Publications
Mary Stephens Corbishley MBE: A Biography of her Life and Work at her Oral Schools for Deaf children in Cuckfield, East Sussex, the UK, by Ian M. Stewart, published 18 March 2009 (286 pp., Trafford Publishing, ISBN-10: 1425142265 & ISBN-13: 9781425142261) accessible at: West Sussex Libraries
Abstract:This story is about a woman who pioneered an unorthodox method of teaching young deaf children speech, lipreading and English language. Mary Corbishley believed these fundamental elements formed an ideal beginning of preparing her deaf children from an early age for higher education and after-school life in the hearing world where they had equal rights with the hearing. She was a devout Christian whose calling for this enterprising adventure was inspired by the Bible and her faith in her God. A young woman, she left home for an unknown future in 1925 and, having embarked on a teaching career, courageously set up an Oral school for deaf children in Cuckfield, Sussex in 1939, which survived difficult years of battling against ignorance, officialdom and prejudice and triumphed in awakening the realisation that it is not impossible for deaf children to learn to speak, and to lipread and understand spoken English. Her school, Mill Hall, gained fame which lasted for nearly 50 years until its closure in 1996.