Ewing, Alexander

Hearing. Irene Goldsack, a teacher at Manchester University, transformed its department for teaching sign language to teachers of the deaf into an audiology clinic, because she believed very strongly in oralism and consequently forebade sign language. Ironically, she had to leave her position in 1944 because she was losing her hearing. Ewing replaced her as head but she continued to work there, and eventually they married. He was even more militantly oralist than her, and by his 1964 retirement they had trained 680 teachers of the deaf in oralism. For this, he was knighted by the Queen, a very deeply resented and controversial award in the British deaf community.