Pierre Gorman

In the 1983 New Year’s Honours, Gorman was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the civil division, in recognition of service to disabled people.

Pierre Gorman purchased an Airedale Terrier, Ch Tjuringa Paul, in 1970, and became active in the breed, enjoying Paul’s success at dog shows. Gorman commissioned an Ogilvie bronze of Paul which today is displayed in the Education Faculty at Monash University.

In 1942, Gorman met the entrance requirements for the University of Melbourne, graduating in 1949 with a Bachelor of Agricultural Science degree and an Honours Diploma in Education, and with a Bachelor of Education degree in 1951. He then spent a year in Paris, where he studied the problems of children with disabilities, at Dr Hoffer’s clinic. In 1952, he enrolled at Corpus Christi College at the University of Cambridge. Under the supervision of Robert H. Thouless, in 1960 he became the first deaf person to complete a PhD at Cambridge.

While at the RNID, Gorman began working with the anthropologist Sir Richard Paget to refine and develop a manually coded sign system, which Paget had originated in the 1930s. When Paget died in 1955, Gorman continued to work on developing and refining the system with Paget’s widow, Lady Grace Paget. The system, which became known as the Paget Gorman Sign System, was widely used in the education of deaf children in Britain from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Pierre Patrick Gorman, CBE (1 October 1924 – 1 October 2006) was an Australian librarian and academic who specialised in education for children with disabilities. Gorman, born profoundly deaf, was the first deaf person to receive a doctorate at Cambridge University.