Fairbairn, Arthur Henderson

Third baronet of Ardwick, Manchester; born deaf in Lancashire. Educated at a private academy for the deaf run by Henry Brothers Bingham at Rugby; there are unconfirmed and possibly baseless reports that he also attended Cambridge University. Married a hearing woman in 1882. Was active in the Royal Association in Aid of the Deaf and Dumb. He and his deaf sister Constance (q.v.) were portrayed together in a life-sized marble sculpture, 1857-1862, by Thomas Woolner and now in Barkway House, Suffolk; this work inspired a poem by Robert Browning, "Deaf and Dumb: A Group by Woolner". He died at Tunbridge Wells, Kent, childless. The Deaf Centre at Southampton bears his name.