Thomas Shelton (stenographer)

Thomas Shelton made his living from shorthand, teaching the subject in London over a period of thirty years while he developed his stenographical systems.

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").

Shelton's shorthand was used, amongst others, by Samuel Pepys, Sir Isaac Newton, John Byrom and US-President Thomas Jefferson.

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".

Shelton's Tachygraphy was taken up and adapted by later proponents of shorthand systems: Thomas Arkisden,[2] Theophilus Metcalfe,[3] and Charles Aloysius Ramsay.