On March 1 1872, the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music for the Blind opened in temporary quarters in three adjoining shops at Paxton Terrace, Anerley Hill, Upper Norwood.
100th ANNIVERSARY OF DEATH OF SIR FRANCIS CAMPBELL
by Susan Thornsberry
One hundred years ago this summer, telegrams from around the world expressing sympathy poured into Upper Norwood.
Progressive educator Sir Francis Joseph Campbell, co-founder and long-time principal of the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music for the Blind, had died.
He had passed away peacefully at the age of 81 on June 30, 1914, days after an international conference on blindness had assured him that his successful educational model was continuing to reap a rich harvest.
His long-time work near London had taken him to the pinnacle of success, an astounding feat, for he had come from meagre beginnings in the American wilderness — and was blind.
Campbell was born in 1832 in a log cabin in the hills of Tennessee, where he became totally blind by the age of five due to a tragic accident.
As he grew, he experienced the lonely pain of being left behind by his siblings when they attended the local country school, which was ill prepared to educate a sightless lad.
But in 1844 his home state of Tennessee opened a school for the blind, and young Campbell was the second student to matriculate.
There, he learned to read a raised type for the blind and became a voracious reader, excelled at academics and, despite initial difficulties learning music, eventually became the school’s music teacher and, at the young age of 17, even briefly served as its principal.
In the mid-1850s, Campbell moved to Boston to further his education at Harvard University. However, he lost his hard-earned savings when the firm holding them went bankrupt, and he was forced to discontinue his studies.
His time in that area had not been for nought, though, for he had met and married Frances “Franny” Bond, a young school teacher. Soon thereafter, he studied progressive methods of teaching at Bridgewater Normal School in Massachusetts.
The newlyweds then moved back to his hometown of Winchester, Tennessee, where he began teaching music at a large, flourishing school for young ladies.
But his eagerness to help others learn to read got him into great trouble when he began giving private reading lessons to a young slave girl.
Most of Winchester’s citizens took a dim view of his abolitionist beliefs; a couple angry men went so far as to threaten to hang him. Instead, his students boycotted his classes, and without work, he had no choice but to leave town.
He and Franny next journeyed north to Wisconsin, where for a little over a year he taught music at that state’s school for the blind.
When she became critically ill, the couple returned to Boston, seeking expert medical care. There, Campbell became music director at the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, where the esteemed Dr. Samuel G. Howe served as director.
Despite the institution being famous for its work on behalf of the blind, Campbell believed that the school yet lacked great effectiveness and proposed a number of changes.
Dr. Howe, curious to test whether Campbell’s alternate educational theories worked, allowed him to personally select 20 students and then provide all the teaching according to his proposed principles.
These included, first and foremost, the precept that blind students needed to greatly improve their physical strength in order to reach their true overall potential; this, at the time, was quite a foreign concept.
Nonetheless, Campbell instituted a demanding regime of physical exercise for his group of girls and boys. His select students attended many professional concerts and thereby learned to appreciate the hard work required to attain such musical mastery.
When these students finally completed their rigorous education, Campbell helped them find good employment and kept in contact with the graduates, counseling them when needed.
Over time, 19 of his 20 select students became fiscally self-sufficient by working as piano tuners, music teachers or piano players.
This was astounding: the idea of a blind person becoming financially independent had been considered nearly impossible. So successful was Campbell’s select music class, in fact, that Dr. Howe integrated his principles into the school’s general education programs.
After 11 long years of work at the Perkins Institute, Campbell traveled to Germany with his wife and young son for a year-long holiday to recuperate, learn that country’s methods of teaching the blind, and also obtain conservatory training.
The Campbells spent nearly two years in Germany and then headed back to the United States, intent on establishing an institution for the higher education of the blind, a well-organized plan he had developed during his years in Boston.
A BRIEF STOP-OVER IN LONDON
Their return trip to America included a very brief stop-over in London. And when he learned of the sad plight of that city’s vast blind population, he decided to extend his stay in order to somehow help alleviate their great suffering.
Following a friend’s advice, he sought out Dr. Thomas Rhodes Armitage, a London physician who, nearly blind, worked tirelessly to help others, most notably through his British and Foreign Blind Association.
Dr. Armitage was particularly disappointed by the very few numbers of English blind people who were able to support themselves financially, particularly when compared to the success of the blind in other countries.
He believed that if blind students in England received better education, they too could learn to become independent. Campbell not only agreed, but was adamant that such was the case, having had astounding success as a music teacher in Boston, where virtually everyone of his students had obtained employment leading to financial independence.
So successful had been his experience that he planned to now establish in America a great National College and Conservatory for the Blind, based largely upon his own proven educational principles.
Dr. Armitage, upon learning the details of Campbell’s planned institution, urged him to now establish the college for the blind he’d always envisioned – but to do so in England first, before returning to America.
To entice his new friend to take on the challenge, Dr. Armitage generously promised £1,000 if Campbell could raise the rest of the estimated £3,000 he anticipated needing to start such a venture.
After much striving and not a few disappointments along the way, Campbell ultimately gained the support of a number of influential gentlemen, as well as members of the Royal family, and raised the required £2,000.
The then-Marquis of Westminster agreed to serve as college president; Sir William Henry Smith, M.P., was named the college’s first trustee. Campbell himself would serve as principal, create the teaching curriculum, select the teachers — in short, serve as the college’s director.
On March 1 1872, the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music for the Blind opened in temporary quarters in three adjoining shops at Paxton Terrace, Anerley Hill, Upper Norwood.
Campbell had specifically chosen this location due to its close proximity to the Crystal Palace, which regularly held a number of rehearsals and concerts that the college’s music students could attend.
The new college admitted blind students from throughout the United Kingdom based upon their academic record and their ability to benefit from the institution’s advanced training.
A majority of the pupils came from poor families or from workhouses and attended the college courtesy of scholarships, the creation of which Campbell had encouraged.
Academically, the college was extremely progressive. Its music professors were considered among the best in London, most simultaneously holding positions at well known conservatories.
The college’s student choir and instrumentalists performed throughout the UK, and in Belgium, France and Germany, amazing audiences with their excellence and with the fact that they had perfectly memorized such a wealth of material.
PRIVATE CONCERTS FOR QUEEN VICTORIA
At least twice they provided a private concert for Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Several of the best music students toured the United States, performing concerts at major cities.
Also extremely important to Campbell was that the college provide its students Biblical training and moral instruction. Too often blind children were allowed to wallow in crippling self-pity, feeling their life was worthless.
Eager to combat this attitude, Campbell sought, as he said, to “inspire them with a belief that God has placed them in the world to do good and useful work, and that He will require an account of the talents entrusted to them, be they few or many.”
News of the new college swiftly spread, resulting in student enrollment soaring from two to 45 within that first year.
Eager for an opportunity to accept yet more academically promising students but barred from doing so for lack of space, Principal Campbell learned of a nearby gentlemen’s estate for sale.
‘The Mount’ consisted of an opulent Italian villa, large stables and other outbuildings situated on a landscaped six-and-a-half acre parcel of land up on Westow Street.
Behind the house, the steep hillside below had been divided into terraced areas, providing separate flat areas perfect for playgrounds. Most importantly, the estate was located near the Crystal Palace, which the students would continue to visit nearly daily to attend various music performances.
The school’s executive committee, which included Dr. Armitage, approved the purchase and by 1874, the Royal NormalCollege had moved to its commodious new quarters.
One of Campbell’s fundamental rules was that all of the college’s blind students were required to participate in rigorous physical education to strengthen their bodies, improve their mental capabilities and greatly increase their self-confidence.
And so, the college’s students were encouraged to walk, run, row, and even learn to ice skate. Through the generosity of Dr. Armitage, the college built a well-furnished gymnasium building and then an indoor swimming bath – becoming the first school for the blind in the world to do either.
Students learned to dance, swim and perform gymnastics, the latter under the able direction of Campbell’s eldest son, Guy. When roller skating became popular, the college built two indoor skating rinks; when bicycling came on the scene, Campbell had special bikes built that allowed a number of blind students to ride behind a sighted driver.
THE COLLEGE’S LARGE MEADOW AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HILL
The college’s large meadow at the bottom of the hill now included not only Willow Lake, flower gardens and several playgrounds, but a large cycling track, as well.
The manicured gardens were often the site of elaborate gatherings, attended by large numbers of the college’s supporters, including members of the Royal family. Through the years, adjacent properties were purchased and buildings constructed. By 1896, the college consisted of sixteen-and-a-half beautifully landscaped acres, some of which today is Westow Park.
So remarkable was the college that it soon attracted students from wealthy families, and ultimately even from royalty. Pupils at this unique institution studied to become music teachers, pianists, organists, vocalists, piano tuners or teachers of the blind.
Some of the college’s students went on to University and several became clergymen; others became employed in various businesses.
Ultimately, virtually all of the college’s graduates obtained steady employment – amazing success during an era when most blind people still lived in abject poverty and depended upon charity.
The college’s demanding academic programme, rigorous physical training regimen, and placement assistance for its graduates propelled the institution to worldwide fame. It became regarded as the most progressive school for the blind in the world.
Campbell’s first wife had died in 1873, and in 1875 he had married Miss Sophia Faulkner, an American teacher working at the Royal Normal College who became his devoted assistant and the institution’s much beloved ‘Lady Superintendent.’ Together, they welcomed into the world three sons and a daughter, and continued directing the college for four decades.
Throughout his lifetime, Campbell went to great lengths to prove that blind people are capable of accomplishing great things.
A life-long proponent of physical exercise, he in 1880 ascended Mt. Blanc, becoming the first blind man to do so. The feat earned him, and hence the college, great notoriety.
In 1909, King Edward VII knighted him for his ground-breaking work on behalf of the blind, and the long-time principal of the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music for the Blind became Sir Francis Joseph Campbell. He retired in 1912, after having served as principal for no fewer than 40 years.
A number of his graduates and sighted teaching staff became teachers and directors at schools for the blind around the world, integrating Campbell’s unique training methods into their educational programs.
Thus he has benefitted generations of blind men and women worldwide. To memorialize his outstanding service, the “Francis Joseph Campbell Award” is presented annually by the American Library Association to “a person or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of library service for the blind and physically handicapped.”
The college he established at Upper Norwood is now located at Hereford and known as the Royal National College for the Blind.
Another article by Adrian Faulks, an authority on the school, which includes some fascinating photographs can be found on the Norwood Society’s website at:
http://www.norwoodsociety.co.uk/pdf/review189.pdf
Really interesting article