Jeremiah Rich facts for kids

Jeremiah Rich (who passed away around 1660) was an English writer. He created a special system for writing very fast, which is called shorthand. His system helped many people learn to write quickly and was very popular for a long time.

Jeremiah Rich's Life

Jeremiah Rich learned shorthand from his uncle, William Cartwright. Shorthand is a way to write words very quickly using special symbols. Jeremiah became very good at it.

He wrote a book called Semigraphy. He gave this book to Mary Rich, Countess of Warwick. In the book, he mentioned that she had spent time learning shorthand from him. This suggests he might have been her tutor.

A man named John Lilburne once said that Rich wrote down his court proceedings very accurately. In 1646, Rich lived in Southwark, a part of London. Later, in 1659, he lived in a house called the Golden Ball near London Stone.

Jeremiah Rich's Books and System

Jeremiah Rich published his first book in 1642. It was called Semography, or Short and Swift Writing. This book said that the system was invented by his uncle, William Cartwright. Rich only published it after his uncle had passed away.

However, just four years later, in 1646, Rich published another book. This one was called Charactery. In this book, he claimed that he had invented the system himself. He continued to say he was the inventor in later books too. These included Semigraphy or Arts Rarity (1654) and The Penns Dexterity (1659).

For a long time, people forgot that William Cartwright might have been the original inventor. But in 1880, someone named Edward Pocknell shared information that showed Cartwright's role.

After Rich's death, new versions of his shorthand book were published. The first one came out in 1669. It was called The Pens Dexterity Compleated. This book claimed to teach Rich's shorthand perfectly, which it said was never done while he was alive. This system was very popular. It had many editions, with the twentieth one published in 1792.

Many people helped improve Rich's system, including William Addy and Philip Doddridge. Doddridge even made learning Rich's shorthand a required subject at his school. Famous thinkers like John Locke also admired Rich's shorthand.

Rich also published tiny books of the Psalms and the New Testament written in his shorthand. These small books came out in 1659. In 2011, a miniature Bible by Rich was shown on the BBC's Antiques Roadshow. It was valued at a good price.

Images for kids