(1924– )
Pierre
Gorman was born in Melbourne to Sir Eugene and Marthe Gorman. He attended
Melbourne Church of England Grammar School and the University of Melbourne,
taking the degrees of BAgSci and BEd in 1949 and 1951 before proceeding
to Cambridge University where he graduated PhD in 1960. A normal enough
education for many others, Gorman’s is remarkable because he has been
profoundly deaf since birth and he was the first such person to take
such a degree from Cambridge.
His career has spanned many aspects of the same mission – a determination
that people with disabilities, especially, although not exclusively,
that of deafness, should be enabled to succeed in the open community.
In his occasional address at the University of Melbourne in 2000, following
the conferment of the degree LLD honoris causa, Gorman expressed the
hope that this would encourage further research ‘to determine how negative
attitudes and behaviour towards disabilities and their owners can be
reduced, or better still, eliminated’.
After graduation from Cambridge, Gorman worked with Sir Richard Paget
on the Paget-Gorman sign system, and was appointed as the first information
officer of the National Institute for the Deaf, eventually building
its library into one of the world’s great resources on all aspects of
speech and hearing. He followed his leadership of the Policy Investigation
Project of the Victorian School for Deaf Children by joining the Faculty
of Education at Monash University, retiring in 1983.
At this point Gorman re-established his connection with the University
of Melbourne, offering to the University Library his collection of books
and pictorial works related to Cambridge. The original 600 titles have
swelled to more than 3000 pamphlets, periodicals and monographs on all
aspects of Cambridge life. Some of the pictures may be seen in the School
of Graduate Studies. This collection represents an extraordinary tribute
to Pierre Gorman’s happy association with Cambridge University, especially
Corpus Christi College. It provides Melbourne scholars with a unique
resource.
