Deafness and Great War Veterans

Deafness and Great War Veterans

In this blog post, MMU PhD student Jemma Lakmaker shares some of her research on the experiences of veterans who experienced hearing loss or deafness after serving in the Great War.

 

After the armistice of the First World War in 1918, 1.6 million soldiers returned to Britain, wounded and with life-changing disabilities. 2.4% of the British army returned with hearing loss or deafness.  Soldiers who experienced deafness or hearing loss had a unique experience after the war compared to soldiers with other war-caused disabilities.  One of the main differences in experience was due to the invisible nature of deafness. The deafened soldier did not receive the immediate sympathy or compassion that was evoked by the severe visceral injuries that civilians saw every day, bringing shock and acting as a visual reminder of the harsh realities of what these men had sacrificed for their country.

 

One of the main challenges for deaf veterans was that the government did not view deafness as a serious disability. This was because deafness was not as obvious or visually disturbing as other war-related injuries and was not considered as disabling as injuries such as limb loss or facial disfigurements. In 1919, Douglas McMurtrie wrote ‘deafness is really more an embarrassment than a physical handicap’, [1] promoting the opinion that the deaf body was functional rather than disabled. Consequently, the disabled soldier was commonly overlooked by the British public in addition to the British government. Public sympathy often led to the disabled soldier receiving official support from the government. After seeing the disturbing visual reminders of the horrors of war and the sacrifices made by British soldiers, the public put a strain on the government arguing that they owed them a ‘debt of honour’. [2] As the deafened soldier’s injuries were not visible, they were excluded from this public advocacy and determination to secure them government support.

A large number of deaf ex-servicemen did not receive pensions as medical professionals reported that their deafness was not caused or aggravated by the war. [3]  After medical examinations, medical professionals gave their medical opinion about if the disability was caused or worsened by the war. There was no uniform method of testing hearing loss during the early twentieth century,  therefore to successfully receive a pension, the ex-serviceman relied on the medical professional believing that his deafness was not a pre-existing medical condition. For many deafened soldiers, this resulted in them being rejected for a disability pension.  For example, one ex-serviceman was not given a pension as the doctor stated his deafness was a pre-existing condition, despite the man’s pre-war doctor confirming that he had never before experienced hearing loss.[4] This oversight by medical professionals resulted in many deaf ex-servicemen not receiving the financial support that would have significantly benefited them.

The deafened soldier struggled to find employment and were labelled a ‘problem social group’, associated with laziness and idleness.[5] It was believed that a soldier who did not gain employment after returning from the war was no longer ‘continuing to do his duty.’[6] As the deafened soldier was viewed as having a functional, not disabled, body, he was viewed as having many jobs available to him, and his ability to earn a living wage was not impacted. As such, if a deafened soldier was not in employment, it was perceived to be due to their own choice and indolence. However, it was not easy for the deafened soldier to find employment, and his earning capacity was severely impacted. In addition to receiving minimal support in readjusting to their new bodies and navigating post-war society, employers believed that the deafened soldier could not be employed. A document from the Ministry of Labour in 1918 stated, ‘men suffering from partial defects of speech and hearing…could not be employed among their fellows…the need of minor attention and the fear of ridicule alone are themselves sufficient to prevent their employment.’[7] The challenges associated with deafness in the workplace deterred employers from hiring the deafened soldier. Therefore, the deafened soldier was viewed negatively for not finding employment but were inhibited from being employed due to the nature of their disability.

The deafened soldier had different experiences after the war compared to those with more visible disability such as limb loss or facial disfigurements. The deafened soldier was not given as much support from the government and medical professionals who were responsible for their care upon their return from war. Finding employment was extremely difficult due to the negative perceptions of deafness, and as a result, the deafened soldier was viewed as idle and lazy. With many deaf veterans struggling to find employment or receive a government pension, and receiving less public sympathy than their visibly disabled comrades, the deafened soldier was at a clear disadvantage navigating the post-war experience.

References

[1] Douglas McMurtrie, The Disabled Soldier, (The Macmillan Company, 1919), p.134.
[2] Deborah Cohen, The War Come Home: Disabled Veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914-1939, (University of California Press, 2001), p.15.
[3] PIN 26/205; MH 106/2082/328; MH 106/2093/334.
[4] Ministry of Pensions, War pensions records: Frank Ernest Adams, 1915-1919 (PIN 26/247), The National Archives, London.
[5] Coreen McGuire, (2016) The ‘Deaf Subscriber’ and the Shaping of the British Post Office’s Amplified Telephones 1911-1939, Ph.D. The University of Leeds, [Online] [accessed 24/01/2024].
[6] McMurtrie, The Disabled Soldier, p.34.
[7] Ministry of Labour, ‘Correspondence concerning demobilisation and the position of the disabled soldier in industry’, (LAB 2/272/DR177/3/1918), TNA, London.
[8]Image from US National Library of Medicine, via https://archive.org/details/101560506.nlm.nih.gov/mode/2up.
[9]Imperial War Museum, IWM PST13211.

Jemma Lakmaker is a second-year PhD student at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her research examines the experiences of soldiers returning from the First World War (FWW) with hearing loss or deafness.

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History of Modern BSL

History of Modern BSL

Peter R. Brown explains the history of modern British Sign Language (BSL)

 

14 November 1792 is an important date for the British deaf community, in which to remember with pride, when the first cohort of 6 deaf newcomers and Joseph Watson came together. Joseph, their hearing master who knew so much about the deaf, played a key role during a crucial turning point in Deaf history – a ‘Big Bang’ moment. This subsequently resulted in the creation of the new and successful working-class community where deaf and hearing people would gather, share news and gossip using the same language – the modern British Sign Language (BSL).

The new Asylum, Britain’s first free school for the deaf, was named the “Asylum for the Support and Education of the Deaf and Dumb of the Poor”, situated in the Fort Place buildings, Grange Road, Bermondsey, south London. This first cohort would be the first occurrence of mass eduction of the deaf and poor. Scholars were educated for 5 years here, before moving onto various areas of the country (mainly in Lancashire and Yorkshire) where they would continue to flourish whilst passing on their education and language.

The school was founded by the brainchild, Rev. John Townsend, a Calvinist Methodist minister. The aim, to render “them, according to their various capacities, conversable and intelligents, able to receive and express ideas; to furnish them with moral and religious information” and plant them in “the germ of the present Society”.

By 1835 approximately 12,000 deaf people were living in Britain, and roughly one-sixth of them utilised BSL with some variant signs, perhaps similarly to what we see today. However by 1920, there were 12 different school sign languages – these included Manchester and Birmingham signs, along with the ‘dominant’ old London Asylum sign, the standard BSL. Roughly half of some 35,000 deaf people utilised the latter at missions where they had joined, obviously due to the infamous Milan conference 40 years prior, responsible for disrupting standard BSL. In 1889, Douglas Tilden, a renowned deaf American sculptor, visited Britain and spoke about the “disparity” of this language.

The missioners utilised the standard BSL through the nature of mobility around missions across Britain, and fought hard in an attempt to preserve it by publishing a small series of the “most popular signs” dictionaries in popular magazine, The British Deaf Times and other deaf publications. An example being The British Deaf Times with the “Family Circle Signs” page featuring Maxwell Stewart Fry demonstrating each sign, printed in 1912 and then reprinted again just before WW2. In around 1902, Fry met with former London Asylum scholar (1841-1846) and missioner, John Pugh Gloyn. Fry happily utilised this “grateful exponent of the old school sign language” – the standard BSL when communicating with him, at that time, Fry was aware of “the different system of signs that prevail”.

The first usage of the term British Sign Language (BSL) in an academc publication was likely to have been by Califorian sociolinguist, Aaron V. Cicourel in 1974.

There is a gem of a passage in Watson’s Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, published in 1809. Watson states that deaf newcomers from hearing families are fortunate enough to “meet with an attentive companion, or two, especially where two or more deaf persons happen to be brought up together, it is astonishing what approaches they will make towards the construction of an artificial language” of signs. The 5 deaf newcomers from the hearing families were fortunate to learn from their master, Watson, but also their schoolmate, Sarah Pounceby. Pounceby had deaf siblings who unknowlingly, through shared signs and time spent growing up together, contributed to modern BSL, assisted in it’s formation and saw it flourish. Huge thanks go to Watson who arranged and brought Pounceby and the 5 other deaf newcomers together. Having spent the first few days simply learning from them, he then began to mould their signs, before introducing them to other “arbitrary signs” (old BSL) from Braidwood’s deaf private Academy in Hackney. Watson had worked there in 1784 for some 7 years.

In Watson’s 1809 passage, he states that he bowed to John Wallis’ early 17^th century deaf education philosphy which insisted that we “must endeavour to learn” deaf newcomers’ sign language in order to teach them English with convenience. However, Watson didn’t see this “rude and imperfect language” as a language equivalent to the English language, he believed it to be an essential part of teaching English. He opposed Signed English and stated it was “more fanciful” and “useless”.

Awareness of the Asylum’s first cohort, really began for me around 1993, after reading Patrick Beaver’s 1992 book A Tower of Strength. It was this book that intrigued me. This fascinating book covers 200 years worth of history on Asylum in London and Margate. The latter, where I myself was a pupil from 1967. It was not until 2019 at a reclamation yard near Oxford, that I would rescue three tons of 1810 cast iron railings that was the perimeter of the second Asylum (1809) in Kent Road, Southwark. Here modern BSL was a mere 18 years old and it’s at this point where my interest piqued again, spurring me on and subsequently brought me spiritually closer to the first cohort. I decided to do some more investigating and with the 2020 lockdown providing me with more free time, I was able to research the history of BSL. I’m interested in how the research can help us better understand and in turn, make the world a better place for both deaf and hearing people.

Peter R. Brown is a BSL Teacher Co-ordinator with CityLit. 

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