Sir Isaac Pitman

This Wetherspoon pub is named after Trowbridge's most famous son. Isaac Pitman invented the system of shorthand which bears his name, and is used worldwide.

A bronze plaque on the town hall commemorates Isaac Pitman, probably the best-known person to have been born in Trowbridge. Born in 1813, Isaac was the son of a textile-worker and, on leaving school, he worked in local woollen mills until he was 19. He then left to train as a schoolmaster in London. After four years' teaching in Lincolnshire, he returned south to take up a post at Wotton-under-Edge. Here, in 1837, he produced his first publication on his shorthand system, Stenographic Sound Hand.