Dyott, John "Dumb Dyott" or "Dummy Dyott"

Born deaf at Lichfield into a military family. As a volunteer militia member during the English Civil War, on March 2, 1643 made a sniper shot that killed Lord Brooke, a leader of the Puritans, during the Siege of Lichfield, and was hailed as a hero by the opposing Cavaliers. After this incident, he dropped into almost total obscurity, though it is known that he married a deaf woman named Katherine, one ot the earliest marriages between deaf persons ever recorded. The musket that Dyott used in his shot is still preserved by family descendants at their ancestral home.