Dorothy Miles

Dorothy "Dot" Miles (née Squire; 19 August 1931 – 30 January 1993) was a Welsh poet, activist, and performer whose work established the foundations of sign language poetry in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Born in Holywell, Flintshire, North Wales, she was the youngest of five surviving children of James and Amy Squire. In 1939, at the age of eight, she contracted cerebrospinal meningitis, which left her deaf. She received her early education at the Royal School for the Deaf and the Mary Hare School.

In 1957, sponsored in part by the British Deaf and Dumb Association, Miles traveled to the United States to study at Gallaudet College. Her academic record there was distinguished: she became the first junior-class student elected to the Gallaudet Phi Alpha Pi honour society, edited student magazines, won prizes for prose writing, poetry, and acting, and was listed in the 1961 edition of Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities. Some of her writing appeared in The Silent Muse, an anthology of selected works by deaf authors. She also composed the Bison's song during her time at the college. She married fellow student Robert Thomas Miles in September 1958; they separated the following year. Miles graduated in 1961 with a BA with distinction.

Following graduation, she worked in the United States as a teacher and counsellor for deaf adults. In 1967, she joined the newly founded National Theatre of the Deaf, initially serving as wardrobe mistress before moving into performance. She first acted with the company in 1968 in a production of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, a script she also helped translate. That work with the National Theatre of the Deaf brought her to Broadway in 1970, where she appeared in Songs From Milk Wood. Miles also contributed to the NTD's Little Theatre of the Deaf, which created productions for children and teenagers. In 1974, she earned a master's degree from Connecticut College; her thesis examined the history of theatre activities in the deaf community of the United States. The following year she left the NTD to work with the campus service for the deaf at California State University, Northridge.

Miles composed her poems in English, British Sign Language, and American Sign Language, creating work accessible to both deaf and hearing audiences. Her published collections include Gestures: Poetry in Sign Language, released in 1976, and Bright Memory, published posthumously in 1998. She is recognized as the pioneer of BSL poetry, and her output is considered a primary source for much of the sign language poetry performed today.

After twenty years in the United States, Miles returned to England in the autumn of 1977. She quickly became active in the British Deaf Community, performing her poem "Language for the Eye" on the National Union of the Deaf's television programme Signs of Life for Open Door and participating in discussions that contributed to the development of the See Hear television series. She took on work with the British Deaf Association, compiled the first teaching manual for BSL tutors, and helped establish the Council for the Advancement of Communication with Deaf People. She also contributed to the BDA dictionary and wrote the BBC book BSL: A Beginner's Guide, published to accompany a BBC television series on British Sign Language. Additionally, she was involved in founding and teaching on the British Sign Language Tutor Training Course, the first university course designed to train deaf people as BSL tutors.

By the early 1990s, Miles was experiencing manic depression. She died on 30 January 1993 after falling from the window of her second-floor flat; an inquest at St. Pancras Coroner's Court concluded she had taken her own life. In her memory, the Dorothy Miles Cultural Centre was established by a group of deaf and hearing friends in Surrey to promote British Sign Language and deaf awareness. That work was later continued by Dot Sign Language. In April 2024, a Purple Plaque celebrating Remarkable Women in Wales was unveiled outside her childhood home at 27 Westbourne Avenue, Rhyl, by her niece Liz Deverill. On 19 August 2024, the 93rd anniversary of her birth, Miles was honored with a Google Doodle created by deaf artist Youmee Lee.