In 1760, Thomas Braidwood set up the first British school for the deaf in Edinborough, he initially accepted just one deaf pupil into his school, and the system soon showed success by teaching speech over the use of other forms of communication that was popular in the schools of France. By 1780 Braidwood had accepted twenty pupils and combined a method of oral and sign approch to deaf education, which granted Braidwood widespread acknoledgement for his work. In 1783 he opened a second school in London and established his nephew as the headmaster for the Old Kent Road Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb.
Briadwood was very secretive about his methods of teaching, in order to prevent compition, Thomas Hopkins Galludet, the farther of the first American deaf school once intended to visit the Braidwood school, but met with hostilities from the Braidwood family because of their secrecy.
It is an interesting concept that if Braidwood had not be so hostile to Gallaudet, then he may not have gone to France for the infomation he wished to gather, and instead of a sign language based on French origins in the USA, they would alternativly have a sign language heavly based on nineteenth century BSL, and the comparrisons would perhaps be dramatically lessened.
Deaf schools in Britian continued to expand, by 1870 there was 22 schools established throughout the country. These schools were still part of the 'Brainwood dynasty', set and and run by the extended Brainwood family and financed by private and charitable benevolence. These schools tended to reflect asylums more likes school insititutions, they offered protective places for deaf people, hidden from the outside world and often overcrowed and unsanitary. Commonly leavers failed to find employment with their education and were resolved to begging.
These schools began to be heavily criticised in the late 1870's, New ideas were absent, inititive was lacking and these low achievements went underdeveloped, which allowed the use of Signing to be associated with the failers of the schools. This influcened the significant changes to deaf enducation that occured. In 1877 the head teachers of deaf schools met to discuss reforms, which led to the development of day classes for deaf adults and children, meaning a more accessible means of education, not just boarding insitutions, by 1880 577 deaf children attended day classes throughout Britian (Bris.ac.co.uk). This was one of several influcnes to the changing deaf education system, the cataylst was perhaps the Second International Congress of Education of Education of the Deaf in Milan 1880 which "was best remembers for the sweeping 'reforms' that followed it" (deaf in America 34) and secured the wide disaproval of manual methods of teaching and promoted a strictly oral approach.
Harlan Lane described the impact of the Milan conference:
Excerpts from Harlan Lane ‘When the Mind Hears’
(pp.376) Incredible as it may seem, it took only a small clique of hearing educators and businessmen, late in the last century, to release a tidal wave of oralism theat swept over Western Europe, drowning all its signing communities.
The conference was not just significant in defining British deaf education for the next 100 years, it affected the entire world deaf community, and therefore the USA. Those who attended the conference were there to discuss topics such as school buildings, teaching and the methods and they concluded by passing 8 resolutuions, one being the use of oral teaching methids in class rooms and the agreemtn to discourage sign language. This resolution passed 160 to 4, but in Britian opposition was prominent, deaf teachres subsequently lost their jobs, the cost of deaf education increased rapidly and other effects were numerous. In 1890 Francis Maginn founded the British Deaf and Dumb Association (BDDA) to fight the use of the oral method in teaching. (the 'dumb' was dropped from the title in 1971, creating the BDA we are familiar with today). However the establishedment of the British Association of Teachers of the Deaf in the 1870s, and several acts of goverment including the Blind and Deaf Childrens Act of September 1893 that set better provisions for their elementary education and endorsed the oral method, had the impact of confirming oral methods of teaching over traditional sign language in schools for the deaf were established in Britian.
The use of these methods lasted 100 years in Britian, although achievements elsewhere in deaf education were present. Alexander Ewing was a notorious supporter of the oral method and in 1915 set up a training school for hearing teachers for the deaf at Manchester University, he did however advocate pre-school education standards for parents and set precedents of guidance for families with deaf children. The 1930's and 40's experienced the oral method in its full strenght, espeically with the development of hearing aids and the avalibilty of them through the NHS.
UP TO by 1870..... in the print out.
When the Mind Hears: A History of the Deaf Harlan Lane
The new encyclopedia of social reform: including all social-reform movements ... edited by William Dwight Porter Bliss, Rudolph Michael Binder
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Damned for their difference: the cultural construction of deaf people as ... By Jan Branson, Don Miller
Journals of the House of Lords, Volume 125 By Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords
Deafness and education: the journal of the British Association of Teachers of the Deaf, Volume 22, Issues 1-3
Oak Lodge was established by the London County Council and opened on August 28, 1905 as a school for deaf girls aged 11–16. Many of the girls were boarders. It was sited in a beautiful old house on Nightingale Lane which used to belong to the curator of Kew Gardens. There were lots of old oak trees in the garden, so the school was called Oak Lodge. There was another school for Jewish deaf children next door, actually on the site where the school is now, which had started in 1899. There was no contact between the two schools for the first 50 years - there was a high wall separating them. All the staff at that first Oak Lodge were women and they were all hearing. They never used Sign Language. It is interesting to look at the old records and see what the girls were taught - they learned English, Art, some P.E., a little Maths, but lots of cookery, needlework and laundry - they were really being prepared to become servants and domestic workers. Many came from poor homes where they had not been well fed and illness was common. The school thought that an important part of its job was to give the girls plenty of fresh air and better food to help them become stronger. There were about 50 girls in the school. At the start of the Second World War in 1939 it was decided that the school must be evacuated. All the pupils and staff moved to a camp near Bognor. In 1940 there were bombs near the camp so they decided they would have to move again, this time to Northampton. It must have been a very difficult time - looking at the old school records for one month in 1940, there were over 100 alarms because of bombs. At the end of the war, in 1945, everyone returned to London, but first they had to repair the Oak Lodge building because 2 bombs had hit the school during the war. In 1955 Oak Lodge became a day school. There was another school for deaf boys in Anerley, near Crystal Palace. This closed in 1957 and the boys transferred to Oak Lodge, so from that time it was a day school for about 60 boys and girls. There was still no Sign Language used by the staff. If anyone was naughty they were hit with the cane. The punishment book from those days makes for interesting reading. One entry from 1948 says: "rudeness and impudence - 2 strokes ". In 1965 the Jewish school closed and then in 1968 both schools were demolished and the present building - the new Oak Lodge - was built. There were 40 pupils, boys and girls, and the hostel started for children to sleep there Monday to Friday each week. There were just 6 full-time teachers with 3 part-time teachers of art, mime and music. It is interesting to read that the whole school cost just £241,000 to build, and all the furniture and equipment cost only £23,000. There was still very little signing in the school though the children signed amongst themselves. There were no deaf teachers. In the new Oak Lodge, for the first time, deaf children started to take and pass real exams - that had not happened before. The school became very successful. 1977 was the Queen's Silver Jubilee Year. Two schools in all of London were chosen for her to visit as part of the celebration, one of which was Oak Lodge. Preparations went on for months - rooms and corridors were painted, new tarmac in the playground, and they even built a new toilet in case the Queen wanted to use it during her visit! However, she retained her queenly waters and only stayed in the school for 40 minutes, meeting children and staff and signing the visitors' book. The Head Boy had just finished work experience at the factory where the Queen's handbags are made and he talked to her about that. The Headteacher from 1986 to 2009 was Peter Merrifield. In 1991 Wandsworth's Hearing-Impaired Service was established; In 1992 - the first 16 Plus students started at the school; in 1995 - the 16 Plus Centre opened; in 1996 the charity "Aim HI" was established.
