Australian Deaf History No.4 - Deaf schools in the late 1800s
Transcription of Video
Stan Batson: Remember I told you about the Sydney deaf school? There will be another story about schools in Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania, which were opened 30 years after the ones in Melbourne and Sydney.
Queensland
A blind and deaf school was established in Queensland in 1893. 9 blind and 7 deaf students were taught in sign language for their first 4 years. A committee decided to use a combined system which used sign language, English spelling and oralism together. A special teacher from Melbourne joined the teaching staff at the school in Queensland. His name was Tom Semmens. In 1903, the school increased to 23 pupils.
Western Australia
A deaf school in Western Australia was different. It’s interesting to see why it was different. The school was opened in 1896 by William Thomson. He was a deaf man, and he began the school out of his home - just like Rose and Pattison. Thomson taught with the combined system but it was different from other states because he used American Sign Language (ASL), including its one-handed alphabet. You may know the sign for Perth - it comes from the letter ‘P’ in this one-handed alphabet. This one-handed ‘P’ is still used for Perth today, and that ‘P’ is also sometimes used in the British and Irish sign languages. Later, the school switched to the two-handed alphabet so it was the same as all the other schools in Australia.
Tasmania
In 1903, the Tasmanian blind school agreed to enroll deaf children. There were 75 deaf children enrolled. They followed Queensland’s combined system of sign language and English. It’s interesting to note that sign language was used exclusively only 30 years before - at the deaf schools in Melbourne and Sydney - before the committee insisted on the complicated combined method.
Bye, see you later.












