Harriet Delph audio story: transcript

Walkers in Abney Park Cemetery look at the sculpture on our gravestone. I say “our” because I and my best friend Frances Garlick are both buried here. 

We shared a life, we shared a grave. It feels right.

We are placed near a corner in the cemetery where the paths meet. The sculpture is of a crouching figure, carved by a local stonemason commissioned by Frances. I can't see it, but I can feel its curves.

She is mourning, but she shows strength. 

The form is very tactile. If only the sculpture's sculptor’s name had not been lost in time. 

Credit is overdue. I also know that some of the walkers who pass by call us Harry and Frankie. It's so affectionate. I love it.

They want to know more about us. I feel some comradeship. 

So I will share our story, trailblazing in its own quiet way.

I am Harriet, born blind in a time when people pitied you for such an affliction. Touch is important to me, not least to be able to read Braille. Braille was my road to independent learning and understanding.

I was born in South West London in 1862 in Pimlico. We were poor and my parents died too soon. They were barely into their 30s and a year apart. My father ended his days in the dreaded, cruel workhouse near where we lived in Battersea. My older sister Mary was sent into service.

As an orphan, I was now the responsibility of the state. No relative stepped in. I was sent to live at the Brighton Institution for the Blind by the sea. All new for a 10-year-old London girl who had never been near the ocean. The air felt different there.

I'm told in the 1830s there were over 500 schools for the blind. I suspect Brighton was the nearest one to my home in London. I worked hard. I made friends. I smelt the sea and heard the gulls.

It is said that blindness sharpens other senses, maybe to compensate as best as they can.

My hard work was rewarded with the scholarship, the Gardiner Award, in October 1883. 

Henry Gardiner had set up his charity only the year before, so the timing was fortunate. He was keen to use his money to further us in professions and crafts, and to include music to enrich our lives. He made such a difference to mine. I do wish I could have met him to say thank you.

I was already 20 and I was keen to get on. The scholarship was a fortune. It was 40 pounds, but it had to pay for my board and tutoring until mid-1889. But it was not just a fortune in money. 

The scholarship was for the Royal Normal School for the Blind in Norwood, South London.

I was returning to the capital city of a booming British Empire. I was grateful for the money and opportunity. But what could London offer to a blind girl? I was reassured that Norwood was known to be pioneering. It had been set up a decade before and it wanted blind people to live independent lives, not to be a burden to that booming empire. We were to play our part. 

Norwood offered its pupils a full academic curriculum, plus vocational training, which of course differed depending on whether you were male or female. The boys and young men were trained in carpentry and piano tuning, but we all learned how to sculpt, and physical education was also valued in our school day. 

We had visiting lecturers too. I especially remember the excitement of the visit of Millicent Fawcett, the leader of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies. I think she wanted to help blind people. Her husband Henry shared our affliction.

The “Normal” part of the name of the college was the indicator that the college trained teachers. There was a preparatory school and five forms. I won certificates in 1886 and 1889 in both geography and grammar. Yes, I continued to work hard. In fact, the annual prize ceremony was the highlight of the year. especially one year when it was held at the magnificent Crystal Palace. The music performed by the pupils for the grand and the good in the audience was such a treat. And when I left, I had qualified as a teacher.

Now my record stated, “training completed”. I never forgot the place. I understand there's only a small part of the building still standing in Weston Park. It's teaching and the friendships I valued so much. They were the rocks on which my life was based. 

We were a close-knit group. We had to be. And thankfully, the friends from Brighton and Norwood stayed in contact. I needed them, particularly Lily Bell, who had been part of my life for so long. 

The college had a very active guild of past students. It was an old girls club really. And their support helped me through a difficult start to my career. That sounds good, doesn't it? I had a career. 

I was asked to write a letter for the annual report of the Alumni Association about how I was getting on. I did wonder, should I sugarcoat it? But in the end, I was direct but positive. This is what I wrote:

I'm glad and grateful to say I've been able to support myself since I left the college. For the first two years, I only had a few private pupils, and it was a hard struggle to make both ends meet. Often, I felt discouraged. And had it not been for the sympathy of friends, I think I should have given up altogether. Over time, brighter days came and I received my present appointment under the LSB: the London School Board. 

I was one of around 100 former pupils earning their own living. 

Somehow, my work had taken me to the east of the city and I was living in the working girls' home at number 50 Well Street, Hackney, in 1891. Hackney was known for its schools, especially girls' ones, from the 16th century. So perhaps it was meant to be. In fact, there was a girls' school nearby off Lower Clapton Road that had been a girls' school almost continually since the early 1600s. Mrs Elizabeth Salmon’s, ‘University of the Female Arts’. It must have had a fine reputation.

So I joined a very long list of schoolmistresses working in Hackney. Hackney was a place that seemed to welcome all. There were many from all over the world, it seemed. Nearby, there was a home for Chinese and Indian nannies. 

The man who had recently become the local MP, Henry Fawcett, Millicent's husband, remember? He was blind. A good omen for me, I like to think. 

And the working girls' home was one of many in the city which catered for the growing army of single working women, those who couldn't live at home or needed to be near their place of work. The coming of the railways had made Hackney a commuter place. It was still industrial but full of large houses where rich merchants used to live.

There were many refuges and missions trying to help those in need, filling those large old houses. I was not in need of that sort of help, thankfully. And through my own efforts, I succeeded in passing an interview with the London School Board in 1892. There were many ladies represented. Perhaps they understood some of my situation.

Legislation was coming. The Elementary Education Act for blind and deaf children was passed in 1893, which meant schooling had to be provided for all with such conditions. 

Hackney was ready, and my school was part of the provision. So a steady job for the London County Council, instead of the uncertainty of taking on private pupils, and a place to live amongst girls in a similar situation. Similar, but not the same, obviously. I had the handicap of not being able to see. I had to have braille to read, and that was rare in the day-to-day world.

My new job was a short walk from Well Street on Morning Lane where it meets Homerton Terrace. Officially, it was called the Centre of Instruction of Blind Children, but it became known as the Morning Lane Home for the Blind. We followed the Norwood curriculum. 

And on my way to work, I always passed 195 Mare Street, built in the late 1600s. I heard in one of those large houses that a young man called Daniel Dolins underwent a cataracts operation in his front room. I do not envy him that. The house is now the Elizabeth Fry Refuge, providing a home for women who have left prison to find their own feet. Such unfortunate lives.

The refuge closed down while I was working in Morning Lane, just before the war. It became a working men's club. A vast change. They had acts from the Hackney Empire performing there. The Hackney Empire Theatre opened during my time as a Hackney resident. In 1905, the curtains were raised, always lively.

By 1901, I was living in Lower Clapton at the Young Women's Christian Association lodgings, next to the church opposite the lovely Clapton Square. For me, it was quite difficult using transport, but I could just walk by crossing St John's churchyard. I use the stick. 

In the 1920s, white canes came into general use for blind people. I did take to using one. It gives a sign to other pedestrians to be aware, as well as to help me avoid them and tripping over anything. Nearby on Church Path lived a deaf woman. She was a well-known teacher at the Home for Deaf and Dumb Females, further down Lower Clapton Road. She helped deaf people emigrate to Canada. She thought they had a better chance of an independent life there. 

Her name was Jane Groom. She was certainly an activist. And those who emigrated must have been so brave. I benefit from my blind community around here. I can see the value in that. But emigrating? I have made my home here in Hackney. 

For the next year, my life changed for the better. In 1902, in walked Frances Garlick. She got the job of physical education teacher. She was a farmer's daughter from Wiltshire. And in Wales, she trained as a teacher. She was perfect for the job. 

Some sighted teachers... just aren't good at understanding the sensory needs of blind students. But Frances, she did, and I liked her immediately. Soon, we were close friends. She was sighted. I didn't really want her to take care of me. I had learned to look after myself, but I liked her. She was 18 years younger than me, but we were friends. And friends help each other, don't they? 

We all have different strengths and weaknesses, and I was not just going to be the blind teacher. And now there were other school mistresses in Hackney. I know there's at least one here in Abney who I have to thank because she worked at getting good pensions for teachers. 

Mary Hannah Page, the first headmistress of Skinner's in Stamford Hill. Our good salaries and pensions allowed me and Frankie to live independently and to provide a home for her sister Eliza, who helped us with housekeeping and companionship. 

This was when we moved into a new two-bedroom flat in Clapton Square, 10 Cavendish mansions. But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

You know, when I used to live in the YWCA, I always dreamt of living in Clapton Square. Frances worked with me for 23 years, and soon we decided to pool our resources and move into rooms together. 

In 1911, at 12 Sutton Place, we filled in the census together. Frances filled it out and put herself as head of the household. I was a friend. 

In 1921, I put myself as head, and Francis was a boarder. Was I making a point? No. I suppose the point was, none of us was more important than the other, even though I was her boss. 

Sutton Place. Those lovely houses next to the Tudor House, which is now St John's Institute. Two doors down at number 14 was a lodging house for young servant girls, but otherwise we were a mix of clerks, police officers, engineers, opticians, nurses and typists. 

And of course, St John at Hackney's also our neighbour. We walked through the churchyard on our way to school. Frances tells me the grave stones have been moved and now it's a public garden designed by a woman, Fanny Wilkinson. She's been seen chastising the men that work for her. A professional landscape gardener, not least for her chastising skills, she surely would have made a good teacher. 

Frances moved on to Berkshire Road School for the Blind in Hackney Wick, where she was head for a time. Our school was due to close and unlike me, she had many more years ahead. Some of our pupils were transferring there too. It was probably good for both of us, though I did miss her being around during the day. 

She couldn't seem to settle though. In fact, she ended up teaching in Norwood. 

A few years before she left Morning Lane, we both taught a remarkable pupil, the cause of much professional satisfaction. Sadie Isaacs came from nearby Bethnal Green and had become blind from scarlet fever. She was with us till age 19 and then went to the University of London, where she was the first pupil to pass major exams in Braille, which we taught her. And she topped the class, top of the honours list for English and History. Her photo got into the national papers. She wanted to be a journalist. Oh, I do hope she made it. Even if not, she achieved so much and we, we were so proud of her. 

I was headmistress for 35 years and I was 65 when I retired. We had lived through the First World War. We women got the vote. Of course we supported suffrage, but we weren't activists. Looking back, our day-to-day achievements were enough for us. 

I think if people look at our lives, we would be influential in our own way. We showed that women could have professional autonomy and live independent lives, even with a major disability. 

And anyway, London didn't lift the ban on married women teachers until 1935. It's not a surprise that so many of us remained unmarried. 

Someone who used to walk her dogs here in Abney was Caroline Gooding, known to her friends as Cabs. I hope she took a moment or two by our grave. She suffered a disability and literally changed the world around her. She fought for the rights of disabled people. She used her skills as a lawyer to gain equality for people with disabilities. 

It's hard to reconcile with the attitude of the time I lived in. She drafted the Disability Discrimination Act, which only became law in 1995. We had to be taken into account! Her friends put a plaque here on a bench in her memory. Her presence adds to the place. Here she's at home among all of those who fought for change in society. 

The Second World War. I don't want to think about it. So much destruction in Hackney, so much suffering everywhere. Frances was still working though, and dealing with the evacuation of some of her pupils. 

I wrote my will, and as a mark of my affection, I left most of my estate to Frances of course, she having lived and worked with me for so many years. But I also remembered other long-term friends, including dear Lily, who I met in Norwood. 

In 1944, Frances had to deal with my funeral. It was just during the last months of the war. I didn't have to wait long for her to join me. Only three years later, she died in St Joseph's Hospice in Mare Street. 

Loyal and loving friends. 

A shared life and a final shared resting place. 

Harry and Frankie.

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