BSL video of this text (YouTube: opens in a new window)
Bristol’s first school for the Deaf and Dumb was a rented, residential house adapted to school use, and is one of the few historic Deaf school buildings in Bristol still in existence. The Orchard Street school was not a state school, but was privately run; state funding of Deaf education only began in Bristol in the late 1880s.
The first Master of the Institute was Matthew Robert Burns (1798–1879), the first born-deaf person to be appointed as a school Principal; Burns’s elder sister was Matron at the school and acted as his interpreter.
When the school opened it took in just four pupils: two boarders, and two day-pupils. Children were educated for free during the week, and adults could attend classes on Sundays. Within three months the school had attracted 15 pupils, and by the end of 1842, 20 pupils were attending. Teaching in 1843 recorded as ‘reading though the medium of Dactyology, or the Manual Alphabet, Printed Characters, Pictures, and Natural Objects – and in Writing, by the ordinary method – to these are added, Arithmetic, Geography, and Drawing.’ Pupils also sat exams once a year.
The Bristol Institution for the Deaf and Dumb left for new premises because there was no playground at Orchard Street.
For an overview of Deaf education in Britain in BSL (with subtitles), follow this link: http://www.bslzone.co.uk/watch/history-of-deaf-education/history-deaf-education-1/?subs=subs