A unique but unsettling glimpse into what the lives of blind people were like in Victorian and Edwardian Edinburgh is to be made public.
The Royal National Institute of Blind People (Edinburgh and Lothians) has formally transferred its surviving archive material to Lothian Health Services Archive (LHSA) at the University of Edinburgh Library.
The collection paints an often grim picture of the harsh lives adults and children with sight loss endured, usually dependent on subsistence work or welfare relief that was conditional on religious conformity.
The charity began as The Edinburgh Society for Promoting Reading Amongst the Blind on Moon’s System in November 1857 (‘Moon’ is a system similar to braille). Those on its register were born as far apart as Shetland, Portsmouth and County Tyrone. Causes of blindness include from birth, accident and a range of illnesses. Some could read raised type. Many could not but were learning. Most were dependent on support to survive such as an allowance under the Poor Law.
Bodies such as the Edinburgh Society assisted those not resident in institutions who mainly relied upon poor relief, charitable aid, and supplementary earnings from such activities as hawking, knitting, teaching or playing music, selling tea or keeping house.
In the nineteenth century, the Society’s focus was on teaching blind people to read using Moon – primarily so that they could access religious texts. “Society was deeply religious during this period, especially the comfortable classes,” explained historian Dr Iain Hutchison, who reviewed the archive materials. “These were the recipients of the Society’s reports and the reports were intended to motivate their continued support and donations.
“But the minute books of the Edinburgh Blind Asylum, also part of the archive, show that its clients sometimes had a tendency to rebel against the imposition of religious practice, causing its superintendent, George MacCulloch, to express his despair at blind people being ‘not religiously inclined’.
“However, during the first decade of the twentieth century, the Society reports show a social role gradually evolving – provision of coal, negotiating travel concessions, and pensions being granted from funds endowed by benefactors. During this period, the Liberal Government introduced initial welfare reforms, but these were selective and often permissive rather than compulsory. The Poor Law continued to play a role until the creation of the National Health Service in 1948.”
In the early twentieth century, the Society changed its name to The Society for the Welfare and Teaching of the Blind (Edinburgh and South-East Scotland) and in 1995 to ‘Visual Impairment Services South East Scotland’. It assumed its present name after a merger with the national charity RNIB Scotland in 2002.
The archive consists of the Society’s annual reports from 1858 to 1986, conference reports of the Scottish Outdoor Blind Teachers’ Union 1882-1917, and reports from other outdoor blind associations that formed a network across Scotland at the close of the nineteenth century.
With the collection now transferred to LHSA at the University of Edinburgh Library’s Centre for Research Collections, the aim is to make it available to researchers. Archivist Laura Gould said: “LHSA is delighted to add the RNIB archive to our collection. It offers another perspective on the history of healthcare in the Lothian region, and complements existing collections surrounding provision of medical and related services to Edinburgh’s citizens.”
Ken Reid, chair of RNIB Scotland, said: “Charities and voluntary organisations that began decades ago can shed a fascinating and invaluable light in how society’s attitudes to the poor and excluded have progressed. That’s why it’s very important they preserve materials that document this change and give a voice to those who experienced it.
“I am glad that many things have improved for blind and partially sighted people since. But blind and partially sighted people are still excluded from much that is taken for granted, with 70 per cent of working age unable to secure employment and many dependent on the benefit system to maintain a modest standard of living.”
* More information about LHSA and accessing its collection can be found on their website: http://www.lhsa.lib.ed.ac.uk/.
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