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Sir Isaac Pitman was born here in Trowbridge on the 4 January 1813. He was an English teacher who developed the most widely used system of shorthand, known now as Pitman shorthand. He first proposed this in Stenographic Soundhand in 1837. He was also the vice president of the Vegetarian Society. Pitman was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1894.
In 1886 Pitman went into partnerships with his sons Alfred and Ernest to form Isaac Pitman and Sons. In the same year the millionth copy of the Phonographic Teacher was sold in Great Britain. Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons was to become one of the world's leading educational publishers and training businesses with offices in London, Bath, New York City, Melbourne, Johannesburg, Toronto and Tokyo. The publishing division was bought by rival Pearson Plc in 1985. The training business evolved into two separate businesses: Pitman Training and JHP Training (now learndirect).
The first distance education course in the modern sense was provided by Sir Isaac Pitman in the 1840s, who taught a system of shorthand by mailing texts transcribed into shorthand on postcards and receiving transcriptions from his students in return for correction. The element of
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