A family group with an old lady, a young woman with a child on her lap and a small boy playing a whistle. Etching by W. Geikie.

[Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified]

1 print : etching ; image 14 x 13.9 cm

W. Geikie.

Walter Geikie was profoundly deaf. He lost his hearing as a result of illness at the age of two years and therefore never learnt to speak. According to Thomas Frognal Dibdin, who knew Walter Geikie personally, although Geikie "conversed with you by means of a slate ... his utterance of " Yes" and " No" was sufficiently articulate" (T. F. Dibdin, Bibliographical, antiquarian and picturesque tour in the northern counties of England and in Scotland, 1838)

Wellcome Collection 27676i