Thomas Rhodes Armitage

Thomas Rhodes Armitage

Thomas Rhodes Armitage (* 1824 in Filgate Hall in Sussex , † November 23, 1890 in London ) is the founder of the Royal National Institute of Blind People .

Life

Thomas Rhodes Armitage studied medicine in London when he was 16. After studying medicine and many years as a doctor, Armitage's eyesight was so weakened that he retired from his profession in 1860. In 1865 he was hired as a missionary by the committee of the Indigent Blind Visiting Society and reorganized that society. As a result, he had a major impact on the introduction of Braille in Great Britain. Together with some other wealthy blind people he founded the British and Foreign Blind Association in 1868 , the aim of which was to establish a uniform braille for Europe and the whole world. Braille offered the greatest advantages . A great success for Armitage was the founding of a new music school for blind people. This facility offered blind people the opportunity to gain independence by practicing their arts and to create the basis for their own income. On Armitage's initiative, the first pamphlet was printed in Braille, from which the blind newspaper "Progress" later developed.

The association for the blind, co-founded by Armitage, gradually became a point of contact and coordination point for inventions for blind people from all over the world. Armitage devoted not only a lot of energy, but almost all of his resources to improving the blind. He died in London on November 23, 1890 .

literature

• Mell, Alexander: Encyclopedic Handbook of the Blind. Vienna, Leipzig 1900.