1712 - 1789: Abbé Charles Michel de l'Epée (FR)

"Abbé Charles Michel de l'Epée of Paris founded the first free school for deaf people in 1755."

"He first recognized and learned the signs that were already being used by deaf people in Paris and then developed his sign system. He added a signed version of spoken French."

1715 - 1780: Jacob Rodrigues Pereira (FR)

Jacob Rodrigues Pereira (born April 11, 1715 in Peniche , Portugal ; died September 15, 1780 in Paris ) was a Portuguese-French Jewish educator. As a pedagogue, he developed a teaching method for the deaf and is considered a pioneer in France .

1715 – 1806: Thomas Braidwood (UK)

Thomas Braidwood (1715–1806) was a Scottish educator, significant in the history of deaf education. He was the founder of Britain's first school for the deaf.

Braidwood changed his vocation from teaching hearing pupils to teaching the deaf, and renamed his building Braidwood's Academy for the Deaf and Dumb, the first school of its kind in Britain.

The educational approach utilized a "combined system" incorporating sign language, articulation, speech, and lip-reading. Braidwood's input into the development and application of a signed language has been credited as one of the most significant influencers of what would become British Sign Language. 

1723 - 1792: Joshua Reynolds, Painter (UK)

Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter, specialising in portraits.

1727 - 1790: Samuel Heinicke (DE)

"Samuel Heinicke was born April 14, 1727, in the part of Europe that is now the eastern part of Germany. In 1754, he began tutoring students—and one of them was deaf. This deaf student reportedly was a young boy. He used the manual alphabet to teach that deaf pupil."

"In 1777, his reputation as a deaf educator was so well established that he was asked to open the first (oral) public school for the deaf. This school opened in Leipzig, Germany and it was the first school for the deaf officially recognized by a government."

1740 - 1823: Claude André Deseine, Sculptor (FR)

Claude-André Deseine was born deaf.  He was an early pupil of the French pioneer of sign language teaching, the abbé de l’Epée, and justly proud of his achievements as a deaf-mute artist.

1742 - 1822: Abbé Sicard, Teacher of the Deaf (FR)

Roch-Ambroise Cucurron Sicard (20 September 1742 – 10 May 1822) was a French abbé and instructor of the deaf.

In 1789, on the death of the Abbé de l'Épée, he succeeded him at a leading school for the deaf which Épée had founded in Paris.

1742–1810: Richard Crosse, Painter (UK)

Richard Crosse  was a leading English painter of portrait miniatures. Crosse was, like one of his sisters, completely deaf and never able to speak. 

1746 - 1828: Francisco Goya, Painter (ES)

In the winter of 1792-93, when Goya was 46, he developed a mysterious illness that nearly killed him. He survived but lost his hearing, and for the next 35 years was “deaf as a stump.”

(..)

And yet, only after the illness did he achieve full mastery of the face in his portraits. Only after his hearing was gone did his skill as a portraitist reach its zenith, possibly, it has been suggested, because deafness made him more aware of gesture, physical expression, and all the minute particulars of how faces and bodies reveal themselves.

1747 - 1799 : Pierre Desloges (FR)

In 1779, Piere Desloges wrote what may be the first book published by a deaf person, in which he advocated for the use of sign language in deaf education.

It was in part a rebuttal of the views of Abbé Claude-François Deschamps de Champloiseau, who had published a book arguing against the use of signs.

Desloges explained, "like a Frenchman who sees his language belittled by a German who knows only a few French words, I thought I was obliged to defend my language against the false charges of this author." He describes a community of deaf people using a sign language (now referred to as Old French Sign Language).

1750 – 1829: Charles Shirreff, Painter (UK)

Charles Shirreff was born in either 1749 or 1750. His last name has, at times, been spelled as Sherrif, Sherriff, or Shirref.

At the age of three or four, Shirreff became deaf and mute. In 1760, his father approached Thomas Braidwood, owner of a school of mathematics in Edinburgh, seeking an education for the boy, then ten years old, in the hope that he could be taught to write.

Charles became Braidwood's first deaf student; soon afterward, Braidwood founded Braidwood's Academy for the Deaf and Dumb, the first school of its kind in Britain."

1753 - 1829: Ottavio Assarotti (IT)

"Ottavio Giovanni Battista Assarotti (25 October 1753 in Genoa – 24 January 1829) was an Italian philanthropist and founder of the first school for deaf people in Genoa, Italy."