Dr Rosamund Oates: What deaf employment was like hundreds of years ago (BSL)

Between 1450 and 1750, deaf people were expected to support themselves and had a range of different jobs. This means that many people may have encountered a deaf signer in their day-to-day lives.

In 1714, a young deaf woman called Sarah Robertson, applied to her local parish in London for money to help with the cost of living. This was in the days before the welfare state, and people who were old, or ill, or needed help, had to ask their local parish for support. Sarah was told no, she could not have any more money. The parish had supported her until she turned 18, but when she became an adult, they argued she could get a job to support herself. Being deaf would not stop her working.

It may seem a brutal answer, but it shows how many deaf people (and here I particularly mean prelingually deaf people) had jobs and supported themselves in the early modern period. Across the British Isles between 1500 and 1750 , deaf people worked in a variety of jobs, communicating with their colleagues and everyone else in sign language.

What kind of jobs did deaf people do? The short answer is: all sorts! We know about several men and women who were servants and used sign language to communicate with their employers. Samuel Pepys met a deaf young man who worked for friends of his and was fascinated by the young man’s use of signs to communicate. Elizabeth Bowra who was originally from Gloucester, and was deaf from birth, worked for the Lord Mayor of London for over 50 years from around 1600.

Sometimes deaf people took over the family business. John Dight was one of two deaf brothers born in Exeter at the start of the 17th century. John’s father was a bookbinder and a bookseller, and John followed his father into the same job. He had his own business selling books and book binding – in those days people usually paid more for books to be bound in nice covers. His nephew recorded that John ‘was so ingenious’ at book binding ‘that he excelled most men’.

If there was not a family business to take over, then deaf children were often signed up to apprenticeships. This was one of the most important ways of training up young people in early modern England, and deaf people were no exception. Young people lived with their ‘masters’ for the length of the apprenticeship, learning a craft or trade over seven years. And although they weren’t usually paid wages, at the end of the apprenticeship, young people were fully trained in their chosen line of business. Learning to be a tailor – making clothes – was a particularly popular profession for deaf young men. In the 17th century, deaf children in Dorset, Lancashire and Essex all became apprentice tailors. Employers and colleagues seem to have learned enough sign language to communicate with deaf employees. In 1725, a ropemaker in London said that while he could understand his deaf colleague’s signs and gestures, he was not very good generally at ‘reading hands’.

Other jobs that were popular with deaf people were those jobs which tended to cause hearing loss. Blacksmiths forges were incredibly loud places to work, and many smiths lost their hearing as they grew older. Perhaps it is unsurprising then, that several young deaf men trained to be blacksmiths – a place of work where sign language was a positive advantage.

Many of these trades had something in common – they involved a lot of learning by sight. This also explains the popularity of art as a profession. From 1450 onwards, across Europe, many deaf men trained as artists. But, it was an expensive business to learn to be an artist , and there was not a guaranteed income at the end of it. As a result, most of the deaf artists in this period came from wealthy families. Peter Jackson of the British Deaf History Society has shown how the two deaf sons of the wealthy landowners, the Gaudy family, trained with famous artists in London (and the British Deaf History Museum in Manchester has a self -portrait by deaf artist, John Gaudy, from around 1675.)

The work left by deaf artists is perhaps the most accessible evidence of deaf employment in the early modern period. Deaf artists were employed to work on some of the most famous buildings in Europe, including the Sistine Chapel. In the UK, you can see the work of deaf artists including Benjamin Ferrers (1667-1732), Richard Crosse (1742-1810) and Thomas Arrowsmith (1772-1829) in museums and country houses. All these men came from relatively wealthy families or had wealthy patrons.

Whatever their social background, deaf people expected to work and to support themselves. And apart from art – open only to the sons of the richest families – we find deaf people working in a wide range of different jobs between 145- and 1750. As well as deaf servants, tailors and blacksmiths, there were deaf people working as millers, stone cutters, labourers and even pub landlords. This means that many people may have encountered a deaf signer in their day-to-day lives.

Dr Rosamund Oates is a Reader in Early Modern History at Manchester Metropolitan University. If you are interested in finding out more, there is a public online talk on Deafness in Renaissance Europe (22.11.23) , with Live BSL interpretation and closed captions.

Tickets are free, book here : https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/deafness-in-renaissance-europe-tickets-732684217217?aff=oddtdtcreator