Ferdinand Berthier

Ferdinand Berthier (30 September 1803 to 12 July 1886) was a French deaf educator, intellectual and political organiser in nineteenth-century France, and one of the earliest champions of deaf identity and culture. Born in Louhans, he entered the Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris in 1811 and was influenced by his teacher Roch-Ambroise Auguste Bébian and by the deaf students and later teachers Jean Massieu and Laurent Clerc. By the age of 27 he was one of the school's more senior professors. In 1837 he petitioned the French government to create the Société Centrale des Sourds-muets, officially founded the following year, which gave deaf workers a way to support each other through mutual aid and to organise and attend adult education classes. He defended deaf identity and sign language under a repressive social and political climate and wrote books on deaf history and deaf culture. In 1849 he became the first deaf person to receive the Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur.