Wilts Obituary. 



213 



a paper started in 1849 in conjunction with Mr. A. J. Ellis, advocating 

 phonetic spelling reform, expired within a year. In 1850 he published The 

 Bible in phonetic spelling. The Phonographic Teacher, The Phonographic 

 Reporter s Companion (1846), The Vocabulary, The Phonographic 

 Instructor — of which fifteen thousand copies were sold in 1852-3 — 

 The Manual, The Phrase Booh, and the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Phonetic 

 Reading Books contained the full development of the shorthand system 

 begun in his earlier works. By 1862 one hundred and seventy thousand 

 copies of The Manual, two hundred and eighty-five thousand of The 

 Teacher, and twenty-five thousand of The Reporter had been issued. In 

 1867 he published a large work, The Reporter's Assistant, the first edition 

 of which was lithographed, the second printed. "Phonography" reached 

 its seventeenth edition in 1888, and an immense number of standard works 

 printed in shorthand were issued from the Phonetic Institute. In 1887 the 

 Jubilee of Phonography was celebrated by a gathering of phonographers 

 from all parts of the British Empire, and gold medals and a marble bust 

 were presented to Mr. Pitman. In 1894, at the instance of Lord Roseberry, 

 he received the honour of knighthood. He lived to see his system of 

 shorthand in use by 95 per cent, of the reporters in the English-speaking 

 world ; whilst, on the other hand, the system of phonetic spelling which he 

 so long laboured to advance — in spite of its advocacy by Professor Max 

 M tiller and others — has made no practical impression. The Times (leading 

 article and obit, notice, Jan. 23rd, 1897) says of him : "His death closes a 

 useful and unpretentious life. It may fairly be said of him that many a 

 more famous man has done less good in his generation. He worked with 

 remarkable success in an industrial bye-path of his own, and will be re- 

 membered, not as the advocate of a futile attempt to change the spelling of 

 our language, but as the inventor of an admirable system of shorthand 

 which has had a considerable though indirect influence on our newspapers 

 and our politics." "The single-minded earnestness with which Sir Isaac 

 Pitman followed out his chosen course during a long and laborious life 

 deserves all praise." A good sketch of his life and character, by T. A. Reed, 

 appeared in the New-Church Mag., March, 1897 : the same writer having 

 published in 1890 " A Biography of Isaac Pitman [Inventor of Phono- 

 graphy), illustrated ; London : Griffith, Farran, &c. ; cloth, post 8vo, pp. 

 vii., 191 ; with two portraits and process of the bust by Brock. Portraits 

 also appeared in the Illustrated London News, January 30th, andChristian 

 Herald, Feb. 4th ; and full obit, notices in Times, Daily Chronicle, and 

 Standard, Jan. 23rd, and Devizes Gazette, Jan. 28th, 1897. 



Thomas Fraser Grrove, Bart. Died Jan. 14th, 1897. Buried at 

 Berwick St. John. Son of Dr. John Grove, of Feme, and the Wardrobe, 

 in the Close, Salisbury, by Jean Helen, d. of Sir William Fraser, Bart, 

 Born Nov. 27th, 1821. Joined Inniskilling Dragoons, 1842; Capt., 1847; 

 retired, 1859. He was many years connected with the Wilts Yeomanry, 

 joining as Cornet in 1852, becoming Honorary Lt.-Col. in 1881, and retiring 

 in 1888. M.P. for South Wilts, 1865—1874, and for the Wilton Division, 

 1885—1892. Succeeded to the Feme estates on the death of his father in 



