JOHN

See also:

• JOHN BYROM (1692-1763)

BYROM (1692-1763)  , English poet, writer of hymns and inventor of a system of shorthand, was born at Kersal Cell, near Manchester, on the 29th of February 1692, the younger son of a prosperous merchant . He was educated at Merchant Taylors school, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow in 1714 . His first poem, " Colin to Phoebe," a pastoral, appeared in the Spectator, No . 603 . The heroine is said to have been Dr Bentley's daughter, Joanna, the mother of Richard Cumberland, the dramatist . After leaving the university Byrom went abroad, ostensibly to study medicine, but he never practised and possibly his errand was really political, for he was an adherent of the Pretender . He was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1724 . On his return to London he married his cousin in' 721, and to support himself taught a new method of shorthand of his own invention, till he succeeded (1740) to his father's estate on the death of his elder brother . His diary gives interesting portraits and letters of the many great men of his time whom he knew intimately . He died on the 26th of September 1763 . A collection of his poems was published in 1773, and he is included in Alexander Chalmers's English Poets . His system of shorthand was not published until after his death, when it was printed as The Universal English Shorthand; or the way of writing English in the most easy, concise, regular and beautiful manner, applicable to any other language, but particularly adjusted to our own (Manchester, 1767) .

The Private

Journal and Literary Remains of John Byrom, related by Richard Parkinson, D.D., was published by the Chetham Society (1854-1857) .