The Doctor who Discovered Dyslexia
There are several brass plaques in the north aisle but of particular interest is that for Doctor William Pringle Morgan. He was a doctor in Seaford for over forty years, particularly taking care of the many schoolchildren in the town. He lived in a house called Rostrevor (now the site of Tescos) and worked from the surgery in Hurdis House, Broad Street.
William Pringle Morgan was the doctor for a young boy called Percy who, although clever and active found great difficulty in reading and writing. The doctor realised that the condition was nothing to do with the mental ability of the boy but rather a problem with visual perception. He wrote up his findings, which he first described as ‘congenital word blindness’ and was published in the British Medical Journal of 1896.
Today this Seaford doctor is recognised throughout the world as the person who identified dyslexia. In 2008 a film crew travelled from Japan to film this memorial and there is even a school in Buenos Aries, Argentina named after him.
