Frederick John Rose was the Headmaster-Superintendent of Victorian School for Deaf Children (formerly the Victorian Deaf and Dumb Institution) from 1860 to 1891.

Biography

Born in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in 1831, Rose was profoundly deaf. He travelled to Victoria

Victoria (Australia)

Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, with his brother during the 1850s gold rush

Gold rush

A gold rush is a period of feverish migration of workers to an area that has had a dramatic discovery of gold. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and the United States, while smaller gold rushes took place elsewhere.In the 19th and early...

, but after no initial success, the brothers worked in construction.

After reading a letter written by the widowed mother of a deaf child that published in Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

's The Argus

The Argus (Australia)

The Argus was a morning daily newspaper in Melbourne established in 1846 and closed in 1957. Widely known as a conservative newspaper for most of its history, it adopted a left leaning approach from 1949...

in 1859, Rose took an interest in educational services for disabled children in the colony. At the time, children requiring specialist education were expected to travel to England.

In 1860, Rose began teaching pupils in a small house in Windsor

Windsor, Victoria

Windsor is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 5 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Stonnington. At the 2006 Census, Windsor had a population of 6394....

, a suburb of Melbourne, however the number of students continued to grow, causing the location to change several times. By 1866, Rose had collected enough funds to construct a purpose-built facility. The large bluestone

Bluestone

Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of dimension or building stone varieties, including:*a feldspathic sandstone in the U.S. and Canada;*limestone in the Shenandoah Valley in the U.S...

 was completed in 1867 and still stands on St Kilda Road, Melbourne, currently operated by Deaf Children Australia

Deaf Children Australia

Deaf Children Australia is a charity that supports young deaf and hard of hearing people in Australia.Formerly known as Victorian Services for Deaf Children, Deaf Children Australia was founded in the Victorian capital of Melbourne in 1860. The offices are in an excellent Gothic Revival building...

 and the Victorian College for the Deaf

Victorian College for the Deaf

The Victorian College for the Deaf , located on St Kilda Road in Melbourne, Australia, is Victoria's oldest deaf school, opening in 1860. It currently provides education in Auslan, the language of the Australian Deaf community, from prep through to year 12...

.