Thomas Shelton (1600/01–1650(?)) was an English stenographer and the inventor of a much-used British 17th- and 18th-century stenography.

Life

The 1647 edition of Thomas Shelton's ''Tachygraphie'' contains a portrait giving his age as 46, implying that he was born in 1600/01. Nothing sure is known about his origin and education, but it was supposed that he came from the well-known Shelton family which owned much land in

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

. In the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

(1642–49), Shelton stood on the side of the

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

; his religious sympathies were for

Puritan The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Catholic Church, Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become m ...

ism. Thomas Shelton made his living from shorthand, teaching the subject in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

over a period of thirty years while he developed his stenographical systems. Shelton knew the stenography of John Willis and took over its geometrical basic principle for his own shorthand. He published several books about shorthand which he sold from his house.

Shelton's shorthand

Shelton invented a new stenographical system and published it in 1626 in the book ''Short-Writing'' (in later editions since 1635 called "''Tachygraphy''", Ancient Greek for "speedy writing"). In Shelton's shorthand system every

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wit ...

was expressed by an easy symbol which sometimes still resembled the alphabetical letter. The

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

s were designated by the height of the following consonant. Thus the B symbol with the L symbol written directly above meant "ball", while the B symbol with the L symbol below meant "bull". The B symbol with the L symbol on top right meant "bell", in the middle right "bill", below on the right "boll". A vowel at the word end was designated by a point in the suitable position. For initial vowels there were additional symbols. There were other symbols for frequent prefixes and suffixes as well as for consonant connections. A disadvantage of Shelton's shorthand was that vowels and

diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...

s were not always distinguished (see "Tachygraphy" for details). For example, the symbols for "bat" could mean "bait" or "bate" as well, and the symbols for "bot" could mean "boot" or "boat" as well. This can only be decided from the context. An advantage of his system was that it could be easily learnt. Therefore, between 1626 and 1710 more than 20 editions of his "Tachygraphy" were printed. German issues appeared between 1679 and 1743 and a French issue in

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in 1681. Shelton's shorthand was used, amongst others, by

Samuel Pepys Samuel Pepys (; 23 February 1633 – 26 May 1703) was an English diarist and naval administrator. He served as administrator of the Royal Navy and Member of Parliament and is most famous for the diary he kept for a decade. Pepys had no mariti ...

, Sir

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...

John Byrom John Byrom or John Byrom of Kersal or John Byrom of Manchester FRS (29 February 1692 – 26 September 1763) was an English poet, the inventor of a revolutionary system of shorthand and later a significant landowner. He is most remembered as t ...

and US-President

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 18 ...

. In the year of his death, 1650, Shelton published yet another shorthand system called "Zeiglographia", but it did not become as widespread as his "Tachygraphy".

Influence

Shelton's Tachygraphy was taken up and adapted by later proponents of shorthand systems:

Thomas Arkisden Thomas Arkisden (fl. 1633), was a stenographer, who invented a shorthand alphabet, whilst at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He settled in Aspley Guise, where he was known as the Bletchley minster. Life Arkisden was born around 1608 to Thomas Arkisde ...

Theophilus Metcalfe Theophilus Metcalfe (bap. 1610 – c.1645) was an English stenographer. He invented a shorthand system that became popular, in particular, in New England, where it was used to record the Salem witch trials. Life Metcalfe was baptised in Richmo ...

, and

Charles Aloysius Ramsay Charles Aloysius Ramsay (fl.1677–1680) was a Scottish-Prussian writer on stenography and translator. He spent his time on the continent of Europe, and his shorthand system, which owed much to Thomas Shelton's, became popular in France during the ...

Elisha Coles Elisha Coles (c. 1640 – 1680) was a 17th-century English lexicographer and stenographer. Life He was son of John Coles, schoolmaster of Wolverhampton, and nephew of Elisha Coles the religious author. He became chorister of Magdalen Coll ...

adapted Zeiglographia.

Literature

* . * Alexander Tremaine Wright: ''Thomas Shelton, tachygrapher''. London 1896. 24 pages.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shelton, Thomas Creators of writing systems English inventors 1650 deaths Year of birth uncertain 17th-century English people