Another item I did not get around to posting during the exhibition.

Royalty and the deaf, with some striking facts about the deaf and dumb, their alphabet, and a few signs. Watford, H.Ash, 18–?

The author of this pamphlet, Harry Ash (1863-1934) was clearly following the pattern of the Deaf artist William Agnew (1846-1914) who painted a series of pictures showing Queen Victoria using finger spelling to communicate with a deaf woman on the Isle of Wight; the “Royal Condescension” paintings of 1883, 1889 and 1900.

In an autobiographical piece for The British Deaf Mute (Vol.4 (44) p.113-4, 1895) Ash describes how the education system changed while he was at the Old Kent Road School.

At sixteen I left the home paradise with three first prizes – for general proficiency, for religious knowledge, and for good fellowship, besides a prize for freehand drawing. Perhaps I should have written better English had there not been a complete change in the system of Instruction, from sign-manual to oral.

Click onto the images for a larger size.

The invited alphabet; or, Address of A to B; containing his friendly proposal for the amusement and instruction of good children by R.R. London, B.Tabart, 1809.

Who the author, R.R. was, is unknown, despite speculation.

The invited alphabet describes a manual alphabet suitable for use by deaf children though not specifically aimed at them.  “The art of spelling on the fingers has been dignified by the name Dactylology.”

Although the exhibition is now over, I thought I would put up the last few items we had sent to be displayed on the blog.  A book that had to be omitted from the exhibition for reasons of space:

The life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell. In one volume. To which are added, The Dumb Philosopher, and everybody’s business is Nobody’s Business, [by Andrew Moreton]. Oxford: Printed by D.A. Talboys for Thomas Tegg… London. 1841. Attributed to Daniel Defoe

Duncan Campbell (c.1680–1730) was a Deaf soothsayer, who claimed to have been born in Lapland, probably to enhance his mystical credentials.  He was taught to read by a “learned divine of the University of Glasgow”, following the method of John Wallis.

The life and adventures of Mr. Duncan Campbell has been frequently attributed to Daniel Defoe, “with little evidence […] but the views expressed on the supernatural in the work directly contradict arguments Defoe presents elsewhere, and Defoe is unlikely to have written for his enemy Edmund Curll.”  In fact the anonymous writer was probably William Bond, who then lived in the same house as Campbell in Exeter Court on the Strand.

A follow up to this book, Secret Memoirs of the Late Mr Duncan Campbell, appeared after he had died in 1732, clearly as a way of promoting Campbell’s wife’s business selling his talismans and potions.

T. F. Henderson, ‘Campbell, Duncan (c.1680–1730)’, rev. David Turner, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2005 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/4494, accessed 13 June 2013]

A set of two volumes unfortunately left out of the exhibition for reasons of space;

Instruction of the deaf and dumb; or, A theoretical and practical view of the means by which they are taught to speak and understand a language, containing hints for the correction of impediments of speech. Together with A vocabulary; illustrated by numerous copperplates, representing the most common objects necessary to be named by beginners printed by Darton and Harvey, 1809. by Joseph Watson, 1809

Joseph Watson (1765-1829) worked for Thomas Braidwood (1715-1806) from 1784, and became headmaster of the London Asylum for the Deaf & Dumb in the Old Kent Road (see earlier blog posts for more on this institution).

In Instruction of the deaf and dumb Watson wrote that “Persons born deaf are, in fact, neither depressed below, nor raised above, the general scale of human nature, as regards their dispositions and powers, either of body or mind.”  He considers what language is, and describes how he goes about “communicating a knowledge of language to the naturally deaf and dumb.”  The second part of the work, sometimes printed in a separate volume (1810), has lists of vocabulary and plates designed to encourage a child to acquire an understanding of written & spoken language.

The illustrations in the volume of plates are delightful glimpses in everyday life in Georgian England.  Individual pictures are not labelled, so this meant children were not restricted to learning one set term for an object or scene.  One copy we have is so well used that most of the plates are loose.  Plate one above shows various types of people; plate 6 show agricultural workers; plate 7 shows watchmen, a highway robbery and dust cart men.  Some of them have been annotated by a child – in plate 69 behind the hedge, a hunter holding a gun can be seen!

Guide to chirology. Watford, H.Ash. 18-?

Harry Ash (1863-1934) perhaps produced this pamphlet initially in the late1880s or the 1890s.  A pencil note on the first page says ‘Design at 24.  “X” marked on each.’  If this is a note by Ash, it would suggest that those parts were designed in 1887/8.  It is interesting that Ash, who, in his last five months at school had taught himself French while the other boys were sleeping, revived the term ‘chirology’ that was used by Bulwer.

I have scanned the whole document as a pdf here – Guide to Chirology.  It is very much of its time and has stereotypes we would avoid today.

The manual alphabet (Irish, American, French &c). For the deaf and dumb. H. Ash London, 18? [The style of the card suggests a date in the late 19^th Century, possibly ca 1887/8]

Harry Ash (1863-1934) was born in Bridgewater, Somerset.  He was deafened by scarlet fever aged 18 months.  His father was a railway coach-maker who moved to Swindon to find work.  Harry was sent to the London Asylum in the Old Kent Road when he was 11, later moving on to the Margate branch of the school.  He was for a time a designer at the Hogarth Works, Chiswick.

It is possible to follow something of his life by using the census and various documents published in his lifetime.

Education for the people. By Mrs Hippisley Tuckfield, London, Taylor and Walton, 1839.

Charlotte Hippisley Tuckfield, née Mordaunt (1777-1848) was the wife of Richard Hippisley Tuckfield, of Devon.  They inherited property at Little Fulford and Charlotte had the lodge at nearby Posbury House converted into a training centre for school teachers.  This later became part of the University of Exeter.

Published initially in The Cottager’s monthly visitor, (1824-6), in Education for the people, Charlotte Hippisley Tuckfield devoted the fourth section of the book to the education of deaf children.  It takes the form of a series of letters.

http://www.posbury.org.uk/stlukes.html

http://www.boddyparts.co.uk/hippisleyfamily.htm

Through the left hand page you can just make out Selwyn Oxley’s hideously spidery handwriting, which is in most of the historical books!

Vox oculis subjecta: A dissertation on the most curious and important art of imparting speech and the knowledge of language to the naturally deaf and, consequently, dumb. With a particular account of the academy of Messrs. Braidwood of Edinburgh, and a proposal to perpetuate and extend the benefits thereof  by a parent. London, Benjamin White, 1783

The anonymous author was in fact Francis Green (1742-1809) whose son attended Thomas Braidwood’s Edinburgh school.  Green, who was born in Boston, served in the British army as an officer for nine years.  Remaining a loyalist in the War of Independence he left for Britain in 1780, where his eight year old son was educated in Braidwood’s Academy for the next six years.  Returning to Halifax, Nova Scotia and later Medford, Massachusetts, Green continued his interest in deaf education, translating works of the Abee de l’Epee into English.

“Man as a social being has an irresistible propensity to communicate with his species, to receive the ideas of others, and to impart his own conceptions” Green says in the introduction to Vox oculis subjecta.  In the first part he surveys the natural capacity of humans for language, quoting extensively from authors such as Holder and Bulwer, before going into a description of how Braidwood’s school worked in the second part.

Winzer, Margret A. The History of Special Education: From Isolation to Integration. RNID WLG

Mug with manual alphabet

This mug has no maker’s mark, but similar earthenware mugs from Staffordshire with what appears to be the same sign transfer pattern, have been dated to the early 19^th Century, ca. 1820 and ca. 1840.

Note how the ‘Q’ differs from the later sign alphabet.

The mug was donated to the Library by Mrs P.J. Bierschenk over twenty years ago. Click on images for a larger size.

A collection of the most remarkable definitions and answers of Massieu and Clerc, Deaf and Dumb, to the various questions put to them, at the public lectures of the Abbé Sicard, in London; to which are joined The manual alphabet of the Deaf and Dumb, the Abbé’s Introductory Discourse, and a letter explanatory of his system With notes and an English translation by J.H. Sievrac. London, printed four Massieu & Clerc by Cox & Baylis, 1815 by M. Laffon de Ladebat with notes and an English translation by J.H. Sievrac 1815

Jean Massieu (1772 –1846) was born Deaf and became a teacher of the Deaf.  Louis Laurent Marie Clerc (1785 –1869),”The Apostle of the Deaf in America” was taught by Massieu and l’Abbé Sicard (1742-1822).  Moving to the U.S.A. with Thomas Gallaudet, Clerc co-founded the school in Conneticut which is now The American School for the Deaf.

The author, André-Daniel Laffon de Ladebat (1746 –1829), philanthropist & banker, was himself a remarkable man.  He was a protestant French noble who joined the revolution as a moderate, but fell out with both Napoleon and later the restored Bourbons.  An early slavery abolitionist, in 1788 he wrote Discourse on the Necessity and the Means of Abolishing Slavery in the Colonies.

After an introductory lecture by Sicard, A collection of the most remarkable definitions and answers of Massieu and Clerc, Deaf and Dumb takes the form of a series of questions posed by various members of polite society answered by Massieu and Clerc, which illustrate their eloquence & high level of education.

One of our copies of this book, not in this exhibition, has a letter from Sicard inside the front cover – see below.  This copy was owned by Charles Rhind (here written ‘Rhynd’ by Selwyn Oxley) who we covered in an earlier post.

Very kindly, a translation has been made for us by Lucas Rivet-Crothers (with some additions by Mike Gulliver):

Comme tout le monde sait, mon respectable collègue, que toute votre vie se passe en bonnes œuvres et que par conséquent je ne dois ni ne puis l’ignorer, je puis donc sans indiscrétion vous adresser un des membres d’une famille nombreuse, une des plus dignes d’estime et d’intérêt que je connaisse qui deviendront le sauveur de la sienne si vous daigner lui procurer une place quelconque, quelque médiocre qu’elle fut, il fut dans sa première jeunesse dans les hôpitaux militaires, l’appui, le soutien, la consolation des infortunés confiés à ses soins. Son père, son frère, ses sœurs, tous les siens se sont montrés toujours des modèles de toutes les vertus civiles et religieuses. Permettez lui de vous entretenir, quelques instants, de leur fâcheuse position et daigner descendre jusqu’à lui et vous ne ferez pas sans en etre touché et sans lui tendre une main bienfaisante en protectrice…
To my esteemed colleague: As everyone knows, your life has been spent in good works, and this is something that I must not, indeed cannot, ignore. And so, without any feeling of discomfort, may I recommend to you a member of a large family (one of the most worthy of esteem and interest that I know) who would be the saviour of that family if you could provide him with a position, however humble it might be. In his younger years, he worked in military hospitals where he was a support and a consolation to those unfortunate enough to find themselves in his care. His father, his brother, his sisters, all of his kin have shown themselves to be models of civil and religious virtue. Converse with him for only a few minutes and he will tell you of the difficult position in which they find themselves. Engage with him and you will assuredly be moved by his predicament, and find yourself extending to him your protection and goodwill.

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