Thomas Braidwood
Person Male Born 1715 Died 1806
Established an early school for the deaf. Born Scotland. Set up as a teacher in Edinburgh and then, following his successful tuition of a deaf boy, in 1760 he specialised in teaching deaf children, changing the name of his school to Braidwood's Academy for the Deaf and Dumb, the first of its kind in Britain.
In 1783 he moved with his family to Hackney and set up the Braidwood Academy for the Deaf and Dumb at the site of the plaque. His use of sign language lead on to British Sign Language - the British standard. Died Hackney. The school was carried on by his family until about 1810 but possibly moved in 1799.
2019: Via Facebook Linda Levitan informed us that the image we had on this page was of Thomas Braidwood Wilson (1792-1843), Australian surgeon and explorer, distant cousin of our TB. Apologies. We've found another image at Alchetron, which is, we hope correctly, identified as our man.
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