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Early Work

At the outset of its work the mission could only afford to employ one Home Teacher, but by 1864 a female Home Visitor was also engaged. She was to be experienced and active, to teach knitting to all blind females and even males if they could be persuaded to try. This temporary engagement of a female was the forerunner of the Ladies' Auxiliary which was later formed in 1865. As the funds of the Mission grew, more teachers were employed.

Some of the ladies auxiliary visited the blind regularly in their homes, while others acted as guides, thus enabling many blind people to attend functions of various kinds. The schoolmasters who accepted the entry of blind children into their schools, did much to aid the cause.

The most valuable service of all, apart from visiting, was the provision of a Free Library. Gifts of books were received, and as a result of making annual subscriptions to the National Library for the Blind in London , many more books were received on loan, and later exchanged. To help meet the need for more books, 29 ladies formed themselves into the Braille Writing Association and commenced to provide additional books for the Library.

As early as 1908, monthly magazines were in circulation and this service expanded quickly. Soon there was quite a wide choice of current publications. The most remote reader had the same service and range of reading as those on the doorstep, as Visibility paid postage each way.

For the early Home Teacher there was no school, no classroom, and few aids to teaching. There were several embossed types which could be used in teaching the blind to read. Moon was the most popular system in use in the nineteenth century.  The real breakthrough was when Braille, based on the simple dot, emerged. This system was invented by Louis Braille and by the 1880’s almost every school for the blind in Europe had changed to it.

The Home Teachers were able to teach either system but usually the choice depended on what was most suited to the needs and ability of the individual person. It was in these early days, when so many were expressing enthusiasm to learn to read, that the Free Library was a crucial back-up service for the Home Teacher.

Very early in its history, Visibility tackled the problem of trying to get schools to accept blind children to learn alongside the sighted pupils, but in time much of the responsibility of teaching the children passed to the various education authorities throughout the area. If a child was unable to attend school, which could be due to various reasons, it remained the duty of the Home Teacher to provide as much tuition as circumstances would allow and to supply the necessary books.

Besides teaching the blind to read and imparting some knowledge of the Bible, it was the Home Teacher's duty to observe, to listen and to make discreet enquiry into the family circumstances. This enabled the Directors to decide what hopes of employment there might exist or what monetary gain there might be by pursuing the rights of a person to some benefit or compensation he might have failed to claim, and, at the same time, revealing any pressing hardship. The Teacher kept a register and added to it, often due to one blind person revealing the urgent plight of another.