Accessibility and Archives: “The eye of man hath not heard”
In this, the fifth in a sequence of blogposts around disability and inclusion from the Accessibility working group of ARA’s Diversity and Inclusion Allies, Philip Milnes-Smith attempts to uncover Georgian and Victorian Deaf history through both fact and fiction. It features historic terminology which would now be considered problematic, patronising or offensive.
The prolific children’s story writer Sarah Sandham published Deaf and Dumb!: A Tale in the early nineteenth century. As a work of fiction it is almost completely lacking in thrilling incident (we will examine the climactic exception later), but since it ran to three editions, it presumably did not lack purchasers. As a work of moral instruction for the young, it encourages significant but undemonstrative charitable giving and is explicitly set in the real world where the first purpose-built “Asylum for the support and education of the Deaf and Dumb Children of the Poor” had opened in 1809, near Elephant and Castle in Southwark.
The two editions to which I have had digital access purport to list as an appendix (from the Account of the Charity in 1809 and 1818 respectively), current named beneficiaries of this support (no GDPR, obviously). The only one of those listed I have been able to find for certain in the 1851 census was Henry Willisee from Wisbech (1795-1853). Notwithstanding his training at the Asylum, he is recorded as “deaf and dumb” – others may have become more skilled at “passing”.
The preface, hardly an enticing opener to a book for young readers, includes a direct appeal to remember that it is children of their own age (under 12) who “instead of having to look forward to a life of activity and usefulness... must, without the improvement afforded them by these means, drag on a miserable existence a burden to themselves and all around them.” Interestingly, Sandham shared a publisher with the 1809 volume Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb by the Asylum’s head, Joseph Watson, which notes the hope that this institution would accelerate “the final removal of that prejudice which had so long consigned the DEAF and DUMB to the class of semi-rationals, in the estimation of the majority of mankind… They are human beings… Give them language, and you, in a great measure do away their defect, and bring them on a level with those of their age and station in life.”
The Asylum experience is (accurately for this date, although signing became more important later) represented by Sandham as ‘normalising’ the learners by teaching them speech and lip-reading (and reading and writing). However, while a charitable, medical lens is being used here, that does not mean there is no sense of Deaf community:
Each of these unfortunate children, throughout the whole school, seemed allied to the others by a nearer tie than that of relationship: they were a world within themselves... Their wants they could often make known to others: but while shut out from the power of language, they could not describe their comforts to anyone, so well as to themselves.
And:
These young men retain a particular friendship for each other; and no pleasing occurrence which happens to one, is half so gratifying, if not shared by the other. The part which they take in each other's feelings, can only be compared to that interest, which men, belonging to the same society, feel for each other in a distant country, where, though they may meet with attention and kindness from the inhabitants of it, they are still considered as strangers, and the union among themselves is strengthened by it.
Watson’s preface notes “when I happen to be, for the moment, at a loss to make one of slow apprehension understand a lesson, I turn him over to one of his schoolfellows, who has learnt it” and, indeed, the Asylum had employed the first (known) Deaf teacher of the Deaf (William Hunter, 1785-1861) before it had moved to the new premises.
Sandham’s sentimental moral estimation of the “innocence” of Deaf children in comparison to their hearing fellows should be contrasted with the later autobiography of George Tait (who would also become, at one point, a Deaf teacher of the Deaf), here describing his arrival at a school for the Deaf in Edinburgh around 1842:
I took a survey of the school room and its occupants, when to my delight I saw a large number of boys and girls, some of whom were near my own age and size, and some too, my quick eye readily detected were like myself, brimful of mischief. I was perfectly charmed; never before had I seen such a collection of boys and girls ranging from the tender age of 5 and 6, to manhood and womanhood. But despite the disparity of age, size, and temperament, they were all alike in one respect—like myself not one could hear a sound, either pleasant or harsh… [B]ecoming acquainted with the rest of the scholars, I was as happy as the day was long. On going to school I could only make known my thoughts by signs, but I quickly learned to talk with my fingers, thus being enabled to talk more freely and with much less difficulty.
He notes some of his own pranks and that the boys would attempt “to steal out into the street, which, however, was forbidden under pain of a good thrashing”.
It is worth noting that although he refers to “my happy school days”, Tait concluded his schooling prematurely. Sandham’s characters, by contrast, “spake highly of the school, and of the kindness with which they were treated; and… rather expressed pleasure than regret at the thought of returning” from school holidays. We may feel entitled to wonder how close to reality she was in claiming that “William had always shown a desire to be a cabinet maker, and the gentlemen of the committee meant to indulge him in having him instructed in that trade, making it a point to consult the disposition of the children, where it was possible.” However, Tait also ascribes agency to the Edinburgh boys: “On the premises of the school was a workshop where three different trades were taught—carpentry, tailoring and shoe-making; of those three trades every boy had his choice of the one he preferred, and at which he worked after school hours.”
In the only incident of drama in Sandham’s book, friends William (Deaf) and Henry (hearing) are alone together in the streets of London and become separated. Henry is stunned insensible in a road traffic collision and immediately kidnapped as a gentleman’s son worthy of a ransom for recovery. William first follows, then procures his friend’s rescue and at the episode’s denouement tells the kidnappers: “I knew what you said, and I believe you understood me, though you pretended not." Sandham has Henry note: “The Asylum has been an advantage to me, for if William had not been educated there, I should have had no one to speak for me when I was senseless, and no one would have known to whom I belonged.”
Contributions to this series are welcomed, particularly if you are working with records of Deaf people or with Deaf people. If you are interested, in the first instance, please email diversityandinclusion@archives.org.uk .