Thomas Braidwood

Thomas Braidwood (* 1715, † 1806) was an educator who studied at the University of Edinburgh, where in 1760 founded the first school for " deaf and dumb " in the UK. He moved to London in 1783 and set up a new school. Braidwood accepted in the classroom " natural gestures " as long as the spoken language was not controlled, and used the two-handed manual alphabet, which is used in the UK today.

The Braidwood school in 1775 by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet visited with the intention to study the methods to use them for the building of a school in New England. However, Braidwood betrayed neither Gallaudet yet another his methods. 1812 founded a grandson of Braidwood, John Braidwood, a school for deaf children in Cobb, Virginia, United States, however, was only a short time.