Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Gilbert, Elizabeth Margaretta Maria
GILBERT, ELIZABETH MARGARETTA MARIA (1826–1885), philanthropist, born at Oxford on 7 Aug. 1826, was the second daughter and third of the eleven children of Ashurst Turner Gilbert [q. v.], principal of Brasenose College, Oxford, and afterwards bishop of Chichester, by his wife Mary Ann, only surviving child of Robert Wintle, vicar of Culham, Oxfordshire. She was at an early age a fine child, with flashing black eyes, but when only three years old a bad attack of scarlet fever deprived her of sight. Her parents wisely determined that she should be brought up with her sisters, although she was once severely burnt by falling against the fire. At the age of twenty she could understand French, German, and Italian, and had been thoroughly educated. She began to be keenly interested in the state of the blind poor. The invention, in 1851, of the Foucault frame enabled her to write freely, and she began to correspond with William Hanks Levy, a young blind teacher employed at the St. John's Wood school. In May 1854 she hired a cellar in New Turnstile, Holborn, at the cost of 1s. 6d. a week, for the sale of the work of seven blind men who worked at their own homes, and were paid the full selling price, less the cost of material. Levy was engaged as manager. Ultimately the institution developed into ‘The Association for Promoting the General Welfare of the Blind,’ at 21 South Row, New (Euston) Road, now 127 Euston Road. In accordance with Levy's wish, none but blind persons were employed, although Miss Gilbert rather disapproved of their isolation. She proposed in a thoughtful paper the establishment of a normal school for training teachers for the blind. Finding that much time might be saved by the use of blocks upon which baskets could be modelled, she sent Levy to France to obtain the necessary tools. In 1865 the association, now much advanced, removed to 210 Oxford Street, and afterwards to 28 Berners Street. Miss Gilbert materially assisted Levy in writing a book on ‘Blindness and the Blind,’ 8vo, 1872. She also took much interest in the foundation of the Normal College for the Blind. In November 1874 she sent a paper to a special committee appointed by the Charity Organisation Society to consider means of helping the blind, but was too ill to attend the meeting. Her delicate health caused her much suffering. She died on 7 Feb. 1885, at 5 Stanhope Place, Hyde Park, London.
[Frances Martin's Elizabeth Gilbert and her Work for the Blind; Athenæum, 17 Dec. 1887.]