Woman Speech Therapist. 30 January 1937

Woman Speech Therapist. 30 January 1937

Wolverhampton Express

Tucked away on the Women’s Page of this newspaper is a very interesting article about Miss Muriel Judd – a young woman who has taken up a newly-created job: that of speech therapist.

This is the first mention I have come across of Muriel Judd, and excitingly, an indication of Irene Mawer’s passion for her love of remedial work to help people with speech problems. The connection with Irene Mawer is that Judd was a member of the Institute of Mime. If Judd trained at Ginner-Mawer, her training would have enabled her to go on to do this type of work (not all graduates of Ginner-Mawer went on to become teachers of dance).

However, the article states that Judd trained at the Central School of Speech Training and Dramatic Art, which, of course, Irene Mawer was closely connected with (having trained there and later taught there around the time of World War One). Muriel Judd received the London University Diploma in Dramatic Art, with the endorsement “Remedial speech training” (I believe that Central originally affiliated to the University of London circa 1920, though I think Lolli Susi disputes this in her book). Judd also had her LRAM in elocution.

Since at least 1935, Irene Mawer was teaching mime to members of the Verse Speaking Association, an Muriel Judd won the final round of the Oxford Verse Speaking Festival (which was presumably connected, however tenuously).

Muriel Judd held a full-time position with the Education Committee in Wolverhampton with the aim of carrying out “a scheme for the correction of speech defects among school children”.

The scheme was set up by Kathleen Jones, and Muriel Judd’s role was to “take classes for children with defects, teaching them principal remedial exercises”. She held her classes at five centres, each of which she visited twice a week.

Irene Mawer is known for her work in mime, but less so for her work in speech therapy. Please like/share/comment/follow, etc, so that the ‘bots’ will be able to find Miss Mawer when people do internet searches. Thank you.