Alexander Melville Bell | |
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| Born | (1819-03-01)1 March 1819 Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Died | 7 August 1905(1905-08-07) (aged 86) Washington D.C., U.S. |
| Resting place | Rock Creek Cemetery Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Education | University of Edinburgh |
| Occupations |
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| Employer | various universities |
| Spouses | |
| Children | Melville James Bell (1845–70) Alexander Graham Bell (1847–1922) Edward Charles Bell (1848–67) |
| Parent(s) | Alexander Bell (1790–1865) Elizabeth Colville (d. 1856) |
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Alexander Melville Bell (1 March 1819 – 7 August 1905)[2] was a teacher and researcher ofphysiological phonetics and was the author of numerous works onorthoepy andelocution.
Additionally he was also the creator ofVisible Speech which was used to help the deaf learn to talk, and was the father ofAlexander Graham Bell.[3]
Alexander Melville Bell was born inEdinburgh,Scotland, and studied under and became the principal assistant of his father, Alexander Bell (b. 3 March 1790, Fife, Scotland d. 23 April 1865,St. Pancras,North London),[4] an authority onphonetics and speech disorders. From 1843 to 1865 he lectured on speechelocution at theUniversity of Edinburgh, and from 1865 to 1870 at theUniversity of London.[5] Melville married Eliza Grace Symonds (b. 21 September 1809, Alverstock,Hampshire d. Georgetown, Washington, D.C., US 5 January 1897),[6] the only daughter of a Britishnaval surgeon.
In 1868, and again in 1870 and 1871, Melville lectured at theLowell Institute inBoston, Massachusetts, US after having moved to Canada. In 1870 he became a lecturer onphilology atQueen's College, Kingston, Ontario; and in 1881 he moved to Washington, D.C. at the suggestion of his son Graham, where he devoted himself to the education of the deaf by the use of Visible Speech in which the alphabetical characters of his linguistic invention were representative graphic diagrams for the various positions and motions of the lips, tongue, mouth, etc., as well as other methods oforthoepy.[5]
Prior to departing Scotland for Canada Melville Bell had published at least 17 works on proper speech, vocal physiology, stenography and other works. Besides instructing at Queen's College he also lectured in Boston, Montreal, Toronto, London, and other universities including a series of 12 lectures at Boston'sLowell Institute.[7] When the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall (later King George V and Queen Mary) called on Brantford for a visit, Melville was asked to greet the dignitaries at the public event. He became a Fellow of the Educational Institute of Scotland, theRoyal Scottish Society of Arts, and theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as obtaining memberships in other societies.[7]
Alexander Melville Bell was married twice, first to Eliza Grace Symonds in 1844 with whom he had three children, and then to Harriet G. Shibley.[7][4]
In 1864 Melville published his first works onVisible Speech, to help the deaf both learn and improve upon their aural speech (since the profoundly deaf could themselves not hear their own aural pronunciations).[8] To promote the language, Bell created two written short forms using his system of 29 modifiers and tones, 52consonants, 36vowels and a dozendiphthongs:[9]World English, which was similar to theInternational Phonetic Alphabet, and also Line Writing, used as a shorthand form forstenographers.[10]
Melville's works on Visible Speech became highly notable, and were described byÉdouard Séguin as being "...a greater invention than the telephone of his son,Alexander Graham Bell".[10] Melville saw numerous applications for his invention, including its worldwide use as auniversal language. However, although heavily promoted at theSecond International Congress on Education of the Deaf in Milan, Italy in 1880, after a period of a dozen years or so in which it was applied to the education of the deaf, Visible Speech was found to be more cumbersome, and thus a hindrance, to the teaching of speech to the deaf compared to other methods,[11] and eventually faded from use.
In 1887, his son, Alexander Graham Bell, sold off the intellectual assets owned by theVolta Laboratory Association. Graham used the considerable profits from the sale of his shares to found theVolta Bureau as an instrument "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge relating to the deaf".[12] Graham's scientific and statistical research work on deafness became so large that within the period of a few years his documentation engulfed an entire room of theVolta Laboratory in Melville's backyard carriage house. Due to the limited space available at the carriage house, and with the assistance of Melville who contributed US$15,000 (approximately $520,000 in today's dollars),[13] Graham had his new Volta Bureau building constructed close by in 1893.
Melville Bell died at age 86 in 1905 due to pneumonia after an operation for diabetes,[3] and was interred in Washington, D.C.'sRock Creek Cemetery adjacent to theHubbard • Bell • Grossman • Pillot Memorial, alongside his wife and other members of the Bell and Grosvenor families.
TheBell House atColonial Beach, Virginia was listed on theNational Register of Historic Places in 1987.[14]
The voice of Bell, reciting a sentence fromHamlet, can be heard at theSmithsonian Institution, as extracted from an 1881graphophone recording.[15]
The following are some of the more prominent of the 93 publications authored or co-authored by Melville Bell:[10][16]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bell, Alexander Melville".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 684. This in turn cites John Hitz,Alexander Melville Bell (Washington, 1906).
