William Isaac Blanchard
William Isaac Blanchard (died 1796) was an English stenographer.
Biography[]
Blanchard was the grandson of a French refugee, who resided in England. He became a professional shorthand writer, and practised his art in Westminster Hall from 1767 till his death in 1796.[1] His offices were at 4 Dean Street, Fetter Lane, and 10 Clifford's Inn.
Works[]
Blanchard was the inventor of two separate and distinct systems of stenography, the first of which he published under the title of A Complete System of Shorthand.[2] This was followed by the explanation of a more elaborate system in The Complete Instructor of Shorthand.[3] The method of stenography described in the second work was hardly practised, if praised in the Historical Account of Shorthand, under the name of . Several trials taken in shorthand by Blanchard were published between 1775 and 1791, including the trials of Admiral Keppel and John Horne Tooke.
References[]
- ^ Stephen, Leslie (1886). Dictionary of National Biography. Macmillan. p. 196.
- ^ A Complete System of Shorthand, being an improvement upon all the authors whose systems have yet been made public; is easy to be attained, and may be read again at any distance of time with the greatest certainty; it being properly adapted to the Latin tongue, and all sorts of technical terms, will make it extremely useful for law, physic, or divinity, Lond. 1779, 16 pp. and two plates.
- ^ The Complete Instructor of Shorthand, upon principles applicable to the European languages; also to the technical terms used by anatomists, and more comprehensive and easy to write and to read than any system hitherto published,' Lond. 1786.
Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
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- 1790 deaths
- Stenographers
- Writing system stubs