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Alexander Technique and its elocutionary inheritance: A view of how we got to here By Malcolm Williamson. Part 2 of a two-part, serialised article John Thelwall, continued Thelwall opened his school of elocution first in Liverpool (c.1805) and then, soon having moved to London, summoned his wife and son Algernon to assist with its running (Rockey 1979, p. 171, footnote 120): ‘College for the Cure of all Impediments of Speech, not connected with absolute privation of hearing; whether originating in mal-conformation, in accidental injuries, in mental agitation, or imitative habit’ (Thelwall 1810, p. 185). By the nineteenth century there were four divisions to the art and science of elocution: (1) voice management, (2) vocal production, (3) gesture and (4) orthoepy – i.e. study of the correct or accepted pronunciation of words. Thelwall, like other elocutionists, benefitted from being closely associated with the medical profession (doctors could supply a steady stream of clients) but he also distanced himself from their seeming arbitrary and often brutal treatments. Thelwall formulated his principle of ‘rhythmus’ – speaking in a rhythmic flow that synchronised with the stressed and unstressed syllabic pattern (meter) of spoken language. Thus, his method was at once a technique for curing speech defects such as stammering, and a technique for teaching a just and pleasing manner of speaking. Thelwall did not write about his methods but he is credited with shaping a new profession, along with practitioners like James Hunt (1833-1869), Alexander Melville Bell (18191905) and Emil Behnke (1836-1892). He set new trends and standards for elocution with his open sharing of knowledge, sowing the seeds of modern speech subjects such as oral interpretation, voice training, phonetic science, and speech therapy (Haberman, p. 297). Rockey (1979, p. 169) traces the association between the dramatic and pathological aspects of speech from Thelwall through to the training programme at the Central School for Speech and Drama, established by Elsie Fogerty around 1920. Thomas Hunt (1802-1851) and James Hunt (1833-1869) Finally, we take a brief look at the family partnership of Thomas Hunt and his son, James. Thomas was a tenant farmer living near Corf Castle in Dorset. He was destined for the church. He spent two years at Trinity College, Cambridge where he helped a fellow student and decided instead to become a speech correctionist practising in London’s fashionable Regent Street. Thomas had an ill-tempered exchange with an editorial writer in the medical journal, The Lancet who referred to him as “a mere vocal posture-master” (Rockey 1980, p. 236) . (The writer is identified by Rockey as William Tyler Smith, James Yearsley’s brother-in-law (Rockey 1980, p. 103, note 89).) Arguments between the medical and elocution
professions centred on whether the range of ‘stuttering’ impediments were a disease – for which doctors claimed to be uniquely qualified to treat – or whether the aetiology lay in mental (emotional) or ‘moral’ causes that were amenable to instruction by non-medical elocutionists. There had been a long tradition for relatively minor operations; tonsils removal and shortening the uvula were common – the latter was recommended to Alexander (Alexander 1985, p. 24 note). And, for those who were ‘tongue tied’, snipping the fraenum or ‘bridle of the tongue’ was at times regarded as routine by nursery nurses! (Thelwall 1810, pp. 12, 49, 51, 205-7; Hunt, pp. 209-215)6 For a short period around 1841, the Prussian surgeon Frederick Dieffenbach was more ambitious, severing nerves and slicing the tongue (Rockey 1980, 199-217). In England, Yearsley led the field. Thomas Hunt (and son) were fierce critics of the surgeon’s knife as a cure for speech impediment calling surgeons “slashers” (Rockey 1980, p. 214). They insisted stuttering was ‘more or less a functional disorder’ lacking ‘some proper regulation or use’ and ‘that discipline of the vocal and articulating organs, under an experienced instructor, is the only means of overcoming impediments of speech’ (Hunt, pp. 93, 151, 154).7 Despite his confrontational stance, Smith had some prescient ideas. Rockey identifies him as the ‘Physician Incognito’, author of Nature and Causes of Stammering (Rockey 1980, p. 139). In it he theorised that inappropriate muscles were stimulated by the volition to speak which, ‘. . . is, as it were, dispersed at the point where it excites the motor fibres, so that it excites a large number of them, or a different series than would be proper for the effect desired. As a consequence of this dispersion, other muscles contract besides those which are necessary, and by their contrary action put a stop to articulation, or prevent it for a time. An increase of the effort to speak usually adds to the severity of the impediment, and puts
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An increase of the effort to speak usually adds to the severity of the impediment, and puts a still larger number of muscles in action... 19
