Dumbie House, also known as Craigside House,[1][2][3] was an 18th-century building (now demolished) in Edinburgh, Scotland, which was home to Braidwood Academy, the first school for deaf children in Britain.[4] It was founded by Thomas Braidwood, a Scottish educator and pioneer in developing the hand gestures of sign language, the forerunner of British Sign Language (BSL) in 1760.[5] It is in the area known as Dumbiedykes which is named after Braidwood school's 'deaf and dumb' pupils.[6]
Early pupils included Francis Mackenzie,[4] Charles Shirreff, John Goodricke,[7] Francis McKenzie, and John Philip Wood.[8]
Samuel Johnson described his own visit to the school in 1773: "one subject of philosophical curiosity to be found in Edinburgh, which no other city has to show; a college of the deaf and dumb, who are taught to speak, to read, to write, and to practise arithmetic, by a gentleman whose name is Braidwood. The number which attends him is, I think, about twelve, which he brings together into a little school, and instructs according to their several degrees of proficiency."[9]
Sir Walter Scott mentioned Braidwood Academy in his novel Heart of Midlothian (1818).
Braidwood relocated to London in 1783,[10] and the building was demolished in 1939.[11] A commemorative plaque was placed on the site in 2015.[6][4]
Other schools for deaf children in Edinburgh include Donaldson's School for the Deaf.[12]