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© F.Coakley , 2026
[from A.M Harrision's Descriptive List of Insular Societies]
A committee of largely expatriate origin, merchants, business men and ex-service men, with only three Manx members, a surgeon, Lewis Garrett, an advocate, Ridgway Harrison,and the Receiver-General, George Quirk, set up this closely- focused charity for the education of the deaf and dumb in institutes in Dublin and Liverpool. There are no indications of the factors which prompted this innovation - possibly a personal need to care for a deaf-mute relative, possibly a response to a particularly local occurrence of this serious handicap, or perhaps the simple importation into the Island of news of advances in treatment within the Irish Sea area.
The charity supported the long term teaching requirements of the selected pupils either at the Liverpool Institution for the Deaf, or at the Deaf and Dumb institution at Glasnevin, Dublin run by the Juvenile association for promoting the education of the deaf and dumb children of the poor of Ireland, four years attendance being the norm. Under the patronage of the Rev. Thomas Howard, Vicar of Braddan and Chaplain of St. George's, Douglas, and the Vice-Patron, Dr. William Carpenter, the Vicar of St. Barnabas', Douglas, a popular evangelical preacher and key figure in the building of the House of Industry, and Douglas's Hospital and Dispensary in Fort Street, the powerful and businesslike society was equal to the task of raising the significant sums of money involved for each pupil during the seventeen recorded years of its existence, the public examination of trained pupils being a particularly effective means of obtaining support, [The Manx Sun 6 December 1833, 13 July 1838 and 24 August 1850]. The Liverpool Institute for the deaf was closed by this time and it is likely that the Deaf and Dumb Institution at Glasnevin, suffered from the repercussions of the Great Famine in Ireland, which effectively ended the work of many charitable bodies.
M.N.H.L., Isle of Man newspapers, ut supra
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Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received
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