Elizabeth Gilbert and Her Work for the Blind

by Frances Martin

Why should she not do this?

Her parents warmly approved of the course she proposed to take, and brothers, sisters, friends encouraged her. They saw that it would bring occupation and interest, which she sorely needed. They could not foresee how the little rill was to widen into a broad stream, and what far-reaching results it would have.

In May 1854 "Bessie's scheme" was started. Seven blind men were employed at their own homes, material was purchased for and supplied to them at cost price; the articles manufactured were to be disposed of on their account, and they were to receive the full selling price, minus the cost of material.

A cellar was rented in New Turnstile, Holborn, at the cost of eighteen pence a week, and Levy was engaged as manager, with a salary of half a crown a week, and a percentage upon the sales. The cellar was to be a store-room for materials and goods, and as the basket-makers could not bleach their baskets at home, a binn was fixed so that this part of the work could be done in the cellar. Levy recommended a young man named Farrow to put up the bleaching binn. Farrow had lost his sight at eleven years old in consequence of a gun accident. He had been educated in the St. John's Wood School, was a very good carpenter and cabinetmaker, and a man who could readily turn his hand to anything. But like many others who had left the school, he was without work or prospect of work.

He fixed the bleaching binn and arranged the cellar as a store-room without any assistance, and from 1854 to the present time he has been employed by the institution which sprang from that small dark cellar in Holborn.

Levy's theory was that no man with sight should interfere with the blind; that an opportunity ought to be afforded them of showing that their work is thorough and complete, and that they can stand alone. It may, at that time, have been necessary to take such a step in order to convince the general public that blind men and women could do anything at all, but the theory involves a limitation which is to be regretted.

Bessie's education, experience, and sympathy would naturally lead her to try to restore the blind to their place and their work in the world, to ameliorate their condition but not to alienate them, not to separate them from home and companions. Her own happy youth, her work in the schoolroom at Oxford, her enjoyment of the home at Chichester, all tended to prevent her from being drawn into the current with enthusiasts who looked upon the blind, less as afflicted, than as persecuted and oppressed. She had gradually learnt that blindness is a limitation which the most loving and tender care cannot entirely remove. To be blind, to be a woman, both imply considerable restrictions: but Bessie was not predisposed to consider one state any more the fault of society than the other. She would labour to remove the disabilities of either condition, but she always recognised that they were inherent, and did not arise from persecution or ill-will.

It is necessary to say so much at this time, because we shall see that in many points Bessie did yield to the judgment of one who took an extreme view; who, himself educated in an institution, surrounded only by blind people, often of a very feeble capacity, had learned to look upon himself more as a member of an oppressed and persecuted race than as an afflicted man. Levy wished to show that the blind could do their work and manage their affairs in their own way, and that it was as good a way as any other. No "sighted" man was to interfere in the workshop. He invented a system of embossed writing, and he used to send to Chichester weekly accounts of the money paid for basket and brush material, and in wages. This money was remitted by Bessie, and when brushes and baskets were sold she was to receive the price paid for them. The liabilities that she undertook were rent, manager's salary, percentages on sale, incidental expenses, and losses. These, with only the cellar and seven blind men at work, would not be more than she could afford, and with the approval of her family she set to work bravely to sell her brushes.

The only point on which the Bishop gave advice was, that difference of creed should not be taken into consideration in selecting the workmen to be employed. He urged this very strongly, and Bessie carried out his wishes.

Levy's bills, in embossed writing, were copied by Bessie's mother and her sisters; the weekly accounts were kept by these ladies from May 1854, when the cellar was taken, until the end of the year.