worked as a tailor.  In 1851 they were living in Whitehouse Close, 276 Canongate, Edinburgh. In 1855 they emigrated to Halifax.  It was there he chanced to meet another deaf Scot, George Tait (1828-1904).  Tait, son of a Caithness farmer, had also been a pupil at the Edinburgh Institution, according to their records from 1842-9, but he claimed he was there from the age of 12 (ca. 1840) to 1844 when he went to sea (see Carbin).  Trained as a carpenter, according to his later account, the captain of ship he was working on in Liverpool dock allowed him to masquerade as a sailor to get past the customs officer, and he went to sea, travelling to the West Indies, then Maine.  He ended up joining his uncle who was also a carpenter, in Nova Scotia.

When Tait arrived in Halifax in 1856, he was asked to tutor a deaf girl called Mary Ann Fletcher (1845-59). She urged him to start a school, and when he met Gray, who he saw signing, or finger-spelling, in the street, he suggested to Gray that he become a teacher.  The school opened on the 4th of August, 1856.  Tait later claimed his contribution had been ignored, and in 1907 a committee voted to favour the Gray claim as founder.

The school was closed in 1861.

Carbin says that there is little evidence as to the methods Gray used to teach, but he does not appear to have been terribly good at it.  His time at the school ended in 1870 in disgrace, after he was charged with appearing in front of the pupils intoxicated, and threathening them with violence if they reported him.

We have a small green booklet that was printed for the use of pupils in the school Gray – and Tait – started in Halifax, Nova Scotia, called Questions on Astronomy for the use of the Pupils of The Institution for the Deaf and Dumb.   It was intended to test the pupils on their knowledge of the text book Calkin’s Geography, one of the books to be found here, so it was probably printed in the 1870s or 1880s.  The knowledge that they were expected to acquire would test a modern geography student.  Do you think that you could answer the questions?  A link to the full document appears above.

Who knew that Alcyone – in the Pleiades – was supposed to be heaven?

http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/hutton_james_scott_12E.html

We have a small collection of original annual reports for various United States Deaf Institutions from the 19th century.  There is for example a run for the Clarke School from the first report in 1867 all the way to 1961.  There are some shorter runs and odd volumes or single reports.  Here we have the Rochester, Western New York Institution for Deaf Mutes, Thirteenth Annual Report for 1890.

At that time the principal was Zenas Freeman Westervelt (1849-1918).  Born in Columbus, Ohio, Westervelt‘s New York born mother mother Martha Freeman was matron of the Ohio Institution, and he grew up there, so we must suppose he was very familiar with sign language – or gesture as he calls it.  He became a teacher of the Deaf in the Maryland School (1871-3), before moving to the New York Institution (1873-5) (American Annals of the Deaf, 1918 p.226).  In New York he was one of “five bright young teachers under Dr. Isaac Peet, who later became principals or superintendents and of whom Dr. Westervelt was the last survivor” (ibid.).

Westervelt had been gathering names of Deaf children in western New York state who were not in school, and Mrs. Gilman Perkins, who had a Deaf daughter Carolyn, and asked Westervelt to start a school there (1872).

He chose to use the manual alphabet, spelling English, as the medium of instruction –

to the exclusion of the sign language […] thus placing the pupils in a constant environment of the English language.  He was also an advocate of oral teaching. (ibid. p.227).

In the thirteenth Annual Report for the school, Westervelt wrote an article called The American Vernacular Method (p.43-60) as he termed it.  He discusses what he calls The American Combined Method, and how it used –

the language of gesture, and the idea of the idea of the combination is that through this medium the attempt shall be made to teach English composition and reading, dactylology, speech and speech-reading on the lips, and aural apprehension.[…]

Notwithstanding the importance attached to gesture-language by the teachers of the Combined Method, they do not teach it; that is, there is no systematic instruction looking to the mastery of the language by the little deaf child.  The teachers, however, use it to the little ones, expecting them to understand; the older pupils use it with the same confidence that the children will learn its meaning through use, as it is the vernacular of the Combined-Method schools. […] One not familiar with the work of the profession might be justified in asking,: at what grade in the Combined-Method schools is the limit (p.47-8)

He develops his argument, and I cannot do justice to it so include the whole of this, the first of two articles (1890 and 1891?).  I suppose the second part is in the following annual report – unfortunately we do not have that.

His relationship with sign language is complex.  He does not appear to have been anti sign language, indeed he call it “ingenius [sic],” and says of De l’Epee that “What he accomplished was giving to the deaf signs for ideas, words, which they could readily use and comprehend” (ibid. p.48-9).  Yet he says gesture is more restrictive in expression and vocabulary, and that (p.52) “No books have been written in gesture.”  Further on, he says-

Yet when the educated gesturer is compared with the deaf mute as he was before the invention of the gesture-language of De l’Epee, the incalculable good that it has accomplished  is manifest.  Under the circumstances which prevailed during the early years of deaf mute instruction, when those admitted to the schools were adults or fully grown youths, and the time allowed at institutions was but four years, there was doubtless need of gesture language.

It seems clear that he did not mean oral education – “the following summary of the reasons which have led me to oppose the “Combined Method,” which teaches through “signs,” also the “German Method,” which teaches through speech” (p.45).  What he wanted was for Deaf children to acquire English and an ability to read and write English using the manual alphabet – finger spelling – later called the Rochester Method.  “It were better for every child who is to spend his life among the American people that he should be brought up an American and not a foreigner.”  He wanted Deaf children to fit into American life and language as immigrants did – or at least as some did if you read the footnotes in his article (see page 60 particularly).

Presumably in that second part he explains his attitude to the “German Method,” and then his system.  There must be copies of all these reports in U.S. libraries.  Perhaps if someone comes across it they could scan it and make it available online.

From 1892 passport records we know Westervelt had at that time brown hair, an aquiline nose, grey eyes, a square chin, and was 5′ 8″ tall.  He was twice married, firstly in 1875 to Mary H. Nodine (died 1893) then in 1898 to Adelia C. Fay, whose son Edmund he adopted.  He died of heart failure on 17th of February, 1918.

As to how anyone could have lip-read him with that beard, we cannot hazard a guess.

Obituary, American Annals of the Deaf, 1918 Vol.53 (2) p.226-7

Padden, C. and Gunsauls, D.C., How the Alphabet Came to Be Used in a Sign Language. Sign Language Studies vol.4 (1) 2003

Westervelt, Z.F., The American Vernacular method, (p.43-60) in Thirteenth Annual Report of the Western New York Institution for Deaf Mutes, 1890

1860 Census – Year: 1860; Census Place: Columbus Ward 3, Franklin, Ohio; Roll: M653_964; Page: 127; Family History Library Film: 803964

1900 Census – Year: 1900; Census Place: Rochester Ward 17, Monroe, New York; Page: 1; Enumeration District: 0137

1910 Census – Year: 1910; Census Place: Rochester Ward 17, Monroe, New York; Roll: T624_992; Page: 16B; Enumeration District: 0159; FHL microfilm: 1375005

Passport Records – National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington D.C.; Roll #: 396; Volume #: Roll 396 – 24 Jun 1892-29 Jun 1892

John David Willoughby , was a teacher of the deaf and first vice-president of the National Association of Teachers of the Deaf.  He was born in Liverpool in 1863, son of John Willoughby, a grocer, and Harriet Gay, from Manchester.  His career seems to have been settled upon early in life.  In a biographical sketch written in 1896 in The British Deaf-Mute, we are told that twenty-two years before then he began as a pupil teacher in an Elementary School doing a five year apprenticeship.  He would have been around eleven years old when he began.  After that, he worked at Manchester School at first under the oralist convert, Andrew Patterson, then under Patterson’s successor, Bessant (ibid).  The BDM article tells us that he acquireds “a complete and comprehensive knowledge of the intricacies of the system.”  In 1885 he sat for the first examination at the new College of Teachers of the Deaf in Paddington Green.

Willoughby married Florence Toothill on the 18th of September, 1886, and they had three daughters.  That same year he began to take on private pupils.  From where his children were born we can assume he was in Hyde, Manchester, in 1888, in York in 1893, in Lewisham in 1895, and according to the 1901 census, when he called himself ‘Professor of Oral Education of Deaf,’ he was living at 86 Blackheath Road, Greenwich.  The BDM says,

When the government at last decided to do something towards helping forward the education of the deaf, Mr. Willoughby became anxious to return to Public School work, and he accordingly applied to and was appointed by the London School Board. Being now once again in a Government School he lost no time in qualifying for the Elementary Teacher’s’ Certificate, taking the first year’s papers in December, 1894, and the second year’s in June, 1895.

I wonder whether the fact that on the 1901 census he described himself as a Secretary was a contributory factor?  Running a small private school cannot have been easy.

He was also one of the founders of of the Association of Teachers of the Deaf and Dumb – later ‘National’ and now BATOD.  I wonder if he is mentioned in their archives?  His obituary tells us that he did not stick with state education however.  He had been a petitioner to the Government to recognise Certificates of Teachers of the Deaf (BDM), but the obituary says “Had the teachers’ claims for better conditions moved at the pace of Mr. Willoughby’s hopes and ambitions the profession might have retained his services; but, as a consequence,, he sought and found another field for his abilities.”

In 1911 he was living in Deal, Kent, and in his role as a Freemason, he was an ‘inspector.’  Perhaps it was in connection with Freemasonry that he became a Freeman of the City of London in July 1913 (see online records) at which time he was living in ‘Highfield,’ Chertsey, Surrey, where he was head of Highfield College, Walton-on-Thames.  This is presumably a long gone private school.  Willoughby was a victim of the 1918 influenza epidemic.

In the 1901 census, Ernest Stanley Daniel Warr (b. 1890) was living with the Willoughby family as a private pupil.  Interestingly, he was still with them in 1911 when they were in Deal, and when he was described on the census as a ‘mechanical dentist’ whatever that might be.  Perhaps it means he made false teeth?  In 1916 Warr lived at 9 Albion Road, Lewisham, and was still there in the 1930s.  That summer he married Mabel Johnson, and the Rev. William Raper baptised their daughter at St. Barnabas’s Church for the Deaf that December.  He was described as an ‘engineer’ on the baptismal register.  I have been unable to track down Warr on the 1891 census, though I did find the registration of his birth in Forest Hill (Camberwell registration district), in the last quarter of 1890, so I have no idea about his family background.

Ernest Warr died in 1967 in South London, so I expect he remained a part of the Deaf community there.  If you can add anything on him please comment.

British Deaf-Mute, 1896, 5, 124. (photo)

The Teacher of the Deaf, 1919 p.50

1911 Census Class: RG14; Piece: 4568; Schedule Number: 67

1901 Census Class: RG13; Piece: 538; Folio: 41; Page: 8

1891 Census Class: RG12; Piece: 3888; Folio: 136; Page: 26

 

Frederick Barnard was born in Battersea Park Road, on the 13th of March, 1889.*  He was the son of Arthur Edward Barnard, who was a ‘machine man’ (mechanic) when he married in 1883, and a newsagent in 1901, and in 1911 was a confectioner, and Grace Bassage, at one time a hairdresser (1901), both from Lambeth.  Fred lost his hearing aged four (1911 census).  He became a pupil at Margate, where we find him on the 1901 census, then aged 12. By the time of the 1911 census Fred was working as a carpenter, and living with his mother’s brother, John Bassage, a dock labourer, at 505 Southwark Park Road.  His family was living in Clacton by 1901 if not earlier.

In 1911 his parents were living at Cressingham House, North Road, Clacton.

I suspect, but I cannot be sure, that when Fred’s father died in 1918, he decided to move back in with his mother to help out, losing touch with his social life in London.  At some point thereafter he contacted a friend in London, and we have the postcard with the note on the back and a portrait of Fred.

Dear Sir
Just a few lines to wish you a Bright & Prosperous New Year.
I hope you will like this photo.
I wish I was in London now because I miss many of the deaf and dumb.
Clacton is too dull for me. Please remember me to all at the club.
kind Regards
from Fred Barnard

I suppose that the club would be the National Deaf Club, or a local deaf club in south London, but could also be St. Saviour’s Church. Whichever it was, and whoever the ‘sir’ was to whom it is addressed, it looks as if it spent some time pinned to a notice board.

Fred died in 1961.
*See www.ancestry.co.uk

Census 1891 – not found him or his parents – perhaps they were missed or their names are poorlt transcribed.

Census 1901 – Class: RG13; Piece: 824; Folio: 31; Page: 3 (Fred)

Census 1901 – Class: RG13; Piece: 1695; Folio: 8; Page: 7 (parents)

Census 1911 – Class: RG14; Piece: 10229; Schedule Number: 119 (parents)

Census 1911 – Class: RG14; Piece: 1901 (Fred)

Thanks, as ever, to Norma McGilp for great assistance!

Note – I removed some uncertain information. I am pretty sure of the identification of the Fred as oppsed to other Fred Barnards of the time.

I discovered his parents from the aunt & uncle in the 1911 census when he was staying with them.  I surmised either Fred’s mother was a Bassage, or his father’s sister had married one, and I searched Free BMD for a marriage between a Grace Ann Bassage & an Arthur Edward Barnard.

The 1911 census has Arthur E. Barnard and Grace in Clacton (as in 1901), Arthur as a confectioner/newsagent, and tells us they’d had 4 children, 2 living, the other being Maude Elizabeth (1885-?) –
Census 1901 – Class: RG13; Piece: 1695; Folio: 8; Page: 7 (parents)
Census 1911 – Class: RG14; Piece: 10229; Schedule Number: 119 (parents)

Fred was born on the 13th of March 1889, in Battersea, like his sister. He was baptised the following year 17/8/1890 at Bermondsey St Mary Magdalene – London Metropolitan Archives; London, England; Reference Number: p71/mmg/028.

I suspect that the death recorded Deaths Mar 1884 Barnard, Arthur, Wandsworth 1d 417, is a first child who was named after his dad.  Likewise another child in Deaths for 1887 March, Wandsworth 1d 451, Barnard, Edith Annie, aged 0, would I suggest be the other child who died.

 

In the late 19th Ccentury, the Williams family of Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol, was large – ten children in all, including four deaf brothers, Henry (1850-192?), George (1852-193?), Frederick (1861-193?), and Joshua (1868-1954).  Henry was the first child, son of a Westbury labourer, Henry Williams (1820-86) and his Hull born wife, Matilda Ingram (1826-1912).  Henry was born in Hull, so he might be claimed by the Yorkshire Deaf community as one of their own, while the other brothers were all born in Gloucestershire, where the family moved in the 1850s.

The boys all attended the Park Row School, according to the British Deaf Times (1930 p.79).  Henry, or Harry, was there in the 1861 census, along with George, living in we must suppose.  The school was then under the headmaster John Clyne, who was Scottish born, and whose wife Caroline was the matron.   In the 1891 census Harry is shown as a blacksmith, a trade also followed by George.  The article from 1930 says Harry ‘died a few years ago, in London’ though I am not ot sure when, as Henry Williams is not going to be a rare name!  George was at school with Henry, and their names are next to each other on the census record.  George left Bristol and moved to Cardiff in 1887, retiring circa 1928 (ibid).  He had married a Deaf Bristolian lady in 1881, Mary Ann Burston (1856-19??).  Mary was a pupil at Park Row in 1871, when it was under the headship of the Yorkshire born teacher, Robert James Jackson, with his wife Thirza, who was matron.  George made a mess of the 1911 census form, but it looks as if they had no children, or maybe one.

Fred was Mary Ann’s contemporary at the same school, and so was her younger brother, Henry Burston (b.1861).  The 1861 census shows us that Mary Ann’s older sister, Maria Burston (b.1845) was also deaf, but she never married, working in Bristol as a laundress.

The next three boys, John, Frank and James, were all hearing.

Joshua, the youngest of the deaf boys, became a ‘boot clicker,’ and married a deaf lady, Mabel Florence Hurley (1869-1848), whose name appears just before his on the 1881 census record for the Bristol Institution.  At that time they were at Tyndalls Park School, and under the headship of William B. Smith.  Mabel, who was born in Weston-Super-Mare, daughter of Thomas Hurley a railway policeman and his wife Martha, was ‘deaf from childhood’ according to the 1881 census, and I think we might hazard a guess that it was due to illness.

Fred also worked in the shoe trade.  Fred’s wife, Mary Emery, was hearing, and they had eight children.

Here we see Fred, then 69, George, then 77, and Joshua, then 62.

I am sure that there are many interesting things to be discovered about these people and their relationships.

British Deaf Times 1930 p.79

see also Census returns. 

[Usually I give the full reference but today there were too many to do that easily in the time available.  The details should be comparatively easy to find using a family history database, although the common name makes finding death records a lot more difficult.

For those of you with an www.ancestry.co.uk account, begin here where someone has put together records for Joshua and Mabel https://www.ancestry.co.uk/family-tree/person/tree/42185401/person/19995316700/facts]