More history documents from Coventry Sports Association for the Disabled

Some history of the Coventry Sports Association For The Disabled

The roots of charity in Birmingham

From the Preface of the Index to Birmingham Charities 1983.

Giving to beggars and to the poor seems always to have been accepted as a moral and proper way of life, and charity was accordingly urged as one of the guiding principles of life. What is - or is not - charity, a charitable purpose or a charitable object are therefore questions which have troubled philosophers, religious leaders and the like for many centuries.

The earliest recording of charitable dispositions for Birmingham folk seems to be for Yardley, when in 1335 John de Yeardley made over all his lands to the poor, and soon after, several other gifts were donated and some two hundred years later, in 1531, the Yardley Great Trust came into being. The Gild of the Holy Cross was founded in the reign of Richard II (1377 - 1379) and, after the Reformation, Edward VI restored the endowments of 1552 and utilised them for the Grammar Schools which bear his name. that period produced several other charities for Birmingham folk, viz. Lench's Trust in 1525, Rodes in 1527, and Thomas Bromwich in 1579, all of which survive today. In Sutton Coldfield the Bishop Vesey Grammar School (1527) and other Charities are also still extant.

The Statute of Charitable Uses was passed in 1601, under which Act ad hoc local committees were appointed to enquire into abuses, breaches of trust, etc. By 1786, the Old Parliamentary Reports contained much information about Birmingham charities, and in the first part of the 19th Century, Parliamentary Commissioners were appointed to enquire into every charity in the land, and several extracts from their Reports to Parliament which refer to ancient Birmingham Charities are included in this treatise.

In 1853 The Charitable Trusts Act set up both the Charity Commission and the Official Trustees of Charity Lands and Funds, and by the end of the century, the Charity Commissioners were playing a very important role in the shaping of charities and the use of charitable funds.

 

From 'cripples' on the pavements to the Community Health Council: Experiences of disability

An article which appeared in Pinpoint Magazine in the 1980s, written by a member of West Midlands Council of Disabled People named John Hall from Edgbaston:

In the 1930's when I was a schoolboy living in Malvern, Worcestershire, I had my first encounter with disabled people, an experience which made me very sad. In the main street an ex-merchant navy hero from the First World War with no arms and only half his legs squatted on the pavement every weekday selling matches and shoelaces. He received no pension and had no other income. I was old enough to not only know that his experience had been horrific, but also to treat him as a human being, with respect.

I also recall blind George, who walked daily more than 2 miles to play a small organ at St Anne's Well, a building on the way to the top of the Malvern Hills, which is still standing. Although totally blind, he gave great pleasure with his music to thousands of people and, quite rightly, his name has been commemorated with a plaque as a permanent memorial. He was a good musician, and always bright and cheerful, a man of tremendous strength of character.

Little did I know at the time, that within 10 years, I too would become disabled and that, even later, my interest in the cause of disabled people would be strengthened by activities as a member of the Central Birmingham Community Health Council.

I make no apology for referring now briefly to my war experience, this part of my story has a bearing on the social work which has become an important part of my life.

Like many teenagers, I joined the R.A.F. in 1940, hoping to do my 'bit' for the country, with no thought of what might lie ahead. But in 1942 my flying days came to an abrupt end, when I was shot down into the English Channel, and picked up by a naval air-sea rescue boat. After a short time at Dover Hospital, I was transferred to Halton R.A.F. Hospital in Buckinghamshire, where I was given immense care and attention, after countless operations, by consultants, doctors and not least by the nursing officers of Princess Mary's Royal Air Force Nursing Service. I shall never forget or fail to appreciate their love and help to enable me to tackle civilian life, when initially I had to learn not only to walk again, but to integrate into a society, which barely understood or could face physically crippling disablement. I had to learn that to accept that sport and running would never again be possible, but with the coming of a happy marriage, and later children, and a good job to return to, life began to look up. For whatever the pain and anguish of my war experiences I was lucky to be alive, and appreciate that there were many men and women far more disabled than I.

I was soon to meet a man blinded in the R.A.F., and to become a personal friend. He was probably the most brilliant man to pass through St Dunstan's, and with his immense sixth sense has done more for the blind people than any living man today. He is one of many disabled people that I've met over the years and it is encouraging to know how much is being done by the growth of so many caring organisations.

Since my retirement, I have been able to further my interest in this activity through the Central Birmingham Community Health Council, one of many Councils formed in 1974, which has statutory powers within the National Health Service. The Council, which is non-political and non-sectarian in its outlook, consists of appointed members of all classes and races, nominated by the City Council, the West Midlands Regional Health Authority, and various charitable and social work bodies. It is known as the patients' watchdog, and that simply is its brief.

The activities are varied: regular checking visits to hospitals, membership of health care planning teams, representation as observers on their District Health Authority, and the Family Practitioner Committee. The Council has a say in any proposed substantial change to the local Health Service, e.g. the closure of wards, or even whole hospitals, to which they have a statutory right to put forward counter-proposals. They can even organise campaigns e.g. for the improvement of interpreting services in hospitals, to set up working parties to look at health care for disabled, elderly and handicapped people. They have advised patients and their families how to seek information and how to make complaints.

For disabled people, the Council was instrumental in the issue of the booklet "And how am I supposed to get in?", is constantly campaigning for better access and services, and continues to campaign for equal opportunities for employment in the Health Service.

Never let it be said again that a disabled person is no use in the community. Believe me, in all walks of life they are offering much, and still have more to offer, and I hope that those of you who have no impairment of health or limb, who read this article, will have learnt something of their efforts and in turn consider what they can offer to help many thousands of people who are less fortunate than themselves.

John Hall

Edgbaston

Birmingham

Building Bridges: December 1986

Another edition of Building Bridges, the newsletter of Birmingham Disability rights Group from December 1986:

Editorial

May we begin by wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! This will be the last BUILDING BRIDGES of 1986 and the next issue will be out at the end of January 1987.

We felt that with Christmas only two weeks away it would be unproductive to hold a members' meeting this month. The next meeting will, therefore, be:

WEDNESDAY, 14 January, 1987 at 7:30 PM in Room 45, Doctor Johnson House, 40 Bull Street, B4

Given the time of year we are bringing you up-to-date with Minutes and plans that may have escaped you for one reason or another.

In the next issue we hope to open the debate on questions we will need to resolve in 1987. Because we seek to build an open, active and democratic Group it is important that people respond to the issues raised in our meetings or in Building Bridges. It is no good allowing the Management Committee, workers or a few active members to do everything on our behalf. To be passive means accepting the usual oppressive roles people usually fall into.

In 1987 we hope to see more new members and some of the old ones play a greater role in BDRG. Our aim in 1987 is to turn the idea of a Resource Centre from a dream into reality. We will only do this by working together!

Social

Our fundraising social turned out to be small and selective. Despite the lack of support from members we did raise some money - but a number of individuals made a financial commitment to make the social possible in the first place.

May we, on your behalf, thank them for their efforts. May we also ask why so many agreed to hold a social and then failed to turn up?

Liberation Network?

On 6 December, Brenda, Bob and Alun went down to London to discuss the situation facing the Liberation Network of People With Disabilities. For over a year little had been heard of this national organisation and its magazine, In from the Cold. The outcome of the meeting was to note that the old-style Network had died a natural death and that fresh steps were needed to create a new organisation. The next meeting will take place in late February. We'll keep you informed.

Constitution

A draft constitution has been written up and will be discussed at the next Management Committee. If anyone wants to see this before the next meeting please contact Bob. After the M. C. has discussed it will be circulated to members. We will also prepare a paper on charity status and trusts.

Disability Resource Centre

Since the Council meeting on the fourth, Bob has travelled far and wide with members of the Economic Development Unit to investigate computer-based educational resources available to people with disabilities. This tour is part of the build-up to presenting a paper on the DRC but it also has wider implications for the people's educational needs. Amongst the many educational projects was an interesting shopping by computer which gave us many new and wonderful ideas. Bob also visited Lambeth Accord which has some similarities to the DRC. At present the Day Centres in Birmingham are being visited by Bob with a view to gain new support and more filled in questionnaires.

January's Group Meeting Agenda

On the agenda of January's meeting of the following items:

Welcome, Apologies, Management Committee's Report, Workers Reports, A.O.B, Video of Link plus a discussion on the language of disability.

Action Committees?

The Development Worker has submitted to the Management Committee a paper entitled Which Way Forward for BDRG? In his paper Bob argues that it is vital that we have full participation from the members if we are going to build BDRG. One suggestion from him is that we start to develop committees to look at fundraising, transport and media coverage of disability related issues. Clearly, these suggestions will be debated through the pages of Building Bridges and it is hoped members will respond either in support or against the idea.

Help Required

Are there any members willing to go on a "help list" for us? We would like to know what help you can offer, and how often and how to reach you. If you can offer some spare time please contact Bob.

What Is Disability?

There is now a paper available which takes up the language and terms used in relation to disability. If you would like a copy send a S.A.E to Bob/Maria.

Mobility Plus Bus Pass

Did you know that you can now claim mobility allowance and have a bus pass too? Contact Social Services for details.

Transport Fund

We have just claimed a grant to cover transport costs for a short period of time. It may be possible to hire a tail-lift van if enough members require it. Could people contact Bob as soon as possible with their needs.

BDRG Badges

There are still a number of BDRG members' badges available. They cost £1.50 for waged and £1 for others.

DRC Questionnaire

It is important that individual questionnaires are returned to the office or to the meeting on 14 January so that we can write it up. If any full members still require a copy contact us as soon as you can.

Disability history: The sword-thrower with no limbs

Etchings captured people with disabilities before photographs

By David M Turner

Dr David Turner, from the University of Swansea, specialises in social and cultural history.

He is the author of Disability in 18th Century England, published in 2012, and historical advisor to this new series of short documentaries.

Using previously unused sources, a new daily 10-part BBC Radio 4 series uncovers personal accounts of disabled people's lives, stretching back to the Middle Ages. These challenge the idea that all stories were of triumph or tragedy.

It is often assumed that prior to World War I, when the return of thousands of disabled servicemen forced disability onto the political agenda, disabled people were hidden from history, shut away behind the walls of asylums with their voices silenced.

Now this silence is being broken by a new generation of disability historians.

Diaries, letters, advertisements and memoirs are now being used to access the voices of our ancestors, voices that challenge our preconceptions of how disability was treated and about what it meant to be disabled.

Disability is part of my own family history and as an academic historian I've always been interested in the lives of people traditionally left out of the historical record. In my research I have found that, rather than being hidden, disability was everywhere once I started looking for it.

In the 18th Century, disabled people with the highest profile were "freak show" performers who profited from public fascination in the varieties of the human body. We often think about such people as the victims of cruel exploitation, but it seems this was not necessarily the case.

Disabled performers could also be successful entrepreneurs, in control of their image and destiny.

Matthew Buchinger was known as "the little man of Nuremburg". He lived from 1674 to 1739 and achieved fame in England during the 1720s as a highly skilled artist, musician and card player, despite being born without arms or legs.

His disabled body was a source of pride rather than embarrassment, and a lucrative source of income that propelled him up the social ladder.Buchinger performed for royalty and the nobility in London and engraved several self-portraits, which make no attempt to hide his physical difference.

His shows in which he "performed such wonders as have never been done by any but Himself" were designed to challenge his audience's expectations about the capabilities of a limbless person.

He impressed them by playing bagpipes and trumpet, performing tricks with cups and balls and live birds, was an expert at sword throwing, origami and more. There seems to have been genuine admiration for "freak" performers like Buchinger, but 18th Century attitudes towards disability could also be cruel and unsentimental.

Buchinger was proud of his body

Born in 1695, William Hay became a Member of Parliament for Seaford. He had a curved spine and restricted growth.

Hay wrote the autobiographical Deformity: An Essay (1754) in which he described the casual insensitivity of others towards him and mockery he had to endure as a disabled person when walking the streets of London.

In response, Hay sought to fashion a positive identity that made a moral virtue of physical difference. He challenged those who might see "deformity" as an illness by highlighting his own good health.

Living with difference had acted as a spur to self-improvement, making him better able to cope with life's adversity and more sensitive to the torments of others.

Direct, humorous and strikingly modern, his account shows how the search for identity has long been an important part of disabled people's history. His primary concern was with disciplining the able-bodied poor and using the workhouses to make them economically productive.

Hay did not see himself as part of a community of disabled people and, as an MP, did not campaign on behalf of his fellow "deformed". He thought of his own circumstances as being preferable to that of the "deaf, the dumb, the lame and the blind".

Though Hay thought of himself as separate, by the 19th Century, disabled people began to recognise the importance of banding together for political action.

The series reveals the hardships and prejudice faced by disabled people in the past and will highlight their achievements. But it recognises that the history of disability is neither simply a story of tragic neglect nor triumph over adversity.

For the most part, disability history is about people's experiences of getting by and surviving in environments that could be ill-suited to their needs.

Engraving of an old sailor with a wooden leg, drinking in a tavern

In 1864, Hippolyte Van Lendeghem - a young Belgian woman living in Clapham, south-west London - wrote a remarkable book, Charity Mis-Applied, decrying the educational segregation she had been subjected to as a blind person.

Van Lendeghem challenged the culture of low expectation that condemned the blind to menial careers, arguing that philanthropy ought to provide funds to supplement the incomes of disabled workers, allowing them to participate more equally.

She also argued that the "four-sensed" deaf and blind could not rely on their "five-sensed" neighbours to understand their experiences adequately enough to respond to their needs.

"We have been educating the blind and the deaf and the dumb in segregated schools," she wrote in 1865, "when we ought to have been educating the members of society, who have all their senses, how to understand the peculiarities and necessities of their four-sensed relatives."

Disability: A New History starts on BBC Radio 4 this Monday at 13:45 BST and can be heard every weekday at that time for two weeks. It is presented by Peter White, who is blind.

Presented by Peter White, Disability: A New History is a 10-part series airing at 13:45 BST every weekday on BBC Radio 4, from Monday 27 May

Original article on BBC News website

History of Disability Arts

This short piece about the history of Disability Arts by Katherine Walsh appeared in the Magazine of the Coalition of Disabled People Birmingham in September 2005:

I became involved in Disability Arts at the beginning of the 1990s following a cabaret in the Birmingham International Women's Festival in 1990. This came about following a meeting that I had with the head of the then women's unit who was keen to see disability (previously in­visible) put on the agenda. Clare Graydon James, Wanda Barbara and Kate Portal took part in the cabaret, supported by Johnny Crescendo. It was performed under the auspices of the Birmingham Disability Rights Group.

In the beginning, Disability Arts performance took place around London (London Disability Arts Forum) and Liverpool (North West Disability Arts Forum). When a small pot of money became available via the EC, a national conference of disabled people was set up in Lancaster with a view to having a national committee. This is now the National Disability Arts Forum with an office in Newcastle on Tyne. NDAF publishes a weekly magazine "Etcetera" available free by e-mail. To get this phone NDAF on 0191-261 1628 or e-mail silvie@ndaf.org

 

Many people saw Disability Arts as a campaigning tool after the manner in which art and music had been used in the Anti-Apartheid struggle in Southern Africa. There was literature and conferences surrounding this debate at the time.

 

Disability artists appeared regularly at the annual conference of BCODP and at rallies in Trafalgar Square and elsewhere in London. Disability performance figured prominently in the two "Block Telethon" campaigns. Artist, Tony Heaton, was commissioned to do a live art performance in which he shattered a pyramid of collecting boxes belonging to the major disability charities who collect money on our behalf, get jobs and build up their own empires.

 

Katherine Walsh

This article was written by Paddy Masefield for Disability Now in 2008

Funding cut 'sounds death knell' for disability arts

The decision by the Arts Council to cut funding to arts organisations beggars belief and flies in the face of a recent vote of confidence, says Paddy Masefield

 

So, it’s official now. Disability arts are to be dead and buried in the 21st century. That‘s the decision of Arts Council England (ACE). ACE’s London regional office wrote to the London Disability Arts Forum (LDAF) on 16 December, advising that their grant would be terminated on 1 April, 2008. Some might see this as peculiarly Scrooge-like timing.

 

But what makes this decision more surprising is that ACE has recently heard that it is itself to receive a larger than expected government grant for the coming four years. Yet it has decided to axe one fifth of all its clients in order to give more to the others. Such action is unprecedented in the Arts Council’s 63-year history. And it is largely the small organisations, including not only LDAF but also five other disability arts organisations who are being sliced to top up the Christmas stockings of the largest.

 

Should the disability constituency be concerned about this action? And have they ever expressed a consultative view? The answers to both are – yes. Firstly, the loss of LDAF will mean the closure of the UK’s only national disability arts magazine – Art Disability Culture – and an end to the country’s only disability film festival.

 

But the second reason is even more interesting. Because as recently as 3 December, LDAF and the Office for Disability Issues had hosted a debate at Tate Modern, chaired by Melvyn Bragg, entitled: ‘Should disability and Deaf arts be dead and buried in the twenty-first century?’ To which, after a fascinating two hours, the packed audience, largely composed of England’s leading disabled arts practitioners, voted overwhelmingly ‘No’. To be followed by the unanimous endorsement of a second motion: ‘We call upon the Arts Council to endorse this by committing itself to increased funding in the 21st century’. As the closing speaker, my comments were eerily prescient: “If ACE makes us wait three to five years for a promised financially committed policy for disabled people in the arts, then at current rates of extinction there will quite seriously be no disability arts movement left.”

 

• Paddy Masefield is a writer and speaker. His last book was STRENGTH: Broadsides from Disability on the Arts (2006).

Ruth Wolf

A name that was well-known amongst disabled people and service providers in Birmingham back in the 1970s and 1980s was Mrs Ruth Wolf.

Ruth Wolf was a disabled person who was very active in a Birmingham based organisation called the Midlands Council For Preparatory Training Of The Disabled. Founded in 1957 the organisation worked closely with the rehabilitation service of the NHS in Birmingham to support people with acquired impairment to re-train for new careers, professions and occupations.

Another of the organisation's objectives was 'to prepare for the time when active re-training can commence with employers or various training centres' and also 'to help people to find remunerative work at home'. Both of these objectives might indicate that prospects of being employed back in the late 1950s was in reality low.

The organisation's close links with the health service is perhaps indicated by the fact that the chair in the 1980s was a doctor, Dr R Hudson-Evans, whilst the vice-chair was Professor Edward Marsland.

In April 1977 the organisation, which had previously been known as The Midlands Preparatory Training Committee, aligned itself more closely with the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation (RADAR) which had been formed that year following the merger of the British Council for Rehabilitation of the Disabled and The Central Council for the Disabled.

Around this time Ruth Wolf was also the membership secretary of Disablement Income Group's Birmingham branch, founded in 1966 as well as being involved with the West Midlands Council for Disabled People, formed in 1977 and based at Moseley Hall Hospital.

Work Is Therapy - from the history of BITA Pathways, Birmingham

Below is the opening chapter of a book about the history of a local organisation called BITA Pathways founded in Birmingham in 1963. The organisation was established as the Birmingham Industrial Therapy Association by a psychiatric consultant, Dr Norman Imlah who was based at All Saints Hospital in Winson Green.

The first chapter of the book, published in 2003 gives a history of mental health services from the 1950s and the development of the 'work as therapy' concept: 
  

Chapter One

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

By the middle of the twentieth century the predominant care of the seriously mentally ill was contained, within Britain, in a large number of institutions, built mainly during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Over the years the majority of the population of these institutions, originally designated asylums, became permanent inhabitants. Some became permanent from the first admission, others from a second or third admission. A minority had a serious illness from which they had a full remission or had several admissions with remissions and relapses.

Well over half the permanent population of the institutions were diagnosed as having a form of an illness which came to be generally known as schizophrenia. Even today there is no clear agreement on whether schizophrenia is a single entity or a group of related illnesses. Whatever the differences in presentation the fate of the great majority was to occupy the long stay wards of the asylums with the prefix label of "Chronic".

Even by 1950 there seemed little prospect of this situation undergoing radical change. Despite attempts to treat schizophrenia by various methods, in particular from the nineteen thirties onwards, by insulin therapy, convulsive drugs, electro-shock therapy and brain surgery, the best that was achieved in the majority of cases was some temporary remission. Even before the advent of these treatments, there had been many approaches based on theories of causation which have been discarded. In Birmingham, between the wars, the theory of causation by focal sepsis was promoted vigorously, and ended with many patients losing their tonsils, teeth, appendices and other potential sources of infection, but still remained in the asylum with their illnesses unremitted.

Some serious illnesses did respond to new treatments. Some types of depression responded to electro-convulsive therapy, and psychotic illnesses brought on by the late effect of venereal disease, began to disappear after the advent of Penicillin killed the primary infection. Nevertheless, the post-war population of the asylums rose steadily and by the early nineteen fifties all of them were seriously overcrowded. This rise was not an indication of a rise in the incidence of serious mental illness, but was predominantly brought about by the improvements in treatment of physical illnesses through antibiotics.

Tuberculosis was a constant problem in large institutions and most asylums had their own sanatorium or provision made within a group of hospitals where one would care for the considerable number of patients who developed tuberculosis. In addition, outbreaks of other chest infections and intestinal infections played their part in keeping population numbers down. Once these conditions were largely eliminated as causes of death, the numbers and the ages of the mental hospital populations began to rise steadily with no corresponding levels of therapeutic improvement for the mental disorders.

From the outset there was a widespread recognition by the doctors and nurses in the asylums that work was therapeutic; that it did not cure any illnesses, but was beneficial by giving interest, meaning and a measure of fulfilment. If one reads the annual reports of many of these institutions there are references in the earliest of these reports to the benefits of work. The first medical superintendent of the Birmingham City Lunatic Asylum (latterly All Saints Hospital) refers regularly to the therapeutic benefits of meaningful activity, both work and recreational.

Work for the inmates took a number of forms, depending upon any special skills, and relative stabilities. Many became regular employees in the various hospital departments such as kitchens, gardens, carpenter's shop, upholsterer's shop and all the various other departments which existed within the virtually self-contained communities. In the process they contributed significantly to the economy of the establishment. Payments were generally in the form of pocket money, in kind (usually cigarettes) or by special privileges, such as having their own ward key. Others less skilled, but still capable of working daily were put into squads which kept the grounds tidy, cleaned the wards and corridors or more prestigiously worked in the hospital farm.

Many asylums ran their own farms with a farm manager and a squad of selected inmates, usually supervised by one or two attendants whose own background had been in farming. These farms were major contributors to food supplies in the asylum and the labour cost very little. However, there were still large numbers of the asylum population who were either too disturbed by the effects of their illness, or too apathetic after years of being locked away that they neither worked or played.

In the nineteen fifties, new and hitherto unforeseen means of treating schizophrenia changed this situation quite rapidly. It was preceded by the introduction of the National Health Service when all the asylums were taken over, and soon designated mental hospitals. Initially, most major mental hospitals had their own management committees, many of them run by a quite different type of person, with a different philosophy of care. The prevailing influence in the early days of the NHS came from the political left, deeply committed to the socialist ideology of "total care from the cradle to the grave".

In the six years between the advent of the NHS and the introduction of new ways of treating schizophrenia there was a change in attitude to patient workers. As the, then innocent, belief prevailed that the state would provide everything, the pressure to shore up the economy by patient labour was lessened, although in many hospital departments it continued. One of the early casualties were the hospital farms. It was said at All Saints Hospital that the decision to dispose of its farm, taken over with the hospital in 1948, came when the new management committee were informed that the prize bull, for which they had paid a considerable sum, was found to be infertile, and without offspring. The realisation that fecundity could not be purchased concentrated the minds of the committee that as managers of farms they were out of their depth.

For this, and different but analogous reasons, by 1954 a lot of the traditional occupations in the old asylum had disappeared along with the name. In 1954, two drugs, independently researched, were found, by chance, to produce remarkable improvements in the treatment of schizophrenia. One of these, Reserpine, did not survive for long because of it's side-effects, but the other, Chlorpromazine was the first of a range of drugs, initially called major tranquillisers, or neuroleptics, which are still the mainstay of treatment today. Despite their enormous significance they do not actually cure schizophrenia, and although they have been improved upon in various ways in the near fifty years since their introduction, there is still no true cure for this most destructive of illnesses.

The introduction of the drugs did however transform the course of the illness, and with it the whole ethos of the mental health hospital changed. Disturbed behaviour was greatly reduced and destructive symptoms eliminated or suppressed. It became evident that many previously seriously disturbed patients were now well enough to leave hospital and re-enter society.

It was from this background that industrial therapy units developed. Improved treatment, overcrowded mental hospitals and a lack of facilities to observe and acquire work skills led to the setting up of workshops and factories in many hospitals in Britain. As early as 1955 a survey of industrial therapy units in Europe was reported in the Lancet. The authors envisaged the mental hospital of the future as "a school for social learning where the psychotic, discarded by society as a whole" would acquire the social and work skills to return to the community or live at an enhanced level within the hospital.

Although the majority of the units in Britain started inside the mental hospital and many continued thus, for some the ideal position was to take the industrial unit outside the hospital. The pioneer in this development was Dr. Donal Early, Medical Superintendent of Glenside Hospital, Bristol who in 1960 formed a private company, The Industrial Therapy Organisation (Bristol) Ltd. Its objects were to provide a gradient of employment from projects in hospitals through more complex training at the factory, to independent employment, and combining with it social rehabilitation, preparing the long stay patient to resume ordinary life outside the hospital.

From these beginnings industrial therapy in Britain developed along independent and haphazard paths. No firm national policy was laid down, and it was left very much in the hands of local hospitals, and individuals in those hospitals, to develop the process. Many chose to continue their industrial therapy within the hospital, many providing a mixture of an industrial type unit in the hospital, traditional occupational therapy and domestic and other duties within the departments of the hospital. These hospital based units varied in size, and in the way they were run. Some hospitals ran the units with their nursing or occupational therapy staff whilst some employed supervisors with an industrial background to manage the hospital unit.

However, in different areas of the country, the Bristol model of an organisation providing training for work and social skills within the community was the preferred option. For the most part, like the hospital based industrial workshops, they sub-contracted work from local industry, reflecting the work that might be available to the rehabilitee. Some concentrated on marketing their own goods notably Cheadle Royal Industries Ltd in Manchester where three quarters of their production concentrated on the manufacture and marketing of paper carnival goods, rosettes, cake frills etc. Most developed a mixture of sub-contracted local industry and production of own products with, in most cases, more emphasis on the former because it was easier to develop and readily available.

It was against this background that the Birmingham Industrial Therapy Association was formed in 1963 and subsequently developed. It was not the first, but in its intent and constitution it took the first, at Bristol, as its model. It was therefore one of the early pioneers of this type of approach and a major contributor to the retraining of people leaving hospitals, many after many years, and returning them to the community, able to take their place in that community. Like all the others, it developed over the years, its own distinctive approach, an approach which has had to be periodically re-evaluated and restructured to meet ever-changing patterns of care and economic changes.

Today most of the old asylums, or mental hospitals as they became, are closed, and with their closure, their industrial therapy units. The various industrial therapy associations have disappeared also over the years, with one exception, the Birmingham Industrial Therapy Association.

It is about to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of its formation. As the sole survivor of those pioneers it seems an appropriate time to tell the story of its formation and subsequent history.

Blogging the Project - June 2013

The blog and Facebook group have been very well received. Our Facebook group has 70 members after only one month so we are delighted with the response. We have also emailed the links to our colleagues at the UK Disability History Month project in London and also sent out a news release to our own networks.

I have been working with our apprentice Sarah who has made contact with the Deaf Cultural Centre in Birmingham to discuss recording some oral history interviews with older deaf people at their social activities. Sarah and I also had a conversation yesterday with one of her BSL interpreters who is familiar with the activities at the Deaf Cultural Centre. He suggested we email the managers to set up a date to go in and visit the group. Sarah has composed an email which I hope we can send later today.

Fingers crossed that this can take place in the next couple of weeks which will be a fantastic way of recording some interviews whilst starting as we mean to go on in terms of full accessibility. It will be great to have a filmed version of the BSL based interviews as well as an audio and text version.

Sarah has also made great strides in organising our disability history archive.   

Inaccuracies in deaf folklore

A short piece taken from the introduction to a history book - Britain's Deaf Heritage

The main drawback with many books about hearing people was that the deaf subjects who made them so famous scarcely got a mention: sometimes there was no mention at all.

In other cases, hearing people have in the past been guilty of embellishing events so that they 'saw' things as they wanted to see them, not what was reality. Into this category falls the story of St. John of Beverley.

In the Venerable Bede's Chronicles written about 685 A.D. St. John took a paternal interest in a number of sorely-afflicted persons so that he might minister to their wants. One of these was a youth who was unable to speak. On one occasion, John is said to have ordered the youth to thrust forth his tongue and show it to him (John) upon which John made the sign of the cross. This having been done, the youth was told to draw his tongue back and say 'Gae' (an old Saxon equivalent of Yeah).

Immediately the youth's tongue was loosened and he said what he had been ordered to say. St. John then added the names of the letters, 'say A', he said A: 'say B', he said this too, and so on through the alphabet, then some syllables and words. All through that day and the following night, the youth is said to have not ceased talking.

On the basis of this story St. John of Beverley is claimed to be the first teacher of the deaf: indeed, he is regarded as the Patron Saint of deaf people and there have been schools and deaf clubs called after him. In the years between the two Wars there existed an organisation of clergymen called the Guild of St. John of Beverley which severely retarded the status and the development of the British Deaf Community.

However, if we care to examine the Venerable Bede's chronicles closely, at no time did Bede ever use the word 'surdus' (Latin for deaf). The word that Bede did use was 'mutus' (Latin for mute/dumb). This youth was never deaf at all; what he had was, in  modern day terminology, a speech impediment. One does not have to be deaf to have a speech impediment.

So right at the beginning the scene was set for centuries of misunderstanding about deaf people and deafness which has persisted to the present day.

Inaccuracies in deaf folklore and emotive reporting in magazines for deaf people added to the difficulty in trying to be factual.