Stuttering Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === Historic advocacy and self-help === Self-help and advocacy organisations for people who stammer have reportedly been in existence since the 1920s. In 1921, a Philadelphia-based attorney who stammered, J. Stanley Smith, established the Kingsley Club. <ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Thurber |first=James |date=1930-04-25 |title=Stammerers' Club |language=en-US |magazine=The New Yorker |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1930/05/03/stammerers-club |access-date=2023-08-01 |issn=0028-792X}}</ref> Designed to support people with a stammer in the Philadelphia area, the club took inspiration for its name from [[Charles Kingsley]]. Kingsley, a nineteenth-century English social reformer and author of ''Westward Ho!'' and ''The Water Babies'', had a stammer himself.<ref>{{Citation |title=Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, ''1830–1882'' |date=2012-02-01 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.7135/upo9781843317562.019 |work=Perceptions of the Press in Nineteenth-Century British Periodicals |pages=261–299 |access-date=2023-08-01 |publisher=Anthem Press|doi=10.7135/upo9781843317562.019 |isbn=978-1-84331-756-2 }}</ref> Whilst Kingsley himself did not appear to recommend self-help or advocacy groups for people who stammer, the Kingsley Club promoted a positive mental attitude to support its members in becoming confident speakers, in a similar way discussed by Charles Kingsley in ''Irrationale of Speech''. Other support groups for people who stammer began to emerge in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1935 a Stammerer's Club was established in Melbourne, Australia, by a Mr H. Collin of Thornbury.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1935-05-23 |title=STAMMERERS' CLUB. |work=Sydney Morning Herald |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17146929 |access-date=2023-08-01}}</ref> At the time of its formation it had 68 members. The club was formed in response to the tragic case of a man from Sydney who "sought relief from the effects of stammering in suicide". As well as providing self-help, this club adopted an advocacy role with the intention of appealing to the Government to provide special education and to fund research into the causes of stammering.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1936-10-10 |title=THE STAMMERERS' CLUB OF QUEENSLAND. |work=Cairns Post |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article41779262}}</ref><ref>''Bermuda Reporter''</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page