Q&A
How old is the typewriter?
• SHORT ANSWER
Inventors in the 19th century were tip-tapping away trying to making typing quicker
• LONG ANSWER
Christopher Latham Sholes is a name that often comes up when talking about the first typewriter. Receiving a patent in June 1868, the American inventor developed his machine with the help of Samuel W Soule and amateur mechanic Carlos S Glidden, and went into business with the Remington Arms Company. While he achieved commercial success when his device was put on the market in 1874 (complete with the first-ever QWERTY keyboard), Sholes was far from the first person to create such a machine.
Italian Pellegrino Turri devised a typewriter for the blind to use in the first decade of the 19th century, while in the 1820s, American William Austin Burt patented his one-letter-at-a-time Typographer.
Dr Samuel Francis, around a decade before Sholes, thought he cracked it with his machine, which was dubbed the ‘literary piano’ due to its resemblance to a keyboard instrument. But to be honest, his inventions were a little bit hit-andmiss, ranging from the self-opening coffin to, more lastingly, the spork.