John Willis, (ca. 1575 – 28 November 1625
) was a British clergyman, stenographer and mnemonician. He developed a simple style of
shorthand
Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''ste ...
based on the work by
Timothy Bright
Timothie Bright, M.D. (1551?–1615) was an Early Modern English physician and clergyman, the inventor of modern shorthand.
Early life
Bright was born in or about 1551, probably in the neighbourhood of Sheffield. He matriculated as a sizar at Tri ...
.
Early life
Willis graduated from
Christ's College, Cambridge
Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 170 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as ...
, in 1592.
Clergyman and later life
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
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.
Works
* ''The Art of Stenographie'', London, 1602
References
;Attribution
{{DEFAULTSORT:Willis, John
1570s births
1625 deaths
16th-century English writers
16th-century male writers
17th-century English Anglican priests
17th-century English writers
17th-century English male writers
Shorthand systems
English male writers