Disability History Month: Accessibility and Archives: “a few deaf and dumb men who work as journeymen”

In this post for the 2024 Disability History Month, Philip Milnes-Smith centres the life of the Deaf tailor and community activist James Herriot (1815-1880). It contains language of the period which may now cause offence.

Should you read the name James Herriot, the chances are you would be put in mind of a Yorkshire vet (real name James Alfred Wright).  But this blog is about a Leith-born, Deaf Victorian tailor and community activist.  I’m by no means the first to want to share his story and this brief account draws on O’Neil’s study of the Manchester and Salford Adult Deaf Benevolent Association.  From this we learn that James’ age was misstated throughout much of his childhood and adolescence.  Presumably precociously able (and maybe tall for his age?), he attended the Edinburgh Institution for the Deaf and Dumb Children, from the age of six (instead of nine), and was apprenticed (as a tailor) from the age of eleven (instead of fourteen).  James married an older deaf girl named Isabel Shannon (1808-1889).  Both were numbered among the first members of the Deaf and Dumb Congregation in Edinburgh.

James’ first business venture had failed but he bounced back with a new start in Manchester from 1843.  By the 1851 census, he is described as “Master Tailor employs 12 men”.  But he was also already a longstanding pillar of (what was then called) the Manchester Adult Deaf and Dumb Benevolent Society according to an 1853 news report[i] which names him as Secretary.  We should particularly note that a published letter[ii] from 1856 (hostile to James) nonetheless recorded that he had already been employing “several deaf and dumb men” in 1846.

By 1861, however, James was listed on the census as a “teacher of the adult deaf and dumb”.  This was work he had begun informally, in his shop, while still tailoring.  Given that deafness could be acquired, his perspective on the importance of adult education for people in his community was perhaps not just about recognising that many of the Deaf people who were moving to Manchester for employment would have had more limited schooling than he had under his belt.  However, we should also note that he expressed “some degree of apprehension” at “poor helpless deaf and dumb infants, consigned to exile for a number of years. apart from their homes and natural protectors, subject to all the discipline and routine of a charity school.”  He believed he did not owe “any acquirements I may be possessed of to the school I was educated at”, but rather credited “mixing largely among men of intelligence” (by which, at least in part, he meant other Deaf people).

By the 1871 Census James was listed as “Superintendent (deaf and dumb society)”, which was also the position noted in his probate.   His widow was listed as “Caretaker of Public Institution” in the 1881 census.  Given that the street address of her residence was the association’s premises (at 70 Quay Street, see preview image, where they remained based until 1950) we can identify that particular Institution.  Her lodger Elizabeth Wilcock was also Deaf (a shirtmaker), now in her seventies, but still working.  James and Isabella’s hearing son, a Draper, was Isabella’s Executor.  By 1901 he was identified in the Census as the Secretary of the Association (rather than as Draper), and his household was employing the Deaf servant Lina Eleanor Neal.  She was still with them in 1911.

An aim of James’ Deaf-run association was finding Deaf people employment, and the 1853 report mentioned above notes that, in the previous year, it had “found employment in good situations for five deaf mutes.” But this positivity should be read in the context both of two others requiring to be “reconciled to their employers, and restored to their former situations”, and his association meeting the needs of ‘destitute fellow-subjects, who.. are mostly persons in necessitous circumstances.’ 

The fact that James was secretary and superintendent for over three and a half decades from its inception suggests first that it was meeting need, and secondly that its beneficiaries were not dissatisfied with him supporting himself from the income of the Association (both in his capacity as secretary and as instructor) – bearing in mind that he had given up his business.  John Veitch (1814-1895), another former Master Tailor (‘deaf and dumb from birth’ and married to a deaf woman) was similarly listed in the 1871, 1881 and 1891 Censuses as supporting himself by being the authorised Collector for the association (rather than being a benevolent hearing person donating their time to the role).

Although there had been initial co-operation between James and staff at the Old Trafford School attended by George Samuel Cull, relations deteriorated as his fund-raising began to have an impact on giving to the hearing-led organisation. By 1856, there was a rival organisation. linked to the school (The Manchester Adult Society for the Deaf and Dumb), which also claimed to exist to help young Deaf people into employment but was run by hearing people with a Missionary/Charity model view of Deafness as a pitiable affliction.  O’Neil’s analysis suggests that issues of class were at play in the criticisms of the Association (see the blog title), and James’ leadership of it. 

Certainly the Adult Society was better at securing press attention than the Benevolent Association.  In other blogs in the series, we have seen that contemporary institutions could be open for visitors to view disabled people (for example, the Hill Street refuge), and it is noteworthy that James’ association chose not to seek donations by opening its annual tea party to the public.  This avoided unnecessary expense on decorating the premises, but also allowed the attendees to be “quite at home among themselves” and to “enjoy the congeniality of their expressions in feelings and thoughts with each other”.

Guest blogs are welcome.  Please email diversityandinclusion@archives.org.uk.  We would also like to hear from you if you have found one of the Allies’ blogs helpful to your work.

[i] Manchester Courier - Saturday 15 January 1853

[ii] Manchester Courier - Saturday 30 August 1856

Image: By Quay Street, Manchester by Malc McDonald, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=125619316