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 17th 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.