[2] Braidwood originally established himself as a writing teacher, instructing the children of the wealthy at his home in the Canongate in Edinburgh.
Braidwood developed a combined system for educating deaf students, which included a form of sign language and the study of articulation and lip reading.
In October 1773, Dr. Samuel Johnson visited the school while traveling through Scotland, and wrote:[4] There is one subject of philosophical curiosity in Edinburgh which no other city has to show; a College for the Deaf and Dumb, who are taught to speak, to read and to write, and to practise arithmetic, by a gentleman whose name is Braidwood.
It was pleasing to see one of the most desperate of human calamities capable of so much help: whatever enlarges hope will exalt courage.
After having seen the deaf taught arithmetic, who would be afraid to cultivate the Hebrides.In 1783 Thomas Braidwood moved with his family to Hackney in what is now the East End of London, but then was a rural village with easy connections to the capital.
In 1792, Dr. Watson went on to become the first head teacher of the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, which was established on Old Kent Road in Bermondsey.