Louis Braille did more than invent and give his name to a system enabling blind people to read and write – he offered them independence.

Not that the French authorities were quick to lavish praise on their famous son. It took until the centenary of his death in 1952 for his body to be exhumed from its country graveyard and reburied in the Pantheon in Paris, resting place of those worthy of la gloire.

Playing in his father’s workshop one day, four-year-old Louis fell and pierced his eye with a saddler’s awl. Tragically the other eye became infected and he lost his sight completely.

He was a bright lad and the village priest and his father did their best to teach him to read by hammering an ‘alphabet’ of nails into blocks of wood.

Later he came to the attention of a local landowner who obtained a scholarship for him to the pioneering Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles in Paris. It was a great opportunity but blind, lonely, far from home in a harsh, frugal establishment, life for the 10-yearold was bleak. He faced a future caning chairs or slipper-making to earn a living.

Laborious system

There was a laborious reading system based on raised copper wires, but to get through even a short book letter by letter was tedious and frustrating and writing was impossible.

When the inspirational Andre Pignier became director, things changed, particularly after a visit in 1821 by Captain Charles Barbier. This Napoleonic veteran demonstrated ‘night writing’ used to convey silent messages to troops in the field. It was a simple code using dots and dashes impressed through stiff card so they could be ‘read’ with the fingers on the reverse side.

Braille began to evolve the idea that letters were redundant and a code of dots, based on dice, that could be felt rather than seen was the answer.

He eventually settled on 63 variations in six-dot cells for fingertip recognition, but there was still the problem that the code was impressed with a stylus on one face of the card and read on the other – back to front. Not until the invention of special machines that impressed the dots from beneath could Braille be read in the conventional way.

Not everyone was convinced that Louis Braille had solved the problem and a rearguard action was fought to maintain the old system. The most valid objection was that Braille was indecipherable to sighted people who would have difficulty assisting or teaching those who could use it.

When not teaching at the Institute, Louis battled to have his system more widely accepted. He published a booklet, using the old raised letter system to explain his new code of dots, gave demonstrations that aroused much interest and even promoted concerts given by blind musicians who could now ‘read’ their scores. The French public was greatly impressed, but not the authorities.

Others were more enthusiastic and in Britain a group with sight problems led by Thomas Rhodes Armitage formed a society for Improving the Embossed Literature for the Blind. After many trials and testing, they concluded that Braille was the best system and it was adopted almost universally.

The society eventually became the RNIB, which is now the largest publisher of Braille in Europe, not only of books but also sheet music.

Louis had contracted tuberculosis in his 20s and he died in 1852, unmourned and unhonoured by the rulers of France. It took until 1878 before most of Europe adopted Braille with the US following suit in 1912. It is recognised today as a universal alphabet by the UN and WHO.