John Willis (inventor)
John Willis, (ca. 1575 – 28 November 1625[1]) was a British clergyman, stenographer and mnemonician. He developed a simple style of shorthand based on the work by Timothy Bright.[2]
Early life[edit]
Willis graduated from Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1592.[1]
Clergyman and later life[edit]
On 12 June 1601 he was admitted to the rectory of St. Mary Bothaw, Dowgate Hill, London. He resigned in 1606 on being appointed rector of Bentley Parva, Essex.
Shorthand[edit]
In 1602 he published The Art of Stenographie, which was a new and more practicable system to capture speech in short writing. His shorthand was based on a system of arbitrary equivalent symbols, one for each single letter of the alphabet.[3]
Works[edit]
- The Art of Stenographie, London, 1602
References[edit]
- ^ a b "Willis, John (WLS592J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ Vivian Salmon (1 January 1988). The Study of Language in 17th-Century England: Second Edition. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 159. ISBN 978-90-272-8611-6.
- ^ Frances Henderson. "'Swifte and Secrete Writing' in Seventeenth-Century England, and Samuel Shelton's Brachygraphy" (PDF).
- Attribution
. Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
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