Ward's Book of Days.
Pages of interesting anniversaries.
What happened on this day in history.
FEBRUARY 29th
On this day in history in 1692, was born John Byrom.
Byrom was physician and poet, who invented shorthand.
Byrom
was born on 29th February 1692, at the Wellington Inn, Manchester,
now the oldest surviving building in Manchester. [Blue plaque. 4 Cathedral
Gates, Manchester M3 1SW]. The Byroms were an old Lancashire family, involved
in the wool trade. Byrom was educated at the Merchant Taylors’ School and
Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was elected a fellow in 1714. In 1715, he
left for Montpelier in France, ostensibly to study medicine, and returned in
1718.
Little
is known about Byrom’s life. We know that he wrote several poems and
epigrams. He is famous for the invention of the characters Tweedledum and
Tweedledee, who he used in his verses for satirical effect. Byrom wrote the
hymn Christians
Awake; Salute the Happy Morn,
first performed on Christmas Day, 1750, and the religious verse My
Spirit Longeth for Thee.
Byrom
invented and taught a system of shorthand, posthumously published as The
Universal English Shorthand,
which although superseded in the Nineteenth Century marked a significant
development in the history of shorthand. Shorthand writing was not Byrom’s
invention. In the reign of Elizabeth I, a patent had been granted for a ‘shorte
and new kynde of writing by character to the furtherance of good learning’.
The diarist Samuel Pepys recorded many of his writings in a secret shorthand
of his own invention. Byron’s system was systematic and quite easily learned
and, therefore, was readily taken up by writers who wished to maintain
privacy. John and Charles Wesley, founders of the Methodists, recorded their
self examinations in coded diaries, using Byrom’s system.
Byrom
spent much of his time as a recluse at the family seat, Byrom Hall, Lowtown,
Lancashire. Some say that he was a secret Jacobite and invented his shorthand
script to pass secret messages. Byron composed a comic verse, which may show
some Jacobite leaning.
God
bless the King! (I mean our faith's defender!)
God bless! (No harm in blessing) the Pretender.
But who Pretender is, and who is King,
God bless us all! That's quite another thing!
What
gives the lie to the Jacobite theory is that when the Young Pretender briefly
took Manchester, in 1745, Byrom kept himself out of sight for the entire
period. Byron’s papers mysteriously disappeared in the Nineteenth Century.
Some say that he was a closet Freemason or an occultist and that his works
were suppressed.
Byrom died in London on 26th September 1763, and was buried in the Jesus Chapel of Manchester Cathedral. [Manchester Cathedral, Cathedral Yard, Manchester, M3 1SX]
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