Classroom
Woodwork Class by Mr C. Tivy
1936
Edward J. Chidley,Principal
1856 to 1882
Benjamin H. Payne (Athlone), teacher at Claremont for 16 years and in 1875 obtained a position as Principal at Cambrian Institution for Deaf and Dumb at Swansea. He married a former Claremont teacher, Florence Passant of Co. Meath. He was an eloquent signer, and he was involved in the organisation of the British Deaf and Dumb Association, and he came to Ireland to assist with interpreting church services for the deaf in Dublin, Cork and Donegal.
Maurice FitzGerald Hewson, with a clerical background, was missioner to the deaf in Dublin for 50 years (1859-1919). In 1877, he was assigned to ministry work with the deaf by the Archbishop of Dublin, Chevenix Trench, at St Ann’s Church, Dawson Street, Dublin. In 1885, he assisted with the organisation of the Congress in Dublin for the Deaf who gathered from all over the United Kingdom and overseas. In 1894, he was appointed by the Lord Lieutenant as School inspector for the Claremont Institution.
Thomas Ireland, from Kilkenny
former pupil
Ferguson Reginald Peacocke (Belfast & Dublin)
Son of the Archdeacon of Kildare and Mrs Peacocke, Kill Rectory, Co. Kildare, and grandfather of Joseph Ferguson Peacocke, Archbishop of Dublin. Former pupil of Spring Hill School, Northampton, England, where his name was on the School Roll of Honour for passing the Oxford Junior Local Examinations in 1925. After the First World War, private flying became popular and aero-clubs were set up in the U.K. and Ireland. By 1935, Fergus Peacocke became the first Deaf pilot in the United Kingdom, flying solo in a Moth plane, having broken his aero-club’s record and also the record for the whole of Ireland – “the greatest moment in my life” (his words). In Dublin, Peacocke established own business in metalwork, executing commissions for the Abbey Theatre and the U.S.A Embassy from the renowned architect, Michael Scott. Peacocke employed two former Claremont pupils: Henry Pollard and Norman Rankin (pictured below at left as a young boy).
Deaf Missionaries – William Burke Overend (1808-1862) became superintendent in 1826 of the Sunday School in Dublin for deaf adults. His assistant, John T. Morris (1815-1875), from Navan, Co. Meath, was killed by a train while on his way to Cardiff). In 1882, Robert Stewart Lyons, from Newtownstewart, Co. Tyrone, was the first Irish student of Gallaudet College, Washington D.C., but he became ill and returned home to die, before he could go into mission work. His college-mate, Francis Maginn (Cork and Belfast), looked after the Mission for the Deaf in Cork before moving to Belfast to take up the position of Superintendent of the Belfast Institute for the Deaf. At the age of 28, the Rev. Frederick A. Elliott (Cork and Dublin – pictured right) entered Trinity College Dublin in 1891 and graduated in 1895, with a B.A. degree, and then in 1904 with a M.A. From 1903 onwards, he took up missionary work among the Deaf in Cork, and in 1920, he was transferred to Dublin to take over the work after the death of Maurice F. Hewson.
Deaf Artists – Sampson Towgood Roch (from Cork and miniaturist in Dublin and in Bath, some of whose works are in the National Gallery of Ireland), John Johnson (who created an illustration of the Earl of Hillsborough’s wedding banquet), George McNaught (engraver), Laurence Feagan (Drogheda), Samuel Bright Lucas (England and Cork, contributor of water-colour works to the Royal Academy, and Secretary of the Royal Association in Aid of the Deaf and Dumb), Charles Radcliff (designer for linen manufacturers in Armagh).
